Hello!
I’m a graphic designer and I don’t know how many folks here are designers as well, so I apologize if this question isn’t a good fit for the platform.
One of my main clients provides marketing services to restaurants. I provide social media post design, copywriting, scheduling, and management of daily comments & emails. I also do Tik-Tok “style” reels and manage their ManyChat accounts for their clients.
This client wants to bridge the gap between custom design, like what I provide to some of their clients on a monthly basis for around $650/month (per client, this includes creating a monthly content calendar, writing copy, sourcing images from the client’s library, doing 2 Tik-Tok style edited video reels, and scheduling the monthly posts. I check messages and posts and pass along any issues for review or reply daily for a separate fee.
With the advent of ChatGPT, I get the feeling from my client that this is the way they want to go with copywriting for social posts, so I feel there’s a shift in the making for how we do what we do. Personally, I know that it has taken me a while to embody their clients’ voices and get to know their audience, so it’s a little disappointing to know that some marketers feel this is the way to go, but it seems to be coming whether we want it to or not, so I’m just trying to think creatively and provide a solution for my client that still allows me to make a living.
As you might imagine, not all restaurants have $650/month to spend on custom graphics like this (although one could definitely argue that the return on investment is there), so my client is trying to figure out a way to offer semi-customized posts for clients with smaller budgets.
The client also uses a VA for other tasks and has asked me to estimate what I might charge for a hybrid solution at 3 levels:
- I design 10 basic posts in Canva that the VA can use to create simple posts that still embody the restaurant’s brand, but that are simple enough that a VA with limited design experience can use.
- I design 10 basic posts like option 1, but I also provide 4 custom posts each month.
- I design the same 10 basic posts for the VA as in options 1 & 2, but I also create 8 custom posts for clients each month.
One added note is they’re asking if I charge a separate rate to do reels. I haven’t done reels on a regular basis, so I’m wondering if this is standard practice?
I’ve researched and even purchased a couple of social media graphics packages from Creative Market, Envato Elements, etc., to get an idea of how they approach this idea, but the templates definitely have that “stock template” feel to them, which is what we want to avoid. However, I did a test to see for myself what kind of time is involved with researching the client’s brand, putting their brand kit together and creating basic posts for them that could be used by a less-experienced user. It actually takes at least a couple of hours and at my regular rate it just doesn’t seem possible to provide a low-cost solution for this scenario.
SO, my question is whether anyone has explored this concept, or is doing it profitably?