White-label graphic design: How to sell white-label websites and more in 2023
Interested in selling graphic design services to new businesses or existing clients, but don’t necessarily have the skills or capacity to deliver at scale? That’s where white-label graphic design services come into play.
Start offering white-label website services to get web design clients today. Download “6-Step Guide to Selling Website Services to Local Businesses” right now.
According to Statista, the graphic design industry is projected to exceed an 11 billion market valuation by the end of the year and will continue to grow well into 2024.
White-label graphic design services enable you to outsource design work to skilled teams, and sell it as if it were your own work. But why? Well, white labeling enables businesses in numerous sectors to skyrocket growth without the traditional overhead or staffing costs often associated with completing such technically demanding work. Ready to boost your growth and claim your slice of this multi-billion dollar market?
What does white label mean?
White-label refers to a manufacturer—reseller business model where one company will manufacture a product (generally software) or offer a software-related service that can be rebranded and resold by a reseller.
So, what is white label when it comes to graphic design? In a white-label graphic design model, an agency would purchase graphic design services from a white-label provider and sell them to local businesses. With this model, you can place your logo and branding on the work that you provide to the local business at the end of the value chain.
Here is a visual model of the white-label process:
The best part about the resale of digital products and services is that there is no shipping cost involved in the transfer of goods or services, unlike other manufacturer-reseller models. You facilitate the transaction between your fulfillment partner and the local business that you are selling to, and keep the margin you charge in between.
Why resell white-label design services?
Most local businesses just aren't large enough to support an in-house graphic designer, so they generally resort to contracting out their graphic design work. Here are the key reasons why you should consider meeting their graphic design demand with white-label design:
1. White-label graphic design: Market demand
The market for graphic design services in the United States alone is projected to surpass $11 billion by year-end. Looking forward to 2024, projections suggest the market will grow to roughly $11.3 billion dollars.
White-label design enables you to earn your share of this market without the expensive training and technology requirements that would accompany the traditional business-to-business (B2B) model.
2. White-label graphic design: Meet foundational needs
Every new business needs a great logo, business cards, and basic banner/letterhead designs. By leveraging white-label graphic design service providers, you can easily meet all of these needs and build a lasting relationship with new businesses for all their graphic design requirements. Provide them with quality work and you'll have a long-term client.
Every existing business needs to advertise/market itself, and white-label graphic design services are a great way to produce completely original work for unique marketing purposes and various ad campaigns for your clients.
3. White-label graphic design: Build stronger client relationships
The only thing more important than getting new customers? Keeping the ones you have.
With each additional product or service that you are able to provide, you will build a stronger relationship with that customer, and make it much less likely for them to leave you for another marketing service or provider.
According to a churn study conducted by Vendasta on 100K local businesses, selling just one product or service corresponded with a 30% customer retention rate over two years. However, selling the same type of client four products or services corresponded with an 80% retention rate over the same time span.
What is a white-label website?
A white label website is a resellable digital product: a fully developed, ready-to-use website, crafted by experienced design professionals working on behalf of a reseller (like, say, your agency). This website is purchased, rebranded, and resold to the end client, who isn’t aware of the white-label design team employed by the agency.
Agencies that want to provide a professional online presence for their clients can greatly benefit from this model, particularly if they lack the technical expertise, resources, or time to create websites at scale in-house. White-label websites offer both convenience and adaptability, allowing agencies to deliver high-quality online experiences without being limited by their team’s capacity.
By incorporating white-label products like websites into their repertoire, agencies can serve a broader market, expand their customer base, and deliver far more projects than would be possible by handling everything in-house. Clients get to enjoy professional, beautifully designed websites, while agencies benefit from growth and scaling opportunities that can supercharge their revenues.
Tips for white-label websites
1. Understand the client’s needs
Before getting started with a new white-label website project, it’s helpful to have a system in place for gathering information about the client’s needs.
An effective way to do this is to put together a project intake form. This can help the white-label expert working on your behalf gain a comprehensive insight into the client’s business goals, audience, and market positioning. The clearer the picture, the earlier it will be to create a white-label website that aligns with their needs.
For example, are your clients seeking a streamlined blog platform to share industry insights and establish thought leadership? Maybe they require an ecommerce platform robust enough to handle complex transactions, inventory management, and customer relationship management. Or they may be aiming to showcase their creative works through a multimedia-rich portfolio that requires a high degree of visual customization.
Additionally, your agency’s information-gathering process should aim to understand the long-term goals of your clients. As the digital landscape evolves, their requirements may also shift. Being prepared to adapt to these changes and foresee potential future needs will ensure that the white-label websites you resell continue to provide value.
2. Choose a reputable white-label provider
Selecting the right provider is an important consideration when reselling white-label websites. After all, their work must be good enough that you will be confident selling it as your own. Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing your partner:
- Reputation: Read their testimonials and reviews to ensure they offer the best.
