Marketing + Margaritas Episode 10 - 3 Things Before Talking to a Designer

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Having the right graphic designer in your corner can be the equivalent of having a magical unicorn in your back pocket (cue the confetti)! They can vividly bring your vision for your brand to life, in glorious detail. But the extent of their magical abilities greatly depends on the direction given - after all, no one is a mind reader. So, we’ve put together our top three tips to consider before talking to a designer, to make the process faster and smoother - giving you more bang for your buck!

Our top 3 tips >>

• Review your current branding

• Put together a clear brief (we delve into using visual elements, past examples, using the correct specs + more)

• Supply good quality files

EPISODE 10 SHOW NOTES

Hello, and welcome to Marketing + Margaritas, you're with Alanna and Jade. Today we are talking about three things to do before talking to your designer.

This is a graphic designer, obviously not your interior designer. A graphic designer - if you're wanting to do a rebrand for your business, or you're wanting a brochure or a corporate profile, or...

A Facebook cover, an ad, anything visual that you're putting together with your branding on it...

This is the stuff that you need - well, not that you need - but if you get this together, this goes a long way in helping you get to the outcome that you want to as quickly and, potentially, affordably as possible. Just remembering that designers, like marketing agencies, are a money per hour service. If you have stuff prepared and you know what you want, and like all the other good tips that we're going to give you, then if you've got someone good working with you, you should be able to get what you want quickly, easily and without spending more than what you need to.

Yeah, without any hassles.

So, tip number one off the bat - well, I guess question really - do you have any current branding? You need to consider what you have. Bring or send examples. If you're going to sit down for a meeting, bring any printed material you have - past flyers, business cards, capability statement, anything you've got, so you can show them what you've been doing. And the question we're going to ask about this is - what do you like about it? And what do you potentially dislike about it? So, if your logo’s been around for 20 years, but you've taken your business in a different direction, and you don't resonate with part of it, this is your chance to start tweaking that or talk to someone who can help you bring your ideas into fruition about where you want to go with this.

And this is something we get quite a bit. Someone who's been in business for two or three years and their friend’s cousin’s mother's brother made their logo for them. And it was 50 bucks and that's all that they needed at the time. You know, bootstrapping as a startup, we've all been there.

It worked.

Yeah, exactly. It did what it needed to do. But now you're making some serious money, you're ready to move out of the home office, and you're wanting to work with some bigger clients and that type of thing. So you want to uplevel your game. And that's where, even if you're not happy with that branding, that logo, those materials - bringing as much along as you can to a meeting or sending as much as you can through to your designer, and saying, "I really love these colours" or "I still really love this font" or "I absolutely hate this signage so much because it looks dated, or it looks old fashioned, or it doesn't represent my business, because XYZ" - all of those are visual clues for your designer.

Yes, most people come to us and they're like, "I just don't like it." It's like, well, what don't you like about it? So try, and if you can, pull out those little bits of details. It can just be like, "I don't like the font."

Yeah, it doesn't have to be big, complicated explanations.

That's a lot to go on, we can start with that. Knowing what parts of it you don't like and what parts of it you do like - that is gold.

Hundred percent. So secondly, what you want to do is be clear on your brief. So when you're going in to talk to someone or emailing someone about the particular item that you're looking for, is to be very clear on what the purpose of the item is. How it's going to be used? Who do you want it to appeal to? What do you want to tell them? And where will it be used? Most people don't do marketing every single day. Marketing people do marketing every day. So, we know all this stuff like the back of our hand. It's common sense to us because this is our industry. Whereas sometimes when people come across something like, "Oh, I just want to get a press ad design done." And it's like, "Okay, cool. So, what magazine? Or what publication is it going into?"

What's their target audience? Because that'll determine who you're speaking to, and what your key message might be.

Yeah, what are you trying to achieve? You know what I mean? Sometimes people get sold on certain packages - billboards or press ads or radio ads or whatever. And it just sounds like a really good deal, but they don't actually know what they want it to achieve.

And then they do just a generic branding and it may not be the best use of that space.

Hundred percent. You know, we've said before - getting your name out there, being visible - that's fantastic. It's really nice if people are seeing you, but maybe you might want something a little more, like their business, for example.

"Hey, we actually do service ABC - come buy from us." Not just like, "Hey, this is our name. Call us tomorrow."

