Web firm chases faraway dollars

Paul Seale, owner of Nixa-based Alien Media, has been designing web sites for 10 years and about 35 percent of his clients are local. Just two years ago, 95 percent were local.

And Colleen Sundlie, who launched Park East Inc. two years ago, said 25 percent of last year’s Web design business was for clients outside of Springfield. That percentage has now jumped to nearly 50 percent.

Better bids

Local Web companies have found that their costs of doing business compare favorably with bigger market firms.

Eighty percent of clients at Neubix Studios LLC are outside of Missouri, said owner Brad Smith.

“The clients that we’re working with on the east and west coasts, they’re competing with east and west coast companies. They realize what their dollar buys them,” Smith said, citing an example of a company that was surprised by Neubix’s bid of about $25,000 for a project. That company, he said, expected to pay around $100,000, based on bids from other design firms.

“We’ve been this pearl in an oyster in the Midwest because of what it allows us to do with lower costs,” Smith said.

Smith’s nationwide work has led to company changes and a move to Boston in the fall.

Zack Bonebrake, who owns the six-year-old Blacksuits with Damion McDunn, said about half of the company’s business is for local clients. His experiences are similar to those of Smith at Neubix.

“For the most part, we’re cheaper than a larger firm from a larger city, but that is due to a number of factors, one being infrastructure costs – your fixed costs, your office, your machines, your Internet connection, those types of things,” Bonebrake said. “That does decrease our cost of doing business versus someone that has to pay 10 full-time developers.”

Bonebrake declined to share a per-hour or per-project rate for Blacksuits’ services, citing vast differences in clients’ needs. Blacksuits has two employees in addition to the two owners and more than 40 clients.

Money isn’t everything

Pricing isn’t the only factor.

“People who do business locally like to see a hard and fast return on investment,” Seale said. “On a Web site, you can’t measure your return on investment solely on the dollars you rake in. It’s a long-term commitment.”

A large portion of what the market will bear in paying for Web design services, he said, is educating the public on how the Web site integrates with the client’s brand and whether the site serves a purpose.

“In other markets, people are used to that. They understand that it’s part of an overall advertising campaign,” Seale said, adding that, depending on the complexity and size of the project, his rates can range from $65 to $130 an hour.

Sundlie, who just completed the site for E’s Style Network’s “Behind the Velvet Ropes” show – a job that came through a referral – said her prices haven’t caused an influx of work. “Most of it has been the design work that they’ve seen and wanting to have something similar. More of a from-scratch look and feel,” she said. “Part of it is they’re getting personal attention rather than getting swallowed up by a big agency, like in New York.”

Cyber appointments

While in some industries coast-to-coast clients can create logistic challenges, most Web designers don’t meet with clients face-to-face – even if they are in the same city.

“We’ve seen that total transition to where it’s almost like a given now. We’ll get a lead from Florida, and we’ll talk to them and (our location is) never even discussed,” Smith said. “If not for billing addresses, we might not even know where some of our clients are located.”

Blacksuits’ Bonebrake agreed. “We actively pursue local clients as much as we do national clients,” he said.

With e-mail, instant messaging and phone calls, he said it’s as easy to work with a client across the country as it is to work with one down the street.