- Quality of designs: Ask to see a portfolio of past website projects to assess the diversity, functionality, and responsiveness of their website designs. This can indicate their ability to serve different clients with varying needs. Additionally, look for a white-label website platform that includes a range of functional, attractive templates, since these can help keep project costs down.
- Customer support: The best white-label website design platforms will offer excellent support for both agencies and their clients. Inquire about response times and find out what communication channels are available.
- Scalability: As your agency grows, you’ll want a white-label partner that can keep pace. Evaluate their ability to accommodate a growing client base, expanding needs, and varied client briefs.
3. Establish realistic timelines
Having a clear understanding of project durations and workflows when white labeling websites enables you to set realistic expectations with your clients, which in turn fosters trust and confidence in your agency.
Consider the following points when establishing project timelines:
- Understand the workflow: Before you can provide a timeline to your client, understand the design process thoroughly. How long does it take to design, customize, and launch a white-label website? What is the difference between completely custom sites and sites that are based on templates? How do different client needs impact the expected timeline? Your timeline should involve what’s included from initial concept discussions and drafts to final review and launch.
- Communicate with the provider: Maintain open communication with your white-label website provider. Understand their turn-around times and factor them into your timeline.
- Allow time for revisions: It’s rare that a design is perfect the first time. Plan for revisions and alterations to white-label graphic designs and website builds. This will ensure you aren’t caught off-guard and forced to push back the launch date.
- Client review and approval: Consider the time it may take for your client to review and approve designs or suggest changes.
- Allow a project buffer: Always add a buffer to your timelines. Unforeseen issues often arise when white labeling websites, and having a little extra time can make the difference between a project that feels rushed and one that feels well-executed.
In short, by having a realistic understanding of white-label project timelines and clearly communicating them with your clients, you can manage expectations effectively and ensure project completion is aligned with client needs and schedules.
4. Provide client training and support
Just handing over a white-label website to a client without offering instruction is not a best practice. Even though white-label websites are designed to be user-friendly, it's a good idea to ensure your clients feel empowered to manage their new online space.
Use these tips to ensure a seamless hand-off:
- Offer training: Offer training sessions or materials to your clients to walk them through the essentials of using their new site. This could be in the form of a live webinar or pre-recorded tutorial. Focus on helping them understand how to navigate their website, make minor updates, and use key features.
- Create a user manual: Provide a detailed user manual or a FAQ document for new website clients. This will serve as a ready reference when they have common questions. You should be able to create a general FAQ document one time, and make minor edits to it to personalize it for each client.
- Offer top-notch support: Even after the website has been launched, your client may need further assistance. This is a common pain point for website clients, and addressing it can help set your agency apart. Offer ongoing support services to help clients handle technical issues or make major updates.
- Set up user roles: Make sure your clients have control over their websites. This includes setting up user roles and permissions for all necessary users and walking them through how to manage these permissions moving forward.
Excelling at this stage can set your agency up for upsell opportunities to help your clients make the most of their new websites. For example, at this stage, they may need managed WordPress hosting, SEO optimization, or PPC ad services.
5. Set up packages for different budgets
Selling more websites requires striking a balance between being competitive enough to attract clients and being profitable enough to sustain your business.
Start by understanding the range of budgets that your prospective clients may have. This can guide you to develop differentiated packages that can cater to different affordability levels. For example, you could have a basic package for clients on a tight budget that offers a ready-to-use, minimally customized white-label website. At the other end of the spectrum, you could offer a premium package that includes a high degree of customization, priority support, and additional services such as SEO or content creation.
The value proposition of each package should be clear and compelling. Your clients should understand what they are paying for and see its value to their business. The quality of your service should not be compromised, regardless of the package. All your clients, regardless of what they pay, deserve a functional, aesthetically pleasing, and user-friendly website.
6. Showcase past projects
Establishing credibility in the white-label website reselling space requires more than just a well-articulated sales pitch. Clients want to see tangible evidence of your expertise and the quality of the websites your agency sells. That’s why showcasing past client successes can play a key role in helping you grow your roster of clients.
So, what’s the best way to do this? Creating a portfolio.
A comprehensive portfolio of websites your agency has delivered can act as a powerful testament to your capabilities. Include a variety of projects from different verticals to demonstrate your ability to cater to varied client needs and industries. Highlight not just the end product but also the process of customization and adaptation to the client's brand and business objectives.
Additionally, client testimonials play a significant role in building trust with potential clients. Positive feedback and reviews from satisfied customers can enhance your agency’s reputation. Encourage your clients to share their experiences and ensure these testimonials are prominently displayed on your site, adding a human element to your brand’s story.
Choosing a white-label design provider: Key considerations
If you want to be successful at selling white-label graphic design services, there are two key components to maintain ongoing success: quality and consistency. Whichever white-label provider you choose should exemplify these traits across all of their design work.