What do you mean? That's exactly how ads work. But yeah, so if you're going to be doing something, it's knowing what's the actual purpose of it, what are you trying to achieve from it, and who you're talking to. So, say you had a new product to promote, and you're going to be putting something into a business magazine, then that is an ad. And then you wanted to repurpose it into, say, a billboard - you might change the words. Sometimes you'll do it exactly the same, but you might change the wording or something slightly to suit whatever that audience is. So actually communicating what is the item and who it's going to be targeting. Again, for example, you might have an ad going into the local paper, so you're like, "Oh, well, everyone is going to see this." But who do you want to target? When you've got a billboard or those kinds of generic platforms - not a specific one, like PakMag or a business magazine or whatever, those kinds of generic platforms - who are you wanting to attract? Do you want mums? Do you want doctors? Are you recruiting? What is the actual purpose of it for you? What do you want to get out of it?

And by including those details in the brief for your designer, they've got a better idea of what visual elements are going to work to talk to those people.

Yes, a hundred percent. So, it's not just the wording - sorry, I'm a words person, so that's where my mind always goes, but Lani's exactly right. For the image, it's what grabs people's attention, first up, and different images will appeal to different types of people, different demographics, different industries, different professions, all that type of thing.

And obviously your designer will align it with your branding, but different colours will talk to different people, as well. So if you're talking to mums, you might get away with a softer palette than you would talking to mining workers.

So, if you're going for just a designer, so a graphic designer, that will obviously be pulling your ad together for you. But as part of your brief, you'll actually need to give them the content as well.

Which are the words.

Sorry, yes, the words. Please just know my marketing jargon, what's wrong with you?

We're going to add a glossary one day, for you.

We need a lot more than just marketing jargon if we're gonna do a glossary. If you're doing a brochure, a capability statement, they've all got their own particular formats, and tips and tricks. But generally, if you're thinking about ads, or even a flyer, what you're looking for is a striking headline. So, you want something that's going to grab people's attention straight away and marry up with that visual, as well. Only put as much information as you need, to get people interested.

Which is probably less than you think. Write your message, and then see what you can pull back out of it.

Don't put more words in there than needed. Because the less there is to read, the more likely people are to read it. For some people, it might be that if they see a paragraph, they're like, "Yep, too much. Not gonna bother even looking at it at all." For other people, you might want to turn it into, say, an opening line, and then three bullet points or something to break that text up. You really want to make it so you give yourself the best chance possible for people to look at your content. For example, if you're going to do a full-page ad, that doesn't mean that you need to fill it with text, you might actually just have one really big bold heading, a positioning statement, and then a call to action. The less that's on there, that still actually communicates something. You don't want to go so scarce that people are like, "I have no idea what this is, what relevance it is to me, this doesn't make sense." You still need to think of it from someone who doesn't know your business. Think of it from their perspective, when they're looking at it. Have they got enough in there that's going to actually hook them to do what you want them to do, which is get in touch with you. You don't want them to just know your name. You want them to get in touch with you.

Absolutely.

And always, always important to have a CTA in there.

Call to action.

I was about to say that! To basically give them a direction on what you want them to do next. For example, if we were going to be advertising this podcast, we wouldn't say "get in touch with us today." We would say, "go to blah, blah to tune in". We might have like the little icons for Spotify and all that shit that the...

All the platforms that we're on.

That's pretty much what I said. Everyone knew what I meant.

Or a link forwarding them to our website or directing them to where they can find what we want them to do.

Yeah, exactly. So if you want people to be going to an open house, then you would give them those details. If you want people to be registering for an event. The CTA is the direction part of the ad, it's what you want people to do. And for some people, that can be that the purpose of an ad, is that they are trying to grow their audience because they're just wanting to widen their reach. That's the growth strategy that they have at the moment. So it could be something more like, "check out our Facebook page" because they're wanting to build an audience so that when they launch - if they haven't launched a product yet, or whatever it might be, waiting to launch a new service or something - so they're trying to build their audience in anticipation of that launch. You could just be directing them to something like Facebook. Facebook is obviously something that when people like your content, they'll hit 'like' on your page and therefore you can keep marketing to them. Whereas if you direct them to your website, unless you've got a really cool lead magnet or opt-in, if you don't have your thing ready to launch and you direct them to your website, then you're not keeping them as an audience member (note - there is retargeting…). And remember too, though, if you're wanting people to sign up to your newsletter, if you're wanting people to follow your Facebook page, give them a good reason. And this is something that marketing people struggle with as well, man. Like trying to think about, from an audience perspective, what is the benefit for them in following someone's Facebook page.

