Posted by Karl | Posted in General, Tips | Posted on 28-04-2010
Managing the marketing and creative process is essential and for many, it is a headache. It doesn’t have to be and in this post we conclude our hints and advice for managing a project successfully, through to completion and beyond.
Sketches Work
Always do a rough draft of what you think the finished piece ought to look like. Usually it is the most appropriate version and with refinement ends up as the finished product. Once you have drawn up initial drafts, leave them for a couple of days and come back to them – this gives you a good perspective on the proposal and you can focus on the design rather than the content.
Don’t underestimate the power of a rough visual or draft for everyone involved.
Work with Your Print Partner
When you are working with a commercial print partner, use them as a design and advice resource. There is probably very little you are attempting that they haven’t tried a dozen times or more in the past. They are a great knowledge resource so use them.
Edit and Review
Editing is known as the butcher’s trade but it is vital – editing will improve the finished product by simplifying and clarifying the message as well as avoiding embarrassing mistakes. By getting others to review the work-in-progress, you can assess how effective the project is going to be in the real-world when it comes time for it to be unleashed on the target audience.
Use the Professionals
If you are unable to string a sentence together – hire a writer. If you have no idea on color or layouts – hire a designer. If you cannot come up with high quality photographs – hire a photographer. The bottom line is that if you find it difficult to work as a writer, editor, photographer, designer then you need help and short-changing on a professional-looking, finished product can undermine your entire effort.
Posted by Karl | Posted in General, Tips | Posted on 22-04-2010
The longest project is the one you don’t get started, and frequently where to begin is a problem. Knowing where to start is a boon, so here we’re going to cover some structure to provide over the creative process and which will help you manage the whole process while keeping it on track to help your business.
It doesn’t matter whether you are creating a marketing brochure or a humble flyer, the principles are all the same, however you will need more of these basics applied when you deal with more complicated or larger projects.
The Marketing Blueprint
Establish a blueprint and then stick to it – this is your guide through the desert, so while you may exercise flexibility, you also should be careful that everyone is sticking to the plan too. A blueprint helps you be effective, stick to budget and be able to measure the results against your benchmark standards.
Review Examples
Find examples of work which has already been done, either by you or by someone else, especially competitors. Look at how this has been approached in the past and what has worked and what has not. Distil the best from this and apply it to the project at hand.
Think Benefits Not Features
Benefits are succinct and to the point – they show a customer or prospect how your product or service will satisfy their needs. They personalize the proposal to the client. Features on the other hand, simply list what the product is and that is a waste of space – ask yourself when the last time was when you read the specifications pages of a piece of electronic equipment such as your home TV? Never! You bought the TV because it looked good and the advertizing told you it had the biggest, brightest, most channels, lightest, eco-friendly, thinnest feature “which meant that” you loved it because it solved a problem you had or catered for your particular need.
This post is continued in Part Two
Posted by Karl | Posted in Printing, Tips | Posted on 19-04-2010
Customer newsletters are one way of keeping yourself connected to your customers and prospects. Good newsletters inform and educate and bring interesting information and opportunities to the reader. Just as there are good newsletters there are bad ones, so take a look at these fast tips to ensure you create the former and not the latter.
Be Relevant, Be Meaningful
We touched on this briefly; to be interesting you need to be relevant and give meaningful information. Readers will follow what you have to say, but to be sure you are not simply sending tomorrow’s trash complement the promotional, sales orientated aspects of the newsletter with practical tips and advice or Q&A’s.
Use Templates
You don’t have to re-invent the wheel and there is no need to have journalistic or editorial experience. There are plenty of newsletter templates already designed and freely available for you to use – save time and energy, not to mention money, and select a template for you to populate with your content.
Write for Your Audience
Address the reader directly – we know you can’t call them by their name, but you can refer to them as “You” or “Your”, avoid using “Their’s” or “Them” because you are talking about someone else and be ruthless with using “I” or “Us” because you are now just talking about yourself. You can also include items which the audience can use such as calendars of trade events or deadlines, coupons and special pricing promotions as well as including your contact information in a handy format.
Use Your Customers
Everyone likes to see their names and faces in print, and your newsletter is no exception. Use your existing customers as case studies in your newsletter so they see how you solved their problems – this is a great testimonial for your business.
Posted by Karl | Posted in Tips | Posted on 15-03-2010
Logos are an integral part of creating your business identity and they are especially valuable when it comes to creating a brand.
You need to have a logo which is unique and the reasons for this are two-fold.
First, a unique logo will satisfy the desire of many people to have a visual representation of your business. Visual imagery is powerful and especially when the visual imagery (your logo) becomes associated with your business directly. If your logo is not unique or is too similar to another logo, then people will become confused and you will experience a dilution in your brand identity.
The second reason your logo must be unique is because if it is too similar or borrowed from someone else, you are likely to find yourself infringing a string of laws to protect “intellectual property”, i.e. the logo you have taken from someone else’s design.
You company logo does not need to be complicated – a simple design will suffice, but it is essential that it is sufficiently unique to separate it from any other. A simple design will also lend itself to more easily embedding itself in the minds of those who see it and it will become more quickly associated with your business.
It is important that the logo you decide upon will properly reflect your business image. You wouldn’t use a toilet seat for a law firm, and you wouldn’t use some representation of the scales of justice for a plumbing company. The two images or concepts may make a good basis for a logo but only if they are more obviously associated with what your business does.
Using a logo is one of the most effective and powerful ways to create a brand identity and increase your business impact on the consciousness of your markets.
Posted by Karl | Posted in Tips | Posted on 10-03-2010
Print ads, whether in the newspaper or on a flyer, work well if you grasp and understand what their purpose is and pitch them properly at your target audience.
First of all, don’t try to make your ads do everything – decide on what the objective is and focus on creating the ad which will serve its purpose. Advertizing appeals to people on many different levels – emotional, psychological, values and beliefs, rationality and experience. This means that one ad or technique cannot satisfy all of your goals and objectives – you need to carefully craft your ad so it becomes the right tool for the job you have in mind.
Advertizing is not about educating people, it is not about raising awareness, it is not about building brand recognition – advertizing is about SELLING! While you may wish to have a stunning piece of art which will win awards at the “Ad Man Convention Awards in Whereversville”, the primary objective is to sell. Create an attention grabbing piece, use good, simple English to create interest and facilitate the reader making a decision and finally, always have a call to action, i.e. buy the product or service!
Make sure you have identified who is in your target market – you must use this information to create the path for them to take from initial attraction to the ad and the path they follow through to making the order or other call to action. Who you are pitching the ad at will determine the approach you take in selling to them – selling to women, you will language and imagery which appeals to them, selling to the elderly, you will not place the ad in a youth magazine. This will also affect the tone of the ad pitch as to whether it is an emotional sell or one based more on rational appeal to someone with prior experience.
In a nutshell – identify the target audience – decide on the objective of the ad – use AIDA (Attention, Interest, Decision and Action).
