CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND, October 3, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- New Zealand businesses are closing at rates not seen since 2010. Liquidations are rising, costs are squeezing margins, and the small businesses feeling it hardest are often the least visible online. Half of New Zealand's small businesses still do not have a professional website. For many, the cost has simply been out of reach.

Christchurch marketing agency C i Marketing has spent 15 years watching this problem up close. From tourism operators to tradespeople to health practitioners to professional service providers, the story has rarely changed. A business built on real skill, run by someone who genuinely cares, who pours everything into what they do. When it comes to being found online, though, they are invisible. Not because they have nothing to offer. Because a professional online presence has never been built with them in mind.

The options have always been the same: spend hours figuring out a template tool and hope it does the job, or hire an agency at a price that simply does not stack up for a business at that stage. Neither option comes with strategic thinking, professional copy, or the technical setup that makes a website actually work. The middle ground has never really existed.

Elizabeth Slade has been working in marketing since before social media existed. She started C i Marketing in Christchurch in 2011 and has spent every year since working alongside business owners who deserved more than the options available to them. The skill was always there. The backing to put it in front of people often was not. For years, she had to say no to the very people she most wanted to help.

"We just wanted to be able to say yes," she says. "Debut is how we finally can."

Today, C i Marketing launches Debut: a fully managed, professionally executed website service for the New Zealand small businesses that have long deserved better.

With businesses navigating one of the toughest economic periods in recent memory, being easy to find online matters more, not less. A website is often the first point of contact between a business and a potential customer. For the businesses that have been missing that moment, Debut is designed to change that.

Debut is not a cut-price version of what C i Marketing builds for larger clients. It streamlines the process without stripping out expertise, strategy or quality.
Building Debut meant starting from scratch. The team drew on their combined expertise across strategy, copywriting, visual design, photography, video, digital marketing and technical SEO to work out exactly what a high-quality small business website actually requires, then built the systems to deliver it consistently. The result is a website that does what it is supposed to do: get found, make a strong first impression, and give the business owner something they can manage independently.

Every Debut website is professionally written, designed, hosted and optimised for search. Ecommerce is not currently part of the standard package but is in development.

To mark the launch, the first 30 qualifying businesses can secure a Debut website at $695 plus GST to set up, instead of the standard $995 plus GST. Monthly from $149 plus GST. No lock-in contract. Full details at debutwebsites.co.nz.

"The day your Debut site goes live is the day you become findable," Slade says. "People can discover you, read about you, be inspired to get in touch. You got there without the jargon, without the overwhelm, because someone just took care of it for you. And now you can get on with what you do best."

Businesses can find out whether Debut suits their needs at debutwebsites.co.nz.

Elizabeth Slade
C i Marketing / Debut Websites
+6433435622 ext.
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