In my time I’ve met a lot of digital agencies and marketing companies.

They invent their prices from thin air because they don’t understand that their work needs to give a business return on investment.

Every penny a business spends needs to make money at some point, even if that point is not immediate.

Yet there of plenty of service providers that forget this. When it comes down to it then, one of the things I’ve learnt is the 80/20 rule.

You can get 80% of the way there for about 20% of the cost, the rest is just additional stuff you don’t need.

No one ever said, I don’t like the idea of a Blackberry because the logo is slightly out of shape. The fact is the blackberry idea probably cost a hefty price, but if the logo had cost £200 would anyone have cared?

You can get a hell of a long way by using cheap logo designs and websites. In fact the return on investment they give you will be infinitely higher than something that cost 10 times more.

The fact is, anything more than a basic cost is a vanity project. I can’t over stress this point enough. Provided you get the basics right, you don’t need to spend a fortune on your marketing or services – price alone should not be a guide of the quality they represent.

Every time I watch tv I see adverts that costs £100,000’s and offer no decent return on investment as all.

When you start your own business or design a new product it’s really important that you get your branding and logo right, but that doesn’t mean you need to go overboard.

A logo is at the end of the day a logo, it costs an agency the same price no matter what, so their huge price differences are just the size of their profit margin that’s all. You need to concentrate on the work they have done to date, and do your research to find the person you want before you even look at price. Odds are the guy whose 10x more expensive won’t even produce a better quality of work anyway.

So many businesses go to either spectrum. The think they can spend £200 on a brand and website and get a decent piece or work, or spend £200,000 and get a masterpiece.

The fact is, if you spend £2k you’d get something that would serve you well for years to come.

Chapter Summary:

• Get your brand right without spending a fortune
• Don’t think that because a designer charges more they are better
• Think about how important your brand is – will it affect your sales?

Read our next blog post “View all the angles”.