Web and CRM Partner Proposal
Prepared for Dogs for Good by Lobster Digital.
Summary
Hi Laura and team,
We at Lobster are delighted to have the opportunity to collaborate with you.
A little about us:
Lobster Digital is an up and coming full-scale web and creative agency, with a specialism in website and application development. We have extensive experience in managing complex migrations across different environments and platforms, so you are in safe hands.
We are a platform agnostic agency, meaning we have worked with a range of CMS/CRM’s, including Umbraco, Microsoft Dynamics, Azure and the wider Microsoft ecosystem, as well as WordPress, Hubspot and many more.
Your requirements:
Dogs for Good are looking for a new web agency or an integrated web and CRM partner that can support them in maintaining their site with speed and diligence.
Our partnership:
We are at the early stages, and have outlined our suggested approach to maintaining the website and connected services in the most efficient way. We have included below:
- Suggested migration plan
- Service packages
- Case studies
- Information on Infrastructure/hosting offerings
- Information on Data services we can offer.
We’re looking to continue our conversations and would love the opportunity to join Dogs for Good on their journey.
Cheers,
Ryan
Ryan Smith — Founder
After 10+ years as a web developer, I started Lobster in 2024 to work with clients directly; untangling complex problems and breaking down the barriers between businesses and their goals.
Our Partnership
An Integrated Approach
Initial questions on the brief and throughout discussions outlined a couple of approaches, the direct replacement of Wattle as web development partner, or a combined web + CRM partner that can take on the full scope of current web capabilities. We want to pitch our services.
Advantages:
- Appreciation of complete tech journey from one agency — increased speed + quality of work
- More straightforward costing
- Less time and energy spent by D4G linking multiple parties
Improving the Relationship
It’s easy to say that this would improve given we are vying for you to go with us, we understand any partner in this position would say the same thing. But the proof will be in the pudding:
Response times
We have included our response time promise according to issue priority in our hosting information. Whilst this is what we stick to for general communication, what we think will make a huge difference is the manner in which we run. We integrate into your business and understand your processes, systems and stakeholders - to do this we would like to introduce a weekly ‘standup’ which is included in our SLA hours as standard. This will bring a cadence to the work that is being carried out, and prevent the need to reach out ad-hoc on the majority of occasions, knowing that any change can be discussed, captured and prioritised during that meeting. We will always be clear at the end of each standup what is priority and what will be completed by next week.
Talking to the ‘right’ people
We also include people on that stand up that need to be involved, for instance, due to the development nature of this work, a developer will always be present on Lobster x D4G calls. We see this as essential to a. making the developers lives easier so they are not trying to work off some confusing AI generated notes, and b. the decisions that can be made on the call are not assuming any information that is unknown, e.g. what is possible to do etc.
Tackling the backlog
We understand that there are items that haven’t been gotten round to since the launch of the site. It’s a frustrating way to work because any new items that come in via our new initiatives that need to be worked on would have to be prioritised against this list. As part of our SLA hours we want to tackle this first so that we can start from a clean slate.
Why We’re a Good Fit
Lobster are looking to build out a base of trusted retained clients, to achieve this we will ruthlessly be obsessing over client relations. Dogs for Good require a web and CRM partner who genuinely cares about the relationship and the cause they work so hard themselves for.
Full Service Agency
We have expertise in SEO, paid media, accessibility, data visualisation and analytics. All of which can be utilised as we see fit and included in the SLA hours, or called upon in projects as and when needed.
We want to work with D4G, e.g. taking the website from a site which accepts donations to something that achieves goals.
Lobster’s POV: build a strong base of retained clients, that we work with long term.