They get to listen to our podcast?

But yeah, tell them what to do and give them something worthwhile to stick around for.

Yeah, exactly. See, now imagine there was a press ad and you just had all my big rambling, and then Lani just summed it up like that. What she said still made sense, it still covered everything, it was just a hell of a lot more succinct. That's what we're looking for when it comes to advertising. And the other thing in your brief as well is letting your designer know if you want to be resizing or repurposing that advertising or that design for anything else. So for example, if you were to get a billboard done, you might then want to have that resized to a Facebook cover.

That's great, because again, and we've talked about this before, that's repurposing your content. So, definitely, something to keep in mind when you are running different advertising campaigns. But they might be a similar size. So, it might be a landscape billboard, and you might have a landscape Facebook cover...

Or email signature, or anything like that...

They're going to have slightly different parameters, they're going to have slightly different spacing and key areas that you can use. But they're also going to have slightly different layout requirements. So, all these things - yes, we'll design them and put them together based on what you're wanting to achieve. But when you look at a Facebook cover, you do have a lot of wasted space, because Facebook brings it in. So there are different areas where you're going to be potentially losing something out of your billboard ad...

That if you were just to upload the billboard design straight to your Facebook cover, you could be cutting out some really important bits. However, if you say to your designer, "Okay, this billboard ad, I want to pay to have this made. But I want to make sure that I use this as much as possible, can you quote on resizing to a cover and an email sig." Then you can get that same design done so that it's optimised for your Facebook cover, optimised for your email signature. And it's a lot less than the cost of creating a whole brand new design, because you've got all of the approved elements to it, they're just rejigging it a bit to suit that platform.

Definitely! You're probably not going to have on your Facebook cover, "Call us today", which will be on your billboard, because they're on Facebook. So, they might be sending your message or giving you an email or they're already there, so they'll know, "Ah, I'll just quickly ask questions in the comments." Same with the email signature, you might be changing that call to action.

When you're going in and giving them that brief, have a little bit of a think beforehand of "Okay if I'm gonna pay to have a design made, where else can I be using this to make sure I leverage it?". And getting that quote all at the same time. But even too, it's for a designer, if they have in mind what the endgame is. If they know that this billboard is going to be a Facebook cover and an email sig, and an Instagram post and whatever else, then when they're designing, they've got that in mind already.

And you're leveraging content for the best bang for buck. Love, love, love!

We're all about that leveraging. Another part of your brief is the actual item specs. So, I was saying before, if you want a press ad design, it's not just saying "Oh, I want a full-page press ad." It's like "Okay, so what are the actual measurements for that press ad? Does it need bleed and crop? What file type does it need to be supplied in? Does it need to be supplied to a certain DPI?" There are all these other specs that come along with design as well. And the more that you can give you a designer upfront to work with, the more likely, again, that you're not having to pay for extra revisions, etc, because you didn't have the right specs, or they had to resave it in five different ways because you didn't give them that information at the start. So if you do have something like a press ad, or a billboard, or whatever, you don't have to go and figure out that information. They just supply you with media kits, they supply you with spec sheets.

Yeah, when you book that, they'll give you that information.

Yes, so pass that along. The number of times that we'll have someone come in saying, "I want a quarter page press ad." I'm like, "Okay, do you mean quarter-page landscape? Or horizontal? What publication is this with?" All those kinds of things. The more information you can give upfront again, the better outcome you're going to be having.

Definitely! A better working relationship you're going to have with your designer.

Yes, exactly. And alongside those item specs, it's also, for example, if you're going to be doing a brochure, then you need to let them know, are you wanting it to be digital only? Or is it going to be printed? So, when you're going printed, they have to be printed in multiples of four. If you're going to be doing a capability statement, you can't have a three-page professionally printed capability statement, it has to be four or eight or 12, and so on. When we were saying before about knowing how it's going to be used and where it's going to be used, if you're like, "Okay, I want to have a corporate profile. And I want to be able to send it, attach it to emails, and I want it downloadable from my website. But I've also got a trade expo coming up, so I want to have printed copies available." So, then you designer knows they need to make it so that it works visually in a fully digital version. Because obviously the spreads look a little bit different when it's digital. And then it also needs to work for printed versions - it can't have a random front and back cover - the back and front cover need to work together to match up. So, knowing what you're going to be using it for, giving them that information at the start is going to just give you a way better result.

