digital marketing procurement expert.
Helping you appoint a web development or marketing partner that delivers the goods, provides value for money, understands your mission and your team loves to work with.
I enable leaders with marketing and comms teams to…
Go from this:
You need a new digital partner and you’ve got budget approval. But:
- It’s not fully clear what you need
- Bad appointments have been made in the past
- All the prospective suppliers look and sound confident
- They’re each strong in some areas and weaker in others
- It’s hard to judge cultural fit, value for money or delivery risk
Whether it’s web development , digital marketing or productivity tools, the same worry is there: how do you know who to trust – and whether they’ll deliver what you need and value for money?
To this:
- A clear sense of what your organisation needs and what success looks like
- Clarity on why you need a new partner and who’s best placed to help
- A brief that reflects your real needs, not assumptions
- Confidence in value for money
- A partner you trust and expect to work well with day-to-day
What I offer
- Practical, independent support to help you choose the right partner
- A mature, sensible process that’s successfully delivered for numerous businesses and charities
- Help with getting clear on what you actually need – and what you don’t
- Support with turning that clarity into a brief that suppliers can respond to properly
- Sense-checking proposals, cultural fit and recommendations
- Bringing structure to evaluation, beyond sales pitches
- Support with interviews and final selection
Why work with me?
- I’m independent – I don’t sell delivery services
- I understand how digital projects succeed and fail
- I help you distinguish confidence from capability
- I focus on value for money, cultural fit and delivery risk
- I support decisions you can explain and stand behind
Which organisations have I helped?
Groundwork UK had recently launched a new WordPress website to serve the organisation’s Trusts and projects across England and Wales. Their relationship with the web agency had reached a crunch point and they wanted another supplier. Following my rigorous process, they appointed Wholegrain Digital.
Better Start Bradford had reached the end of the road with their website and their web agency. Trust had broken down. They knew they needed a new website and another agency but they didn’t want to end up in the same place. Working closely with me they appointed Studio Republic.
"Developing a new website can be a daunting prospect: how much is it likely to cost, how do you find a reputable developer, what does a good brief look like, how long will it take?
Ned helped us find answers to these (and many more) questions, and accompanied us throughout the development our new site from starting the brief to launch day.
It’s a joy working with Ned: he’s very organised, flexible in his approach, and his communication style is clear, measured, and never ‘techie’ or jargonistic. I highly recommend working with him."
Grainne Slavin, Senior Communications Officer, Better Start Bradford
"Ned has been instrumental in the success of appointing our new web agency. He guided the team and advised us, and kept the project on track. Ned has valuable experience and explains in plain-English how to get to our goal."
Grace Camp, Strategy and Business Development Manager, BDSIP
"Ned has been so supportive to our small comms team in developing our new website, and with wider digital marketing activities. He has helped steer us through all the development work, adding insights and expertise that we could not do without, and asking questions we wouldn’t have thought of. It’s a real pleasure working with Ned and he has been key element to the success of our new website."
Michelle Thompson, Communications Manager, Better Start Bradford