Service Packages
Umbraco Migration
Indicative: This is subject to hosting information and other technical details. For this project we have assumed that hosting is currently under Wattle’s management, and going forward Lobster will be hosting and managing the site.
| Item | Actions | Role | Rate/hr | Hrs | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wattle code & database handover | .zip or access to code repo & database backup | — | — | — | — |
| Lobster environment setup | Set up a staging version of the website on Lobster's hosting environment, ensuring all integrations are working as expected. Dummy URL e.g. dfg.lobsterdigital.app | DEV | £90 | 8 | £720 |
| Full site UAT | Full testing of all pages and integrations/services prior to go live. DfG also invited to test and log issues | QA | £60 | 4 | £240 |
| UAT amends | Any mission critical issues and differences to existing site are resolved | DEV | £90 | 2–8 | £180–£720 |
| DNS update | Point dogsforgood.org records at new environment | — | — | — | — |
| Go live | Perform go live checklist - including SEO, analytics, performance and security checks | DEV | £90 | 2 | £180 |
Estimated Total: £1,320 – £1,860
Retainer
Monthly costs associated with maintaining and improving the Dogs for Good website.
| Item | Info | Role | Rate/hr | Hrs | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting costs | Price of platform hosting at cost (MS Azure ecosystem) **Estimate | — | TBC | — | ~£500 |
| Maintenance hours | Monthly security & maintenance | DEV | £90 | 2 | £180 |
| SLA* | Monthly hours designated to delivering features and ongoing updates | DEV/DES | £90 | 10 | £900 |
Estimated Total: ~£1,580 p/m
*SLA hours information
All of our packages include access to:
- New feature development
- Design of UX/UI
- Bug fixing
- Weekly 30-min meeting to discuss requirements
- Monthly data reporting
In particular for Dogs for Good:
- Creation of power automate flows and subsequent web Umbraco development work (current Mhance remit)
10 HRS
£900 p/m
20 HRS
£1,700 p/m
50 HRS
£4,000 p/m
Packages can be purchased for guaranteed hours per month at discounted rates.
Minimum Contract Length
Following the launch of the websites — hosting, maintenance and development support are subject to a minimum 12-month term which can be confirmed either at the same stage as the website order, or at a later stage closer to launch.
Rate Card
Please see the rate card below for ad-hoc pricing that can be accessed as and when required.
| Role | Rate/hr | Info |
|---|---|---|
| Design | £90 | UX & UI multidisciplinary. Outputs include wireframes, high fidelity mockups, physical/print assets. |
| Dev | £90 | Frontend: styling, animations and interactions for web. Backend: integrations. |
| SEO | £90 | Search/Generative/AI engine optimisation. Monitoring and recommendation reports. |
| Data | £80 | Tracking, reporting and insight across analytics platforms. Dashboards, performance data and recommendations to guide decisions. |
| QA | £60 | Testing across devices and browsers to catch bugs before they reach clients. Functional, visual and regression checks. |
| PM | £65 | Planning, coordination and communication across the project. Keeping timelines, budgets and stakeholders aligned. |
| Rush Rate | £160 | Used sparingly and you will always be informed before use. Reserved for emergencies. |
Case Studies
The Air Ambulance (previous agency experience)
theairambulanceservice.org.uk
Objective
Appoint a web dev partner to rebuild and manage The Air Ambulance Service’s (TAAS) multisite ecosystem, with bespoke donation infrastructure and ongoing optimisation.
Outcome
A scalable, secure multisite platform with robust custom donation infrastructure, driving a minimum 4:1 ROI on online donations.
Details
- Custom Stripe donation logic built ground-up (one-off + recurring/subscription giving)
- Interactive donation features: brick wall sponsorship, Christmas card campaign
- Wordpress multisite setup supporting TAAS + sub-charity sites, controlled from one hub
- Data-driven reporting tied to ROI and income targets
Hymans Robertson
hymans.co.uk
Objective
Consolidate Hymans Robertson’s multiple websites onto one new CMS, with central management and improved security/efficiency.
Outcome
Unified CMS architecture, stronger security compliance, lower admin cost/time, and a long-term agency partnership.