Another thing is that, as we said, if you are going to a designer direct, you will need to give them the actual words that you want to use as well. So the brochure copy, the ad copy, capability statement copy, whatever it might be. If you're going to agencies like us, we have copywriters, but they do still need a brief. You can't just turn up to an agency and be like, "Write me a capability statement, I'm sure it will be fabulous." We need to know what makes you different? What are the services that you do? Why are yours better than others? What qualifications do you have? What's your credibility? What clients have you worked with? What are some outstanding projects? You still need to put a little time and thought into it, for us to create the best product possible. And honestly, after doing this for gazillions of years, like - everyone's busy, man, I totally understand that. And when it's something that you're not used to doing, like putting together marketing collateral, it can feel a bit too hard a basket to have a think. But I can promise you that if you actually take a little bit of time, and go, "Okay, this is my corporate profile, I want to put my best foot forward." Thinking to yourself, who are some great clients that I've worked with? What are some awesome projects that I have done? What are my services? Sometimes, it's even nutting out service offerings. People can be a bit all over the place because some businesses grow and change so quickly - trust us, we know. Knowing your service list is not always as easy as it seems. But having all that information and giving it to your copywriter - if you're working with one - at the start, means that they have everything to make you sound not only as good as possible but to make it sound like you. As a copywriter, when people come along, and I feel for them, I know that they're busy. But if you give me a few scraps, an old brochure, and a three-page website that you hate and is out of date - I am not a magic wand. I can't turn that into the best corporate profile possible. But if you work with me, if you give me that information, and you put that time and thought into it, then I can do my best and write something that just really shows who you are and why you're so special and why people should work with you.

Absolutely. And look if all...

I’m passionate about it. I love copywriting.

Can you tell? And all of those questions that Jade just rattled off the top of her head so quickly absolutely daunts you, and you don't even know the answers to them - that is okay, but be prepared. You will get homework, you will get that sent to you going, "All right, I need this information." And even if you have to put it in dot points...

Dot points are the best. Honestly, when people write out sentences, I can tell that they are trying to make it sound as good as possible.

They're pushing.

They're putting spin onto it already. I just need the raw data. I need the actual information which I don't know. If you are a carpenter, and the tools that you use are top grade because of like - I don't fucking know tools - you know what I mean? I need you to tell me that stuff, but you don't need to write up a paragraph about it. I just need the actual information and then I can turn it into whatever for you. Sorry, this episode was meant to be about designers, and I'm just making it all about the copy.

Yeah, someone's got on a little tangent, but that's okay.

How about we just jump to the last point so that I don't keep rambling?

Right, which is number three - bring your best files. So, you're a business, you have a logo, hopefully, you have a style guide. But depending on if your second cousin’s brother’s nephew did your logo...

Hey man, he really likes design, and you just want to help a friend out!

He did a great job, it cost you 50 bucks. Bring the best logo file you have. There are different formats.

Bring all your logo files, that's always my opinion. I'm not a designer, and someone will send through files to me, and they're like, " Is this okay?" And I'm like, just give me every file that you have for your logo. And then that way, the designers can filter through it, and be like, " This RGB PSD is perfect for us".

Yeah, so different file formats that your original graphic designer would have exported your logo at, are good for different platforms and different uses and different programs. But something I have found over the years is people tend to collect their own logo in low res copies here and there.

"Oh, I gave it to someone to build my website five years ago. So I'll just right click and save from my website because that's going to be high quality."

No, please don't do that.

It's your logo, it's your identity, treat it with a little bit of care. Have a folder that has all your beautiful logo suites in it, your style guide, with all your colour breakdowns, and your fonts and all that kind of thing. Treat it with respect, because that's a big part of your business. I'm high-horsing, aren't I?

As long as she knows it, right? So yes, if you've got logo files and your style guide, which is a beautiful document that your designer would have put together with your different fonts, your colour breakdowns, and that kind of information - send that to us, that is gold. Your designer will love you for it. The next thing is to bring or supply high-quality images. So if we're doing a capability statement, that's going to be printed A4 on high-quality stock, you're going to want really good quality photos. And same for your website - if you have a photo library of when you get professional photoshoots done, that's fantastic. We all have freaking amazing cameras on our phones these days, so if you just happen to be really great at taking photos - great lighting, great subject, in focus, that kind of stuff, send them through. Some photos may not be the right quality or the right fit for what your designer is using it for, but at least they have an idea of what you're trying to achieve. So, if we need to go and look for some stock images to be used, instead, we at least know what direction you're looking in.

