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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

The humble business card is probably the most important and powerful business stationery tool for promoting your business and yourself. Making the most out of this extremely popular and never-sleeping salesman is essential for your business, so while there is no hard and fast set of rules to designing them, here are some tips and guide pointer to help you.

A leaflet is almost as simple to design and produce as a flyer – the difference between a flyer and a leaflet is that a flyer is usually printed one or both sides, but it is not folded. A leaflet is more akin to a newspaper – it is folded, sometimes with a bi-fold (one fold in the center) or tri-fold (turning the paper into a 3 page pullout. The leaflet is usually printed on both sides too, but because it is usually one color but has a layout which resembles a newsletter. The first thing to do when designing a leaflet is to roughly draft out the layout by first folding the paper into the format you are looking for

Web design is not the same as print design, though the approach may be similar in terms of the design elements and use of graphics, textual elements and other print/rendition issues. Print design has a tangible substance – you print it and that’s the finished product. You can see the finished design, handle it and take in the physical, sensual design elements, however this is not so for a web based design. Web based design work is not produced with a physical rendition on paper – it is designed for viewing on a computer screen, using a web browser and both of these factors will affect how the imagery and finished work are rendered to the individual viewer. In this sense, web design is transitory, it has no permanence in that what you see is what you get every single time, and you certainly cannot handle the finished product (even printing it out is not a true rendition). For a client looking for help, there is a great deal of difference between a web designer and a print designer. Many web designers come to the art with a background in print design, however you as the client must be aware of the difference in the medium they are using if you are to get the most out of your budget. When you look at a print design company, you should be assessing their physical portfolio of products in order top ascertain the print quality, design standards and quality of the finished work. With a web designer you should not be looking at printed renditions of their portfolio at all, but use a computer and web browser – in fact, look at the websites they have produced using different computers and web browsers to see how their finished product actually looks in real life to the end-user. Web designers may have a browser they prefer to work with – Safari is the Apple Mac’s default web browser and many designers prefer to use a MacIntosh for their graphical work because it possesses superior graphic capabilities and applications.

In part one we covered why books are still the main form of dissemination of information – more so than the internet, TV or radio and any other form of printed media.  Books have credibility and in-built authority which can be tapped into by producing booklets – a cut-down version of a book which contains nuggets of information and allows you to mix your sales message into the content.