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As you launch your new business you need to get your marketing needs in order. You need to define your marketing strategy and decide on which marketing materials to produce, depending on your target audience and budget. Can’t-do-without items include brochures, flyers and adverts. If you read our previous article about graphic design, you know that the only way to create marketing materials which will influence customers and sell products is by hiring a professional graphic design team. A potential customer or supplier is far more likely to believe your company is in for the long haul if you are using professionally designed items.
A reputable, professional team will fully understand your brand identity in all its glory before they start to create the perfect marketing materials for your company. They will listen to your ideas, reflect, ask questions and take note of all the answers before they put their creative minds together.
For example, where does your company position itself on the fun to formal spectrum? Are you selling great kids’ toys or funeral services? The team has to tailor its designs to match these fundamental aspects or you can only imagine how horribly wrong and inappropriate the final product will be for the target market. If you’re a risk taker who wants to jazz up the normal, formal marketing of financial services with a humorous twist for your own financial business, make it clear to the design team. But take care with humor. Something that is side splittingly funny for you may be reason for offense for others – and it’s safe to say it’s an extremely bad idea to offend potential customers.
A basic premise of marketing is that the brand identity is consistently displayed across absolutely all marketing materials so people know who they are dealing with, and of course to build brand awareness. Here your company logo comes into its own – it must appear on everything from your business cards and headed stationery to adverts and billboards. A color palette must also be defined for use across the range of items to complement the logo and reflect the defined tone of voice of your brand: for example, gentle pastels for a reassuring tone; dynamic reds for a hard hitting angle.
And then creativity comes in to play. Your marketing material has to sell products. It has to have visual appeal, grab interest and entice prospective customers to read more, to learn more, to buy more. Customers have to understand what you are selling and why it is better than the competitors’. They have to immediately understand if you are selling a luxury product or a basic, cost effective service.
When designing your marketing arsenal, the graphic designers will draw on all of their expertise in:
• Choosing the right image to depict the product, the brand essence and to appeal to your target audience
• Choosing the best colors to complement the image and fit in with the brand colors
• Choosing typography to complement the image and overall look
• Placing the headline appropriately to ensure the item calls attention to itself
• Adding in content so that it is easy to read – breaking blocks of text into smaller reader- friendly paragraphs and using a sensible font size
• Placing the call to action steps in a highly visible place – no point in having an advert to die for if customers don’t know how to contact you or where to get more information
• Laying out all of the information effectively and ensuring it is appropriate for the size of the final printed product – from a small flyer to a giant billboard.
The designer then pops all of these elements in to a big, magic black box, adds a sprinkle of inspiration, a dash of creativity and a touch of pragmatism and voilà, the final advert / brochure / flyer is born.
Perhaps I exaggerated that last part, but it does demonstrate that the graphic designer is truly a creative artist at heart. Although there are obvious rules and guidelines for graphic design, sometimes the designer needs to step outside the box or creativity will be stifled. And your marketing material will be great instead of outstanding.
To get the most sales from your marketing campaigns, it’s all so very simple – use a professional graphic design company. Highly effective campaigns are based on outstanding marketing materials.
