Entrepreneurs

Its hard when you start your first business there are so many things to think about in the run up to the launch. These days obviously the online element is crucial and if you are just starting out there are so many potential pitfalls in choosing the right way to go about this.

In our case we were actually already up and running a year or so prior to discovering BrandKits and it was not the brand ID or design of the website that we needed the help with. Where we stumbled originally was choosing a bespoke CMS that was not going to be able to expand with the company. Although it worked fine it was extremely limited and whenever we wanted to make simple amends/add-ons to the site we had to email the build guys to get them to quote us for the work. Annoying when its just a few tweaks and you are being told that it will be ready next week and then a whopping bill would arrive.

The BrandKits system alleviated this in that you are have control of all of the website to add/delete/amend as much as you fit. Its a pretty powerful system, developed by Adobe who are constantly growing and improving its offering you so much more than a bespoke CMS can ever do. The system sends mailshots, manages your database, takes orders and allows you to geek out on the traffic figures of which it analyses everything for you to see who opens your mailshots, which pages are most popular and so on. We use the system every day and there are still lots of things that we have not even done on it. The sky really is the limit - its not something that a company will ever grow out of.

One thing that I would point out is that working with them is quite unique as BrandKits are by no means 'yes men'. By this I mean that they will not just take the brief as you give it to him, deliver and take the fee. Instead they will question your motives and the purpose for your ideas and will sometimes make you look at it.

With regard design we had a great brand ID to begin with but since working with BrandKits they have really taken it to the next level and continued moving it forward and keeping it sharp and fresh. We commissioned them to build our latest site Hang-Up Contemporary which we are very happy with. It looks amazing and it works on the same back-end system which our staff are used to so so keeps everything straight forward. We use BrandKits for all of our design work now. They have done all our stationary as well as designed exhibition PDFs and all the mailshot templates, competition pages and much more.

I would whole heartedly recommend them to someone looking to start up a new company and needing a helping hand but also to someone as we were who had a business wanted to take it to the next level.

FLOOR_STORY approached BrandKits as we had seen some previous work they had done. We were probably one of the most frustrating customers they had, we had an idea of what we wanted, what it looked like, how it worked, but try as I might I just could not articulate this. BrandKits spent many hours painstakingly questioning us about our likes and dislikes while just listening, nodding  and writing notes (reams and reams of notes). 10 days later we were presented with multiple brand identities, all of which were incredibly well thought through and on brief. More questioning and probing took place and in no time at all BrandKits had perfectly developed the eCommerce website we had wanted, but had little idea how to get. Very, very impressed.

We have soft launched the site for 6 weeks now and I am stunned with how it has performed. I am now confidently directing customers to it and seeing the results. One customer placed a very large order purely based on the fact our site looked like a company she could trust. Suppliers that have previously been tricky to get on board now see my brand vision and we are now working with them.

The system is incredibly east to work with, even I can do this, successfully adding new ranges, writing a blog and sending email campaigns.

All in all working with BrandKits has been a very rewarding and pleasant experience. I have been thinking about a website for 4 years now and without BrandKits I could very well still be thinking about it. 

Hiring BrandKits to build our online business has been one of the best business decisions we've taken as the emphasis is very much on building online businesses and not just websites. Any number of agencies could have delivered us a shiny new web site but what BrandKits delivers is much more than that. Before even considering the look and feel of the site, we spent time on hammering out answers to crucial questions like, "What does our brand stand for?", "How do we want to differentiate ourselves from the competition", "Why are we considering going online at all?" and "What happens once the thing is built?".

These are not easy questions to answer but it's vital that they're asked. None of the other agencies that we approached took such a holistic approach to our brief and although the planning process was tough, challenging, and sometime painful, it has ultimately proved invaluable, not least as it has given us the confidence to answer another important question that everyone asks when embarking on a project like this: "Are we doing the right thing?". The answer to that one is most definitely "Yes" as the proof is in the pudding.

From a design perspective, we've ended up with a site that really captures the essence of the reVOLVER brand - not many agencies would have pushed for bespoke branding photography to be an integral part of the site design...and succeeded in getting it signed off! As for ongoing management of the site, BrandKits uses an Adobe content management system which is intuitive and flexible. Sure it has its limitations, but then again unless you've got the budget to build a bespoke system, the challenge is how to operate within these limitations and BrandKits has proved excellent in doing this.

Finally, BrandKits also brings to the party a wealth of marketing experience. There aren't many businesses that can rely on a "build it and they will come" strategy and BrandKits has been right there with us developing marketing strategies that drive all important metrics such as traffic and sales. We're now a global fashion retailer! 

Before it's conception Funthyme was nothing but a blurred medley of ideas. All I knew is that I wanted to make a living for myself through cooking for other people outside of the restaurant trade. I wanted to explore a business that incorporated supperclubs, concept food events and private and event catering.

At the early planning stage I was still working for a gastropub out in the Northamptonshire countryside so BrandKits arranged suitable times for what were a series of, at the time, very long distance conversations. These conversations aimed to establish exactly what I wanted to offer as a business and how I wanted this to be perceived both as a brand and online. This series of conversations, sometimes pushing over an hour and a half in duration, brought these ideas into life and gave them a solid structure. BrandKits helped me understand what I wanted to achieve as a business. They did this by researching my own market, understanding it and helping me in finding an original and profitable proposition to go to market with.

