Entrepreneurs are hardy stock. But sometimes hardiness can get youinto 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 anyoutside services. You know how it goes?."I can do this myself. Howtough can it be? It's just a simple direct mail campaign."
Big mistake! Trying to do it all yourself ?unless it's your area ofexpertise?.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 businesscards, a logo, a handout of some sort and a website. Pretty basic. Youfigure you can hire the right people and manage these projects yourself.
So you do. You brainstorm some names for the company, run them by afew friends and select one for your business. Next you find a designerwhose work you like and meet with her. You describe the services you'lloffer and what colors you do and don't like. Maybe you'll even havesome sketches of what you think your logo should look like.
So the designer (working with minimal direction) starts to work. Unlessyou'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 somefriends and family members for feedback. Based on the generalconsensus, you select a design (hopefully, it will fit with your companyname and what you do). You can now either leave it up to the designerto get printing quotes for your business cards and stationary. Or you cando it yourself and get some price comparisons. You'll need to knowwhat type of stock you'd like, paper weight, quantities, etc.
Next you want to start on some sort of handout or brochure. Do you stickwith your logo designer? If so, better make sure you've seen somesamples of brochures she's done. Often designers specialize in oneproduct or another. I've worked with great logo designers who can't doother collateral.
And what about your web site? Is your logo designer also able to dosite design? What about development? Not all designers aredevelopers. In fact, most aren't. The best developers I've found startedout as web folk, whereas my best designers are sticking to what they dobest - graphic design.
You also need to decide how many pages your site will be, what theyare (the menu), how you want the site to lay out (site map), whether ornot you need a dynamic or static site, what elements need to beincluded, etc.
Still happy with your decision? Better make sure you nail down thecosts 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 ofmarketing tools and the copy needs to be written in a different style foreach. But everything needs to work together (be integrated) so youdon't look like a fractured company. Your brochure and website shouldhave the same look and feel?.but the approach is different.
If you're still managing this yourself -- kudos. Especially if you have timeto do any selling or networking or research. Because you've taken onfull-time work as a marketing person/project manager.
To think?. you could have saved yourself a lot of aggravation and timeif only you'd called in a marketing specialist at the beginning. Thenyou'd have one person who could manage all the above projects for you:
? working with the designer (or designers) and developers to makingsure everyone involved understood what you do and who you do it
? reviewing, rejecting, and/or approving designs before you ever seethem
? writing copy appropriate for each product
? proofreading ? overseeing all the various vendors to make sure workflow is onschedule 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 tomicromanage everything. Because by the time you're done, you'relikely to end up with a disjointed marketing "program" (for lack of a betterword). And when and if you finally do call in a marketing person torevise your marketing material, you'll probably find that turningeverything over to a specialist -- who does this all the time - wouldactually have cost you less than doing it yourself.
At least you'll know better next time.
Rickey Gold & Associates is a small, hands-on marketingcommunications firm that helps clients identify, reach, entice and sell totheir target markets. http://www.rickeygold.com
rg@rickeygold.com
773.348.4973 |
