Frequently Asked Questions at Brixwork
We cover some of the most common questions from new and existing clients about our services and specialty. We also cover handy tips to make your project run smoother, finish faster and on budget, and with higher design quality for better business results.
How Brixwork Differs From Other Real Estate Marketing Vendors
Where are you located, and how long have you been in business?
Our creative studio is located in Gastown, in Vancouver, BC, where our core team collaborates. We’ve called this studio home since 2011 after a brief presence in Yaletown starting in 2009. We’ve grown a lot since then, to having team members across different cities in Canada.
Why do you specialize in real estate, instead of taking on projects from all Industries?
Our roots in real estate go back to 2009 in Vancouver, where real estate is a competitive niche. We built up our website framework (SaaS platform with IDX integration) exclusively for Realtors® to serve the already large pool of clients in real estate.
Specializing in real estate as our niche allowed us to:
- Gain deep knowledge and experience in how the real estate industry works.
- Establish better workflows to make life easier for our clients and staff both.
- Keep our costs competitive while maintaining the quality of a boutique agency.
You work with so many real estate agents and teams. How do you ensure each client stands out?
It’s a challenge we handle well by putting thought into each project. Even our base template websites start at $1,000, which gives you many hours of custom design work to make it your own. Our creative team works in-house in our Gastown studio to provide hand-made designs for each and every client to set you apart as much as we can.
We do not offer cheap/free setups or trials, unlike competitors who copy-paste the same template for all accounts, to account for the significant manpower dedicated to each launch.
What range of services do you provide for the real estate industry?
We handle everything from impactful branding & logo conception to sophisticated PPC ad campaigns, and everything in between.
How Our Website Platform Differs from Open Source Cookie Cutters
What platform do you build your websites on?
Brixwork is our own proprietary platform that we built from the ground up just for real estate, with the goal of making listings and agent management easy for busy real estate professionals. First coded in 2009, the 5th generation was launched in 2023 (more about the V5 launch of Brixwork) showcasing the cleanest and easiest user interface we’ve offered, ever.
Our platform offers several advantages over building a real estate website upon generic open-source platforms like WordPress.
Where do you host your websites software, files, images, and MLS® IDX data?
We are 100% on the AWS (Amazon Web Services) cloud since 2018 with robust security and speed optimizations. Our IDX (MLS® Reciprocity) integration runs frequently to store the listing data on our resilient RDS/S3 platforms, and feeds the content to the world through speedy Cloudfront distributions.
As an IDX website provider, are your website designs limited to cookie-cutter templates? (Spoiler alert: Nope!)
Our SaaS platform allows each website to be highly customized to reflect each brand uniquely (customization costs vary widely). Stunning homepages with bespoke visuals, storytelling agent/team bio pages, and even custom designed MLS® listing displays are possible on Brixwork.
It’s one of the reasons why many discerning real estate professionals choose us over cheaper templated solutions.
Can I add Brixwork’s IDX/Reciprocity feed on another website platform as a plugin or an iFrame?
No, they are fully internalized into our own website framework, for the best-in-class listing search and display as well as better crawling of the content by search engines such as Google™. When content such as MLS® data is embedded via iFrames or linked by a 3rd party URL, that content will not be seen by Google™ as your own content, which doesn’t help with SEO at all, rendering it powerless.
Other Services We Offer To Help Grow Your Business In The Long Term
Do you offer branding and other print/graphic/digital media design services?
Absolutely yes! As a boutique design agency first and foremost, we specialize in designing marketing material for both offline and online mediums that is consistent with your brand for a cohesive presence everywhere. Our stationery and print media design is very popular, and our listing presentations are one of our top-performers for lead conversion. Our digital and social media asset designs provide a great foundation for ongoing online presence that is impactful and consistent to your brand.
Do you provide ongoing marketing services such as PPC ad campaigns and social media management?
Our Full-Flow Funnel PPC campaigns have delivered measurably impressive results (high CTR and conversion rates) across Google, Instagram and Facebook ads. We also offer social media management for project marketing campaigns. We do not offer social media management for realtors, teams or brokerages due to our operation styles.
How do you handle future updates to the marketing collateral you design for me as my business grows?
We offer bill-by-the-hour, or small update quotes for updating things we design for you. It’s very common for us to update listing presentations, buyers guides, add custom modules/pages to an existing website and more.
How do you manage growth in real estate teams with more agents and support members added?
Our website platform supports multiple agents, as well as multiple users (with variable access levels, including content/digital marketing staff support) which makes managing team or brokerage websites easy. Our multi agent module works in conjunction with the MLS® IDX module to sync listings for each agent, and allow them to manage it with ease. Our website subscription and modules pricing page has more information.
