One of our favorite things to hear at Orbit, or any marketing/advertising firm for that matter, is: “Hello, I need an ad (or a website, or a logo, or a brochure) concepted, written, and designed. The due date was yesterday. Can you do that?”
Creativity (which is an important ingredient for all marketing) takes time. There are many factors and steps that go into creating a marketing piece that is effective, catchy, and rings true to your brand. What really goes on behind the scenes from the time you request a project, to the time you receive your first proofs?
1. Specs/Details
Everyone must start somewhere, whether it is making a decision on the size/shape of your brochure or business card or building information architecture for your website. Your marketing piece needs to have some hard facts before we can really kick things off.
2. Brainstorming/Concepting
Who is your piece targeting? What does your marketing piece communicate to the reader, user, or potential customer? What is the messaging? How do the visuals support the messaging? What is the end goal of the piece (get phone calls , set up an appointment, or strictly educational, etc.)? Your marketing piece could go in thousands of directions, so a brainstorm at Orbit brings out the possibilities and narrows it down to fit your brand and your objective.
3. Writing
Details, details, details. Communicate the important information while offering enough flavor to keep the reader’s attention. Salty headlines and content help your piece interact with the readers.
WARNING: Time is precious; most people don’t read if it looks like it will take up too much time. But, they will read a lot if it is something of interest to them. Find the balance of having too much or too little content.
4. Design
Effective marketing pieces are not word-vomit on a page, they are well-designed and the information is supported by infographics, photos, or diagrams. A picture is worth a thousand words. Images immediately connect to a person, where as words take a bit more time to interpret. Your design should be branded to your colors, your look and feel and be relative to your crowd and your other supporting marketing materials. When you view all of your marketing materials, your brand should look like a family.
So how long does this all take? For the average marketing piece we estimate 5-10 business days (websites are more extensive, so they require 4-6 weeks). If you have questions, or need something faster, just ask and we will work with you to set a realistic timeline together.
Have an idea for a new marketing piece to help your company sell? Give Orbit a call at 303-433-1616 ext. 2# to get started.
Brand well and prosper.
Cyndi