Entrepreneurs are hardy stock. But sometimes hardiness can get you
into trouble.
Especially when you're over committed and could use a little help.
All too often, new business owners decide they don't need to hire any
outside services. You know how it goes?."I can do this myself. How
tough can it be? It's just a simple direct mail campaign."
Big mistake! Trying to do it all yourself ?unless it's your area of
expertise?.usually costs you more in the long run. And most of the time,
the work looks pretty unprofessional.
Here's the scenario?
You're starting a consulting business. You decide you need business
cards, a logo, a handout of some sort and a website. Pretty basic. You
figure you can hire the right people and manage these projects yourself.
So you do. You brainstorm some names for the company, run them by a
few friends and select one for your business. Next you find a designer
whose work you like and meet with her. You describe the services you'll
offer and what colors you do and don't like. Maybe you'll even have
some sketches of what you think your logo should look like.
So the designer (working with minimal direction) starts to work. Unless
you've given her detailed information on your target market, your niche,
how you see your identity developing, this designer is pretty clueless.
But she comes up with some designs. Once again, you go to some
friends and family members for feedback. Based on the general
consensus, you select a design (hopefully, it will fit with your company
name and what you do). You can now either leave it up to the designer
to get printing quotes for your business cards and stationary. Or you can
do it yourself and get some price comparisons. You'll need to know
what type of stock you'd like, paper weight, quantities, etc.
Next you want to start on some sort of handout or brochure. Do you stick
with your logo designer? If so, better make sure you've seen some
samples of brochures she's done. Often designers specialize in one
product or another. I've worked with great logo designers who can't do
other collateral.
And what about your web site? Is your logo designer also able to do
site design? What about development? Not all designers are
developers. In fact, most aren't. The best developers I've found started
out as web folk, whereas my best designers are sticking to what they do
best ? graphic design.
You also need to decide how many pages your site will be, what they
are (the menu), how you want the site to lay out (site map), whether or
not you need a dynamic or static site, what elements need to be
included, etc.
Still happy with your decision? Better make sure you nail down the
costs on all of this so you're not surprised upon completion.
Lastly, don't forget about the copy. You need some for your brochure.
You need different copy for your website. They're different types of
marketing tools and the copy needs to be written in a different style for
each. But everything needs to work together (be integrated) so you
don't look like a fractured company. Your brochure and website should
have the same look and feel?.but the approach is different.
If you're still managing this yourself -- kudos. Especially if you have time
to do any selling or networking or research. Because you've taken on
full-time work as a marketing person/project manager.
To think?. you could have saved yourself a lot of aggravation and time
if only you'd called in a marketing specialist at the beginning. Then
you'd have one person who could manage all the above projects for you:
? working with the designer (or designers) and developers to making
sure everyone involved understood what you do and who you do it
? reviewing, rejecting, and/or approving designs before you ever see
them
? writing copy appropriate for each product
? proofreading
? overseeing all the various vendors to make sure workflow is on
schedule and work is correct
... and only calling you for selection, fact verification or final decisions.
Then again, maybe you like a challenge. Or maybe you just need to
micromanage everything. Because by the time you're done, you're
likely to end up with a disjointed marketing "program" (for lack of a better
word). And when and if you finally do call in a marketing person to
revise your marketing material, you'll probably find that turning
everything over to a specialist -- who does this all the time ? would
actually have cost you less than doing it yourself.
At least you'll know better next time.
Rickey Gold & Associates is a small, hands-on marketing
communications firm that helps clients identify, reach, entice and sell to
their target markets.
http://www.rickeygold.com
rg@rickeygold.com
773.348.4973