Project Timelines and Communication Protocols
Here are the most frequently asked questions from our clients regarding project commencement, timeline of completion & website/branding launches.
How soon can you start on my new project?
It depends, as we are often booked several days/weeks in advance. We also reserve some hours for our production team to handle day-to-day design changes, upgrades & quick fixes for our existing clients – this includes feature sheet designs, updates to existing marketing material, and minor changes to websites.
How long does it take to design a new branding scheme?
The average branding job takes about 2~4 weeks, depending on client feedback speed and decisiveness. The number of revisions are limited on branding jobs. Custom Illustrated, Hand-Lettered, and Chinese Calligraphy branding can take more time than the Type-Art branding jobs due to the more complex nature.
i.e. If the branding took 1.5 weeks to finalize, and the website took 2 more weeks, you are ready to populate the website with content in 3.5 weeks total. Assuming you take 0.5 weeks to fill out your content & photography, your launch time is 4 weeks to go live.
How long does a stock template website take to build?
The average stock template website takes about 1~2 weeks to be built, excluding content population, which is the responsibility of the client. It involves colours & font matching to your brand, without layout changes (with one round of revisions). It requires that you have your brand and brand guidelines ready for deployment (timeline of branding services noted above if needed).
How long does a customized website take to build?
Customized website completion timelines can vary vastly between 4 to 16 weeks (or more), excluding time spent on content population, which is primarily up to the Client. This timeline varies widely based on how decisive & speedy the client feedback and content provision is.
How long does stationery & print media design take?
Essential stationery such as folders, business cards and feature sheets can be done in 1 to 3 weeks. Signage, window wraps, magazine ads can take 2~3 weeks. More complex items such as agent intro booklets or listing presentations/buyers guide booklets can take 3 to 8 weeks.
How long do open house/for sale sign designs take?
Common signage (open house, for sale, car toppers, hallway signs), simple window wraps, simple magazine ads can take 1~3 weeks, not including the print or production time. For sign producers & vendors, please check out our resources page.
How can I speed up the design and production of my project for a quicker completion timeline?
We schedule meetings/zoom calls for comprehensive design reviews and creative briefs. Being clear and decisive, with samples you like/dislike ready, is a great way to make these briefs productive and meaningful.
Responding to draft presentation emails in a timely manner (maximum 3 business days) and leaving concise feedback via Dropbox commenting is the fastest and clearest way to process revisions.
Things that slow down progress, and result in higher time/costs:
- Fragmented feedback – adding more revisions or comments in separate/delayed emails/comments instead of all at once.
- Indecisive or unclear directions – not firmly sticking to a direction already chosen, or constantly pondering other designs or competitors’ styles.
- Delayed responses or feedback – see next point regarding client response time expectations.
What is the expected revision/feedback timeline from clients?
Client feedback & revisions on visual drafts sent by the Agency should be provided within 3 business days. Any delays caused by clients’ lack of response adds a significant amount of time to the total completion time. Because we have to take on new projects as time goes on, initial delays by clients can result in much longer delays later by the Agency, as we have to prioritize newer projects with timely client responses. The Agency is not responsible for delays, nor any ensuing losses, caused by such delays.
Our SaaS (Software as a Subscription) Based Website Platform Explained
If you are a SaaS platform, who owns my website?
SaaS platforms, as per industry standards, are owned by the Agency who builds and deploys it. The website setup costs covers custom design and setup labour to make each website unique, and does not apply to the platform usage fee itself. The monthly fee is what grants you access to the website back-end to maintain your website, as well as the cloud hosting of your data to allow your customers to view your website. Additional services such as MLS IDX/Reciprocity, WordPress™ blog addons and more are available for an additional monthly subscription fee. Your subscription also covers basic tech support. Our full terms & conditions explain this well.
Similar to how you wouldn’t own the cell towers on Telus or Rogers, you don’t own our software or servers which have cost well over half a million dollars (and counting) in development/cloud operation costs so far. We charge a monthly subscription cost to cover the ongoing maintenance, support, and cloud hosting of the Brixwork real estate website platform.
What features and services are included in the Brixwork subscription fees?
While it’s too long to list here, we have some state-of-the-art technology to help load our websites better on all platforms (mobile, tablet or desktop), and pack some great features to help your website show up well on Google & Social Media. You can read the full list of features of the Brixwork platform on our Website Features section.
Does the subscription fee go towards other ongoing improvements and development?
Absolutely! Our development team continues to improve the functionality and usability of our website platform, while performing upgrades to the software and hardware for better speed, security and stability.