Details
- New consolidated Umbraco CMS setup, migration from Wordpress
- Optimum security controls, full cyber compliance
- Reduced admin cost/time across sites
- Better CRM/Martech integration for personalisation
- Improved journeys for lead gen, cross-sell, retention
- Stronger design consistency and component-based system
Appliance Hero
appliancehero.co.uk
Objective
Redesign and develop Appliance Hero’s online “Book a Repair” website to remove friction and shift volume from phone bookings to online, across a multi-branded appliance estate (Hotpoint, Indesit, Whirlpool, etc.) serviced by Hotpoint engineers.
Outcome
Higher online booking conversion rate, reduced call centre load, and a clearer, faster path from “my appliance is broken” to “engineer booked.”
Details
- UX audit of existing form to identify drop-off points and friction
- Simplified, step-based booking flow with progress indication
- Headless API driven content allowing 100% Google page speed scores
- Smart appliance/model lookup to reduce manual data entry
- Mobile-first redesign for on-the-go bookings
- A/B testing and reporting for optimal form flows
Infrastructure
Our platform hosting offerings cover all web applications, data dashboards, websites, frontend and backend builds.
Platforms
Most of the principles of running a website/application effectively are the same regardless of platform, so we are multidisciplinary.
Best for complex, large-scale infrastructure needing full control and custom services.
Best for enterprises invested in Microsoft tools and ecosystems.
Best for simple, cost-effective hosting for small-to-mid projects.
Best for headless, API-driven websites pulling from multiple enterprise data sources.
CMS Builds
We are a CMS agnostic agency — content needs to ‘live’ somewhere and we don’t fuss over where it lives or how it is output. See below a quick intro to some common ones we’ve worked with.
| CMS | Description |
|---|---|
 | A headless CMS focused on structured content and page-building tools for developers. Best for teams needing flexible content modeling with a decoupled frontend. |
 | The world's most popular CMS, powering blogs and websites via themes/plugins. Best for content-heavy sites needing quick setup and huge plugin ecosystem support. |
 | An open-source .NET CMS built for enterprise-grade content management. Best for organisations already using Microsoft/.NET stacks needing scalable, custom solutions. |
Ticketing & Planning
We use ClickUp for bug tracking internally. We invite others to use it also, but are equally comfortable jumping into any project management/ticketing tool. We try to keep consistency in weekly standup meetings.
Development Environments
Security & Compliance
Security is built into everything we do, alongside the ongoing maintenance that keeps your site fast, stable and protected. We patch, monitor and back up as standard, so issues get caught before they become problems.
- SSL/TLS encryption throughout
- Monthly patching & maintenance
- Daily automated backups
- GDPR-compliant data handling
- Uptime monitoring & alerting
Our Terms
Hours of Operation. The Lobster team is available 9 to 5pm Monday to Friday, excluding UK Public Holidays.
Out of Hours. Lobster also offers the ability to support Critical Issues outside of office hours. By contacting your Project/Account Director via mobile between 6am – 11pm or via our critical@strategiq.co email address which sends an instant WhatsApp notification to our Senior Development Team. Tickets and support follow our severity grading system below. Critical issues are also looked at out of standard office hours.
| Priority | Example | Fix | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urgent | “The website is down”, “Donations aren’t going through”, “Contact form is not working” | 4hrs within office hours | PHP error causing half of the homepage to load; donations are not being accepted; contact forms do not work. |
| High | “Website styling is broken on specific page” | 1 Business Day | Website styling in key areas has broken and doesn't display correctly; button doesn't link to the right page; a page is incorrectly blocked by GoogleBot. |
| Normal | An aesthetic issue that doesn't look right, or a non-critical browser specific issue. The site is still usable, but core business operations are not affected. | n/a | Menu node overlapping another node on Edge; updating a PDF or accreditation logo displayed. |
Minimum Contract Length
Following the launch of the websites — hosting, maintenance and development support are subject to a minimum 12-month term which can be confirmed either at the same stage as the website order, or at a later stage closer to launch.
Data
Base
Included in all retained projects.
- Sources limited to Google Analytics or similar base web vitals.
Custom
Multisite/entity tracking, data from multiple sources. Custom visualisations and dashboard creation.
Data Pipeline
Medallion Architecture