Furthermore, there are a couple of specific characteristics that you should search for in a provider:
1. Unlimited white-label design concepts
In graphic design, designers typically present a few ideas (or concepts) for clients to make a selection from. If the client is satisfied with one of the concepts, the designer will take this draft and create a polished final product out of it.
However, if you aren’t satisfied, your designer typically goes back to the drawing board and produces a new batch of concepts. You'll want to ensure that your white-label services provider doesn’t charge you a premium on these revisions, or else your profit margin is at risk.
2. Unlimited white-label design revisions
You are guaranteed to receive feedback from your clients when you present them with work, and revisions will be necessary. If you are working with a white-label graphic design provider that charges for revisions, you could quickly find your margin evaporating into thin air. Unlimited revisions are worth seeking out.
3. 100% original work guaranteed
No business wants to be handed a mashup of someone else's work that looks eerily similar to that mediocre insurance ad that they just saw on some street banner. A high-quality white-label design partner will guarantee original work on all of your projects so that you can be confident in the work that you are delivering to your clients.
Top graphic design services to resell
Graphic design encompasses a broad range of services. Below are some of the most in-demand services on the market, as well as some bundle suggestions if you would like to expand your client-facing offering beyond the scope of graphic design:
White-label website design
A well-designed website is an integral part of any business's brand identity. It serves as a digital storefront, a platform for customer interaction, and a place to showcase products and services. White-label website design allows you to offer your clients professionally designed, customized websites without the need for in-house design or coding expertise.
White-label website design services can come in many options, from basic layouts to completely bespoke designs, each adaptable to the specific website branding and functionality required by your clients. They should also be responsive, ensuring a smooth user experience across different device types.
With the flexibility and quality offered by white-label website design services, you can help your clients establish an engaging online presence, essential to helping them reach their business goals.
Our solution: Follow our tips for delivering white-label WordPress websites.
White-label logo design
Every great company has a great logo. All of an organization's branding efforts flow outward from the logo. As simple as a logo may be; the font usage, colors, tones, and overall feeling should carry through all other branded content that a business produces.
White-label logo design providers will create unlimited revisions until they have captured exactly what your clients are looking for in a logo. Then your clients can continue to build their brand from the strong foundation you have provided them with.
Our solution: Find white-label Logo Design services in our Marketplace.
White-label business card design
Do business cards still matter?
Great first impressions can be the foundation of your clients’ relationships with their customers. However, if these potential customers can’t contact your clients afterwards, what good was the first impression? Business cards still fulfill a valuable role in the business cycle, and need to portray a consistent brand feeling to prospects.
By partnering with white-label business card designers, you can provide your clients with drafts of different card concepts, and revisions until they are fully satisfied with the design.
Our solution: Find white-label Business Card Design services in our Marketplace.
White-label ad design
Ads—we can’t escape them. Everywhere we turn is another advertisement, or someone trying to market/sell something. In a world like ours, creative and original ad designs can be one of the most powerful differentiation factors between your clients and their key competitors.
By partnering with white-label graphic designers, you can deliver custom ad creation services straight to your clients so that they can maintain a high level of brand consistency and always outperform their competition.
White-label corporate design bundle
Is your client starting a new company, or hoping to grow a professional or corporate appearance? Then they will need a custom logo, business card, letterhead, and envelope designs to get them started.
By leveraging white-label providers that specialize in corporate identity design, you can ensure that your clients will be well on their way to embodying the corporate image that they desire with consistency and quality across all of these key entities.
Our solution: Find the white-labeled Corporate Identity Package in the Vendasta Marketplace.
White-label business essentials bundle
Offering your clients key graphic design services that they need to either start or develop their business can be hugely beneficial. However, by offering white-label products and services beyond graphic design, you can better meet your client's needs while also building a stronger relationship.
A business essential product offering would include additional white-label products and services, such as:
- Listing solutions: Sell these to your clients so that they can be confident that their contact information is accurate across all of the listing platforms that their customers rely on.
- Reputation management: Your clients live and die based on their online reviews. By providing reputation services to manage and generate reviews, you can give them the peace of mind that comes with a glowing reputation.
- Web hosting and design: Every business needs a website. White-label partners can help you provide your clients with high-performing sites.
These are just a few of the many products and services that would pair perfectly with your white-label graphic design offering.
Our solution: Find all of these great white-label solutions (and more) in the Vendasta Marketplace. Simply place your branding on them, and start selling today.
How to get started with white-label graphic design
With white labeling, you can start or expand into the graphic design space without interference from the usual growing pains, like hardware and software investment, skilled staffing requirements, and lack of knowledge or expertise.
Every business needs unique Graphic design services if they want to stand out in the digital age. By using white-label providers, you can provide these services and foster a stronger relationship with your clients.
Want to sell more? Consider bundling graphic design services with other offerings—as seen in the business essentials bundle—to build an even stronger client relationship, and earn more diverse streams of revenue. Explore the Vendasta Marketplace today and start selling!
