From Showit website updates to email marketing funnels, VIP Design Days offer fast, efficient support for boosting your online visibility.
What is a VIP Design Day?
A VIP Day Intensive with a professional designer is a single day dedicated to tackling a specific design project or set of tasks quickly and efficiently. This is a high-touch experience that’s intended to free up time, remove DIY overwhelm, and help small business owners accomplish big tasks in a quick turnaround.
Usually time-based, VIP Days mean hiring a designer for a day rate as opposed to a guaranteed set of deliverables. Here at The Creative Accent, we have offered VIP Design Days from the beginning, so this is a process we have been perfecting over the years. We’ve learned what we can realistically accomplish and which projects require additional support, time or resources to best serve the client’s needs (such as custom brand design and strategy).
A lot of our VIP Day projects are focused on a common theme: increasing brand visibility, especially online. Below are a few of the most requested projects our clients have that fit beautifully within the VIP Day model.
VIP Day Project #1 — Website Updates & Clean-Up
It happens to the best of us, even designers. Websites get outdated. Your portfolio is desperate for an update. New testimonials are just gathering dust in your inbox when they could be converting for your business online. Services shift and your messaging needs to go along with it.
But what happens? It becomes a long to-do list that feels daunting to even start. That’s where VIP Days come in. You can hand us your messy list and we’ll tidy it up online. Cleaning up the mobile experience so it looks as great as your desktop version? Yes, we do that too.
Case Study: Alex Blair Photography
Alex is a long-time client who checks in with us for VIP Day support about once a quarter. We redesigned her custom brand and Showit website back in 2024. Since then, we make sure Alex’s website stays updated and relevant through VIP Days as her brand continues to grow and shift.
Website updates Alex has requested include:
- Portfolio Updates: As new photography projects trickle in (particularly on her boudoir site), we keep her galleries and individual portfolio pages updated.
- New Website Pages: As Alex continues to refine her offers and move into portrait photography, we design new pages for her to promote this and additional services.
- Embedding Flodesk Opt-Ins: Throughout the year, Alex promotes different lead magnets and special offers. When she needs extra support, we help her keep these working properly inside both Showit and Flodesk (more on this in a bit!).
VIP Day Project #2 — Showit Template Customizations
Purchasing a new Showit website template for your business can be both exciting and intimidating. On one hand, the idea of a fresh new look thrills you. On the other, actually customizing a new website to your liking requires a certain dedication of skill and time — a precious commodity for small business owners.
Despite every good intention and the many reasons we love Showit as a design-forward website builder, website design just isn’t in everyone’s wheelhouse. Enter the VIP Day.
On a VIP Day, we can customize your new website template with your own branding, fill out your copy, and make sure the whole experience looks cohesive and on-brand. We also check for things like broken links and making sure the mobile experience looks as polished as the desktop.
Case Study: Rachel Freyman template customization
This is exactly what we did for Rachel Freyman — a powerful keynote speaker on leadership with 15+ years in high-stakes litigation. Rachel purchased a robust Tonic template, but customizing it herself proved to be a challenge. In her words:
“I was attempting to do it myself but wanted the final product to reflect the price point I want to charge for my services. Carrie transformed my website from scattered and unfinished into something polished, cohesive, and professional. What she accomplished in two days would have taken me countless hours to figure out on my own!” — Rachel
A special note about template customizations on VIP Days: Though the level of work required can vary depending upon how much the client has already customized themselves and how robust the template is, two consecutive VIP Days are generally advised in most cases.
VIP Day Project #3 — Email Funnels & Lead Magnet Design
Increasing your brand’s visibility online isn’t just limited to a website. Many of our VIP Day clients are also wanting to nurture their clients through email marketing, but they don’t know where to start. The thought of putting together the entire funnel feels overwhelming, so instead they can simply hand it off to us.
Case Study: Ami Swanson Wellness
That’s exactly what Ami Swanson did for her wellness brand. Ami had a solid idea for a lead magnet with all the content ready, but no funnel in place. She hired us for two VIP Days, one to design the 10-page Pdf guide and a second one to implement the delivery and welcome sequence in Flodesk. Flodesk is our go-to email marketing platform of choice. Use our affiliate link to get 25% off your first year!
Read this article for more insight into my favorite Flodesk features and how we are using it to transform our own business as well as our clients’ businesses.
VIP Day Project #4 — SEO & Blog Optimization
While it seems like VIP Design Days are about DESIGN on the surface, we do infuse a lot of thoughtful strategy into our approach. Sometimes the necessary adjustments for better online visibility isn’t in how things look to the viewer at all. It’s how things are set up on the backend — how it looks to Google crawling your site.
It continually surprises me how many websites don’t have basic SEO features set up properly. Things like improper H tag structure, missing keyword phrases, or blog categories in disarray are common backend issues that we see. Thankfully, these can all be cleared up and optimized on a VIP Day.
Optimizing blog categories is a more recent issue we have been addressing for clients like Pepper Nix. Did you know that blog category pages can rank in Google? They certainly can and, if you are actively blogging, this is a great way to boost your online visibility and pull in organic traffic.
Case Study: Pepper Nix Blog Category Optimization
Moving from Squarespace to Showit, Pepper Nix wanted to restyle the blog layout that came with her template. Her extensive library of blog posts didn’t translate well into her new Showit template and she was currently using a workaround that linked back to her Squarespace blog.
In addition to adjusting the main blog layout inside Showit, Pepper also wanted to optimize the blog categories for the different wedding venues she frequents. Our team set this in motion on her VIP Day, turning each venue into an optimized blog category inside WordPress. This helps her pull in more organic traffic from engaged couples who are also researching venues for their big day, tying the venue to her lovely photography work.
If you are curious about how Showit integrates with WordPress for blogging, see this tutorial video.
Since then, Pepper has come back to us for additional VIP Days for other projects such as creating a stand-out proposal template and new landing page for Albums. In her words:
“Well $h!t. I don’t have a single note here. Amazing proposal page! Holy moly I love it!! YAY!!!” — Pepper
Literally one VIP Day closer to your business goals
When you’ve already invested in your brand, VIP Days can provide that extra design support to help you tackle your next big project. No drawn out timelines. Just an entire day of focus dedicated to refining your digital presence.
Whether you need some updates to your website or you’re finally ready to get that lead magnet funnel implemented, VIP Days are perfect for propelling your business forward without the DIY stress. Book us for a day and we’ll give your brand the undivided attention it deserves.
