Feature: Communications & Marketing
Working with a designer to get the right results
stories about the price of marketing that can spiral out of control. You might think to ask one of your employees to handle it – yes, it might save you money, but will they really be able to achieve your vision? With this in mind, below is a guide on what you can do to make sure that your marketing plan comes to life while remaining in budget.
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Clean copy Let’s start with the copy, the essential bit in any communication. We all know the score; the copy is sent to the designer and the designer places the copy in to the document. Time and careful thought is spent creating a bespoke, marketable design, which is then sent as a proof to the client. But then the proofs come back from client, covered in scribbled red pen that points out that a paragraph is incorrect and has to be replaced, the order of the text needs to be drastically changed and there are spelling corrections all over the place. The designer surmises that the original copy provided
was not clean, and that many more hours will have to be put in to correct the errors. Stress levels rise and the price of the job starts to climb. But why have there been so many changes at this stage? Spending a bit of time checking and double checking the
original document and sharing it with the appropriate people for their input and approval before forwarding the final piece on to the designer will save time and money.
The right images You’ve heard that a picture paints a thousand words. Well, it’s true – but when the picture has been taken in low light, or on a grainy smart phone camera, then the results aren’t going to be good. But sometimes that’s all a designer is provided with, and
they are still expected to produce a top-quality design for a website or print job. These might be, for example, photos of staff, which are supposed to show clients how professional the sales team is. Looking through what has been supplied, the designer finds one picture where a staff member is stood outside in great light – this will be good enough to use – but someone else has provided a poorly lit, tightly cropped selfie. The brief might ask that the designer use Photoshop on the images that aren’t quite good enough, and the designer will oblige – but this might be costly, and there is no guarantee they can fix every unusable picture. So what is the remedy for this? Photoshop can help
improve image quality, but those images will probably never look as good as you want them to. So, to ensure high quality and consistency, have your photos professionally produced,
Providing good images is key Spring 2019 CHAMBERconnect 65
ou need a well-designed bit of marketing. It’s there in your head and you know what budget you have. So, do you use a designer? You've heard horror
ideally with a good camera and studio lighting. This way you can guarantee excellent imagery, which will, in turn, demonstrate your company’s professionalism and value.
Communicating amends So the design proof needs amending. It might be that the colours used look wrong or the design isn't quite what you expected. This is where a great set of constructive instructions is needed. If the amendments are badly communicated, and you
use phrases such as “I've never liked that colour” or “it’s not quite me” or worse still “your the designer, design me something I'll like”, then the rounds of amends will be endless and the whole process will likely become a nightmare. Your designer is not a mind reader and will rely on you
to provide specific feedback so, when providing amends, be as clear and concise as you can be. This will eliminate miscommunication and speed up the process considerably. Additionally, designers produce marketing material to fit
and communicate with the target audience and the brief, but this is what some clients fail to understand. It’s very easy for a client to fail to see the piece through the viewer’s eyes, and get stuck thinking only of what they personally like and don’t like. As a designer we know that the client needs to feel
comfortable with their marketing. But surely, the effectiveness should be the measuring stick and not personal preference.
By Mark Shipway (pictured), Director at First Class Design
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