Create all your marketing materials online for free? Now what?
May 2nd, 2009 // 10:07 pm @ admin
In todays market there are lots of startups with SaaS solutions, offering companies the ability to create and launch their marketing and PR programs online either for free or at a very minimal monthly charge.
With these services you can get your logo designed (http://www.99designs.com), create brochures, build branded, rich-media content and widgets (http://www.sproutbuilder.com), design and develop CMS based websites (http://www.squarespace.com) with analytic behind them (http://www.google.com/analytics), start and manage your PR campaign (http://www.prnewswire.com), build and monitor a search engine marketing program or simply run an online advertising and email campaign (http://www.constantcontact.com http://www.verticalresponse.com – http://www.myemma.com) and monitor the results.
These services just like any other online offering have their great features and usage as well as some bugs and problems. Given time the bugs will be fixed and glitches ironed out and soon we will all be able to create and manage our own marketing and PR campaigns online at a fraction of what it would cost to work with today’s traditional marketing and PR firms.
The question comes up, “If we can design, implement and manage all our marketing and PR campaigns online for these nominal fees then do we really need to invest in any outside branding, marketing or PR agencies? and if we don’t then where should we really invest our marketing dollars?
I like to use a metaphor in order to make sense of this situation and attempt to answer this question as language alone cannot do the job. I believe that all different marketing and PR programs in print and online such as company’s logos, brochures, websites, blogs, online ad campaigns, email campaigns and press releases are all ingredients to a concoction that needs to be diligently and carefully cooked and brought to perfection. This concoction is what is going to wow your audience. Its the combination of these ingredients that brings about that enticing aroma (your brand’s message) that lures the audience.
I believe that without an experienced chef, this concoction is not possible and having that individual that can bring all this together is what is necessary and a must. This individual I am speaking of is your marketing consultant. Someone that understands your market, can assist you with creation of your brand message and carrying that message repeatedly and consistantly through all your marketing programs and campaigns. I would invest my marketing dollars on a professional marketing consultant that can make your brand happen.
Category : corporate marketing
snaegele
10 months ago
In the past 15 years it has not been uncommon for individuals at some of my
clients to buy photoshop and become involved in doing ads or brochures or logos.
Most of the efforts have not been very good and when at least the visual design looked presentable it was because they had copied something else. But they all thought that the work was very good, if not excellent and creative.
When we see the results of non design individuals using PowerPoint we also see a lot of poor design. In both of these situations what I mean by poor design is efforts in which the design is not implementing the marketing strategy.
I think that most non designers do not grasp that design organizes and creates a strategically appropriate feeling for the purpose.For them a design that looks nice or is visually exciting is good design.
On the other hand I think people at many levels, especially students who use computers and MSWword and PowerPoint are increasingly becoming more sophisticated in using heads, subheads, body copy, italic, leading, type size and to an extent color and typefaces and understanding somewhat that typography works to organize information.
I have found for non designers I can set up in MSWord, or PowerPoint situations where I have designed the template with a set of instructions and they can generate consistent well designed materials. We can see the same thing with blogs such as WordPress where given a good template non designers can use it well.
As students increasingly use computers in school they will become more sophisticated and skilled at using basic design principles as a tool for organization of information and this will influence the workplace after they enter it.
However I doubt that non designers will develop the abilities to use design to implement marketing strategies in the kind of creative way that makes a difference in marketing. This is a skill the designer has inside of himself or herself.
For example these logo auctions are mostly illustrations. A person throws up a bunch of designs and someone picks the one they like.
To develop the kind of logo that implements the marketing strategy at feeling level requires the designer and marketing ( i.e. the people who develop the marketing strategy and objectives) to be interactively working together during the process of design. And then post design the logo needs consistent and creative application in its design-use over time to really get the branding and identity work out of it.
But yes, as time goes on non-designers will increasingly become more and more sophisticated at using design as a tool for organizing information to increase its ability to communicate information. And they will be more effective using these tools on the WWW.