And the thing is too, when people think about image libraries, is that there are so many different platforms that you could be using your images on. So for example, with a website, people often forget, most of them have an image banner along the top. Really have a look at that - it is a long, skinny landscape image. So, your group photo, or whatever you might think would be fantastic in there, might actually cut everyone's head off, if you put it in there, depending on whether it's on mobile, desktop, etc. So, with your image library, it's the more that you can give, the better because we've had image libraries come through from professional photographers before, where there'd be 40 images, and there might literally be two that we can use for website banners, except we have like 10 pages to do.

I was gonna say, if you have had a professional shoot done, send them all through because your photographer might have edited some down. Whereas we might want that extra space on the outsides of the photos, so it can fit in an area like Jade's just described. So yeah, original and the best quality you have.

And if you don't have any, your designer can look for stock images. But honestly, there's nothing to stop you from going and having a squizz as well. We work with a lot of industrial clients and to me, a big yellow truck is the same as every other big bloody yellow truck out there - I cannot tell the difference between a dozer and a water truck. Are they actually different? I don't know. I really want to drive one though. If anyone out there has the capability to let me drive a big yellow truck, get in touch with us, because that's a dream of mine, I've always wanted to do that.

Just as long as your insurance is in date.

So, for example, we use iStock. Shutterstock is another one as well. But if you go on to those stock image sites yourself and have a sticky beak to find the kind of images that you like. Because that's another thing, we'll be working with people, and we'll drop in some stock images, and they're like, "Ah, that looks a little too clean" or "We don't actually really work with those kinds of client." And it's like, cool, we can spend our time and your money continually looking for more images about your business, when we don't work in your business and know nothing about it.

And it's a rabbit hole.

Or you can spend 5 - 10 minutes yourself, have a bit of a search, just give us a few examples. And then we go, "Ah, cool, I can now actually see what you're looking for."

Photos can come in so many different tones, whether it's just the lighting or the actual content in it, they can really vary. And that can really set your design apart for what you actually want to achieve. So yeah, it's a really great thing. There's, like Jade said, Shutterstock, iStock, there's a lot of free stock pics.

That leads us to the wrap-up tip for today. Designers are visual people, so when you are wanting to work with a designer, and you want to give them the best brief possible so that you get the best design possible, then highly recommend having a Google and looking for examples of other stuff that you like. If you're going to be getting a billboard, you can just google billboard designs, or brochures or press ads, or whatever it might be...

Car signage is a really good one to have examples on.

Oh my God, there are so many variables to car signage.

So, if you've seen examples of stuff that you like - collect it and bring it along. Even if it's just down to the point where you're like, "I just want the back done, this one's done really well." That is a great starting point.

So true! And it doesn't have to be from your industry, either. It's not like if you're a doctor, you don't need to Google medical ads, look at other industries, just to find examples of stuff that you like. Actually, it was really interesting - we had a client one time who just started off a new business, and she did a Pinterest board for us, which God love her - it was Laura. She did a Pinterest board of all different design things that she liked that she had felt were akin to her business. And she was like, "I'm so sorry, this is the most random bunch of stuff." One of our designers looked at it and was like, "I can see that she likes these dual tones. She likes soft edges, she likes texture." Just because they're visual, she's picked up all the patterns. We did a logo for it, and she just loved it and it worked so well together. I'm not a visual person - I'm a words person, as you can tell by how much I talk - but having those visual examples to show them, rather than trying to explain what's in your mind. Honestly, the amount of times that people will try and explain something to us and even I'm like, "Dude, I don't get what you're saying." And then they'll give us a visual example and I'm like, "Woohoo, crystal clear! Now I get exactly what you're trying to say." So, have a Google, find some examples, because that can cut through so much time for both you and your designer.

And that leads me to a thought. If you've got an idea of the visual that you want, if you're a visual person, as well - scribble it down!

Most people are actually quite visual, it's just randoms like me that aren't.

Scribble it down. You're welcome to send through a lovely stick drawing or, if you're really talented, go for gold. But send through a little mock-up if you've got something specific in mind and our designers, or your designer can help bring it to fruition.

Hundred percent.

Awesome. Well, we hope you enjoyed the latest episode of Marketing + Margaritas. Thank you for joining us.

Cheers!