|
Keep Your Image Up
How Creative, Professional Marketing Materials Keep Your Image Up,
And Your Bottom Line From Bottoming Out!
Go to Web Site
|
|
|
|
There are a variety of aspects involved in successfully marketing a company. The aspects on which I would like to focus are the importance of visual appeal combined with the technical design of company marketing materials. In addition, it is important to discuss the decision-making process regarding in-house design of materials versus usage of an advertising or design agency.
A few examples of marketing projects are logos, stationary, print ads, brochures, informational sheets, newsletters, annual reports and web sites. It is very important that companies’ marketing materials are well designed and professionally printed to attract new business. Many companies view other organizations that produce inferior marketing products as “fly by night” businesses. Marketing materials that possess creativity and professionalism reflect that a company is both established and professional.
Outside of web sites, most marketing materials need to be printed. Printed marketing materials should always be outsourced to a professional printing company. A $50.00 - $3000.00 desktop printer commonly used in companies can never produce the same quality as an offset press (a 1.5 million dollar piece of equipment). Desktop printers are a good resource for internal information but should not be used for important material being distributed to clients or prospects.
The printing needs to be outsourced, but what should be considered before making the decision to actually design marketing materials in-house or to outsource the task of design?
Even though low cost programs are available to businesses for layout, design and web work, those types of inexpensive programs create their own set of problems. Most low cost programs are not acceptable to professional printing companies and have many limitations in their application. The majority of printers prefer a file created by the following programs: Quark Express a $900.00 program, Freehand/Illustrator $700.00, or Photoshop $600.00. While these costs may not initially seem substantial, the cost-effectiveness of in house design work with these programs is further reduced by the frequent updating necessary to keep these programs current, efficient and effective. Furthermore, none of these programs is an effective tool by itself; it is necessary to purchase all of these. Quark Express is the most common page layout program used by printers and graphic designers. Freehand and Illustrator are programs used to produce logos and other Vector art. Photoshop is another commonly used program and is used for photo manipulation, to produce specific effects, and to produce raster images. Photoshop should not be used as a layout program except in the rarest of circumstances.
If you find yourself asking, “What are vector art and raster images?”, then you should definitely have an experienced designer on staff. These are just a few of the many technical terms used in the industry that must be understood to design a successful finished product. If the decision has been made to design marketing materials in-house, an experienced designer must be hired. The average salary for a competent graphic designer with 5-10 years experience is about $35,000 to $40,000, plus benefits. Many companies attempt to avoid this cost by having a receptionist, assistant or other unqualified employee work on designing projects. These employees are often not trained to use the required software efficiently, and generally take at least four times as long to complete the task, and with marginal accuracy. A trained designer will know how to use the industry standard design programs and know their limitations; the designer will also know how each file needs to be prepared to be sent to a professional printing company, or to be posted on the web. If any of the necessary tasks involved in design of marketing materials are not completed to 100% accuracy, particularly if the files are not prepared correctly for print, it could cost thousands of dollars to have the mistake fixed by a printer. Never would a business owner hire an unqualified employee to do such tasks as bookkeeping and taxes because of the high risk of costly mistakes, not to mention the inefficiency of time usage that is definite when an under-qualified employee is forced to stumble through unknown tasks and computer software. However, companies still make the mistake of undervaluing the necessity of hiring a competent designer and instead have unqualified employees responsible for the entire image of their company! Businesses need to ensure that they have a talented, experienced professional designer so that they are not sacrificing new business to a poor image. While business owners may save a small amount of money initially by giving design projects to an under-qualified employee, it will most definitely cost them dearly in the long run.
Does the company have enough design work to employ a designer full time?
It would be extremely difficult to find a qualified graphic designer that would be willing to work as needed with the exception of using a temporary or contractual staffing firm.
If a company is not in the position to hire a designer, using a design or advertising agency is an alternative as a means of producing high quality, professional marketing materials. A design company specifically works on the visual appearance of marketing materials whereas an advertising agency handles all aspects of marketing including design.
An advertising or design agency has all of the current programs necessary to produce outstanding, eye-catching marketing materials, and will work directly with professional printers to supply them with the files they require. Because most businesses do not have the budget to buy the required software, to keep that software updated, and to employ a designer full time, using an agency is a very cost and time effective way of producing top quality marketing material. Advertising and design agencies also offer a few advantages over an in-house designer. First, an agency has multiple designers on staff to give a project a team-based approach. This gives a design project the best ideas from a number of different creative sources. Second, an agency has an outside, objective view. Because of their work with a variety of industries, advertising and design agency professionals possess insight into what other organizations are looking for when they look at a potential client’s marketing strategy. An in house designer may lack that insight, working solely for one organization, and may be prone to having a limited perception of what potential clients look for in marketing materials.
Advertising and design agencies also typically offer free price quotes for projects. Every company should at least take the time to get a quote from a reputable agency to determine whether an in-house designer or agency usage is the best choice for their marketing material production.
So what is the bottom line?
The bottom line is this: the intention of producing and distributing marketing materials is to attract new business by creating a positive company image and increasing name recognition. For something as important as the attraction of new clientele and public perception of a business, all costs (relative to both time and money) must be weighed before making any decision regarding production of marketing materials; and while, initially, the cost of creating those materials using a professional designer (in-house or otherwise) may not seem to reflect the immense value of hiring an experienced professional or agency, over time your bottom line will!
Author:
Shawn Coles
Noticed Design, Inc.
www.noticeddesign.com
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright © 2003 - 2008 URL.biz. All rights reserved. |
|
