Questions,
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Northern Design and Digital Marketing (NORTHERN) is a founder-led design and digital marketing agency based at the North East Business & Innovation Centre in Sunderland. It runs social media advertising, Google Ads, SEO, web design, branding, and photo and video content for businesses across the North East and the UK. Clients deal directly with founder Dave Head, who has 13+ years in design and digital marketing.

Northern is based at the North East Business & Innovation Centre, Enterprise Park East, Wearfield, Sunderland SR5 2TA. It works with businesses in Sunderland, Newcastle, Durham, Gateshead, Teesside, Northumberland and the rest of North East England. It also works with clients elsewhere in the UK and abroad, including Manchester, Amsterdam and Alicante, at the same published prices.

Northern offers social media advertising (Meta, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn), Google Ads, SEO, website design and build, branding and logo design, graphic design, photography, videography, conversion rate optimisation and AI automation. Its social media work is paid advertising and content creation: the photos, videos and ad creative that campaigns run on. You can buy one service on its own or combine several.

Yes. Northern plans, builds and manages paid social campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn, alongside Google Ads. Management costs £300 to £600 a month plus your ad spend, which you pay to the platform. Campaigns are optimised for conversions, not just clicks. Northern is a Meta Partner and a Google Partner, and there is no long contract.

Yes. Northern shoots and edits photography and video for social media, including short captioned clips in portrait and landscape, product and food photography, event coverage and ad creative. For Circle Cloud, one filming day produced a homepage film, director interviews and 22 captioned social clips. Photography costs £425 to £850 a day and videography £900 to £1,800 a day.

Northern publishes fixed website prices. Refresh is £1,500 to fix an existing site. Standard is £3,500 for a new bespoke build of up to 8 pages. Premium is £6,500 for up to 20 pages with CRM and automation built in. Bespoke starts from £10,000. Hosting is £20 to £25 a month. You pay a 50% deposit and 50% on completion.

Northern’s SEO service costs £400 to £750 a month, rolling monthly with no long contract. It covers technical SEO, on-page improvements and local SEO for businesses that want to be found on Google in their area and beyond. SEO usually takes three to six months to build momentum. Every engagement starts with a free audit, so you see what needs fixing first.

Paid ads management costs £300 to £600 a month plus your advertising budget, which goes straight to Google, Meta, TikTok or LinkedIn. There is no long contract. Northern handles keyword and audience targeting, ad copy, remarketing, local geo-targeting and ongoing optimisation. Paid campaigns can start bringing in enquiries within weeks, which is much faster than SEO.

It depends on the channel. Paid campaigns on Google or social media can deliver results within weeks. SEO typically takes three to six months to build momentum. A new website usually shows an impact quickly: when Dave Head rebuilt the Gentoo Homes website, engagement time rose 85% in four months. Northern sets honest timelines at the start of every project.

No. Northern has built brands for local businesses and run campaigns for FTSE 250 companies. What matters is a clear goal and a willingness to invest in growth. Sometimes the right answer is not a big campaign but better photography, a simpler website or a properly set up Google Business Profile. A free audit shows you where to start.

No. Monthly services such as SEO, ads management and digital marketing are rolling monthly. Website projects are fixed price, paid as a 50% deposit and 50% on completion. Hosting can be cancelled with 30 days’ notice and no exit fee. Your domain, accounts and files stay in your name throughout, so you are free to leave at any time.

You work directly with Dave Head, Northern’s founder. There are no account managers and no junior teams: you email Dave and Dave replies. Dave is a designer turned digital marketer with 13+ years of experience, including design and marketing roles at citizenM Hotels, The Law Debenture Corporation, Safecall, Gentoo Group, Capture Expense and STACK Leisure.

Northern publishes its prices, which none of the 67 North East agencies it audited do for websites. You own everything from day one: domain, data, ad accounts and files. You deal with the founder, not an account manager. And because Dave Head has worked in design, UI and digital marketing, he can look at your whole funnel and recommend what you actually need.

Yes. Northern is a Google Partner and a Meta Partner. It is also a member of the North East England Chamber of Commerce, a Disability Confident Employer and a Living Wage Employer. Founder Dave Head is an Adobe Certified Professional in Photoshop and InDesign and holds a BSc in Web Design & Development from Northumbria University.

Northern has a 5.0 rating on Google. Every review shown on its reviews page is five stars, from clients who used its web design, branding, automation and digital marketing services. Founder Dave Head also has 12 recommendations on LinkedIn from colleagues and clients at companies including citizenM Hotels and Gentoo Group. Northern has published more than 80 case studies.

Possibly. If your registered office is in the North of Tyne area, you may be able to claim back 40 to 50% of a website tier’s one-off cost through the NBSL Business Support Fund. Northern is a registered NBSL supplier and handles the application paperwork for you. The claim-back only applies to North of Tyne SMEs; everything else works UK-wide.

Yes. Northern builds automations with n8n, Make, GoHighLevel and HubSpot, and offers its own Northern AI Suite for CRM, automation and review management from £65 a month. Typical jobs include automated lead follow-up, booking, chatbots and moving data between tools. For DTLPG, an n8n workflow sorts weekly jobs by priority and emails each engineer their own list.

You do. Domains stay in your name, ad and analytics accounts belong to your business, and website code is zipped and delivered to you on launch. Northern does not use a proprietary CMS that locks you in. If you leave, you take everything with you, with 30 days’ notice on hosting and no exit fee.

Northern works with small and medium-sized businesses in most sectors, including hospitality, food, retail, property, finance, SaaS and technology, trades and professional services. Recent clients include Euro Pizza Ovens, Flix Electrics, Heritage Conservatories, RetroFlow Group, DCS Payroll and The Good Estate Agent North East. Northern also works as a white-label design partner for other agencies.

Call +44 7476 934535, email hello@northern.digital or use the form on the contact page. The first consultation is free and there is no hard sell. Dave will look at your website, ads or brand, tell you honestly where to start and what it is likely to cost, then confirm a fixed price before any work begins.