I was amazed at how far and how quickly my ideas and turned into a solid business proposition. I didn't expect this level of planning from BrandKits and for me it was invaluable. I had conducted my own research into similar business that I felt some affinity with. I shared these with BrandKits and from our work in the planning stage were able to move forward with various brand identity ideas. We were toying with two approaches. One being quite underground edgy to appeal to a younger and more urban market and one more clean and fresh to appeal to a broader and slightly more creative but corporate market. With all the planning in the bag and a couple of branding concepts in place BrandKits then had enough information to brief their designers. After a week or so the designers came back with a plethora of branding concepts. From here we made a shortlist and then a final decision.

What I really appreciate now (not so much at the time!) was how much BrandKits stress tested the name and my final decisions. They wanted me to be 110% certain I was making the right decision and that I was comfortable before moving forward to implement the design of the website and brand itself. This stress testing really built my confidence in the business and made me feel ready for the launch.

I'm delighted with the Funthyme site and have had countless complements on it's appearance. On the surface it seems like quite a simple reference site but when you dig deeper there is a booking system for my events, a blog I update regularly and a great gallery section. It's easy to navigate and fulfills it's purpose to draw in clients visually and then give them the confidence to get in touch and enquire about bookings.

Being a fairly basic in my IT knowledge I found, after some training with BrandKits, the system to be easy to use. Things took a little while at first but after a few weeks I was updating my blog, creating events, changing images and uploading literature with no trouble at all. BrandKits has always been on hand if i've ever get 'stuck'. 

BrandKits were my first port-of-call once I'd had the idea to start retailing upholstered bedheads online. Their passion for brand creation and development was legendary and I knew getting their help from the start was critical to create a brand that had personality and strength which could be translated at every touch-point.

I had a pretty clear idea of what the brand proposition was but planning this into something real was where Brandits came in. Together we worked on the name, defining the brand proposition fully, the logo and the website. The insight and understanding that BrandKits seemed to almost intuitively have into this product area and opportunity, right from the early days, impressed me no end. By asking me challenging questions, forcing me (gently!) to write analytical, researched briefs which were utterly focussed on the end-customer, the BrandKits team were quickly able to interpret my vision into a perfect logo and help me choose a strong name. From there, the website was developed remarkably quickly.

As an online retailer in a creative sector, I needed a website with excellent functionality, strong flexibility and an ability to customise. As a technical idiot, I needed a website that I could operate easily and effectively to drive my business without getting bogged down in technical issues and complex systems. The BrandKits system is perfect for me - straightforward to use, easy to teach yourself, logically set-out and with great learning support.

The development of the website, once we had the brief nailed, was surprisingly quick and smooth. There were some heated debates along the way about the right way to do things and this helped us to end up with something way better than I could ever have hoped for. I receive endless positive comments from customers about the site - how easy it is to navigate, how attractive and inspirational it is, how clean and "approachable" it is.

Using BrandKits was the best decision I could have made for BedNest - everything about the brand that is here today reflects the vision I had when I started. Their experience, unbelievable passion for what they do and total belief in the "power of branding" meant that from day one BedNest has offered the best presence and brand experience I could have hoped for. Just be prepared for some plain talking and challenging questions along the way! 

We have been customers of BrandKits since their inception four years ago and the reality of running a telecommunications company means we have little time to spend thinking about the design or functionality of our web site.

BrandKits has stepped up to the plate in this regard and actively guided as through two renditions of our website, evolving the design and making recommendations for how to improve efficiency and we are very happy with our website and the system that comes with being a BrandKits customer.

They have developed our site into a functional and intuitive website, and we look forward to an ongoing relationship in the future.

We briefed BrandKits to revamp our website and what we ended up with was, essentially, a new business. BrandKits revamped the website and changed fundamental elements of our business that changed the way we viewed ourselves and how we operated.

I would show a 'before' and 'after' but it's a little embarrassing - the before had pictures of kids toys that had little relevance to our business, the after is a much better reflection of the grown up company we had become.

BrandKits designed and built our site, integrated our staffing database and included a reporting function. BrandKits has remained a valuable resource for the business and I couldn't recommend them highly enough. 

We had heard lots of amazing things about BrandKits long before we had even thought about starting our own events company so it was only natural that they were the first people we approached to help us launch our site.

From the start they were passionate and supportive of our business idea and went to great lengths to make sure we had thought about absolutely everything that would make our business run smoothly.  We had multiple meetings about the design to make sure that it was absolutely what we wanted and we were extremely happy with the outcome.

As we are a small company we don’t have budget to spend on website maintenance and so the best thing for us is the ease with which we can update information on our website. This will prove invaluable in the future when we expand our offering and want to add more to the functionality to our website.

Working with BrandKits doesn’t feel like working with just another supplier, it feels like a partnership. Every decision you make you make together which is invaluable support for anyone starting their own business.  We couldn’t recommend them more.