10 Top Tips for DIY Design for your business

Tags

dare to know, design for business, rhian lonergan white

Design is an integral part of a professional-looking business, but you may not want to invest in outsourcing the work. If you have decided to DIY design and don’t know where to start, these ten tips should help you on your way.

1. Get to know your printer. A good printer can tell you the most cost-effective way to print, advise on paper weight, resolution and colour management. They will also tell you what format they can print, something you need to know way before you even get started on your design project.

2. Get more than one printing quote. Printing prices and quality vary massively from printer to printer and most expensive does not mean best quality or service, so always shop around before you decide.

3. Buy Books. There are some great books available for ‘Non-designers’ who want to design their own promotional literature. Learn simple rules that if you follow your designs will vastly improve, so invest in some books and take time to learn.

4. Collect stuff. If you find yourself in front of a leaflet stand, close your eyes, open them and take the first leaflet that you notice. Chances are, this will be well designed. If you keep a box full of designs you like and you think are good, these will help improve your designs and provide inspiration.

5. Ask people what they think. Always get a second opinion on what you have designed. You might have missed something important or may not be getting the right message across with your use of colour, fonts or images.

6. Use good software. Adobe InDesign is what I use to do Graphic Design and I wouldn’t recommend using anything else. However, it is not cheap. But, you get what you pay for and it is an invaluable tool in producing professional design.

7. Avoid Clipart. How often I have seen a poster draped in Clipart and avoided the event advertised simply as a result of this. Clipart is often used by design novices and makes the design look like it has been designed by a novice. Avoid at all costs!

8. No image is better than a bad image. Too many times have I seen designs with poor images, pixelated and inappropriate to the context of the design. You can easily tell when someone has sourced a low quality image off the internet and plonked it into a layout. It makes you look bad. If in doubt, take it out.

9. Be consistent. Find a design style that is appropriate for your business and stick to it. Consistency is vital in creating the right image.

10. Be Bold, show personality. Don’t be afraid to use striking colours or abstract images in your design. There’s nothing less inspiring than a brochure full of pictures of people in suits sitting round tables.

Feel free to contact Rhian of dare to know ltd if you need any help or guidance.

My spec:

Rhian Lonergan-White BA Hons graduated in 1999 from Liverpool John Moores University with a degree in TV production. She spent 5 years with the Oxford University museum, The Ashmolean, as an in-house graphic designer, where she was responsible for exhibition, book and front-of-house design. During this time Rhian was DJ-ing in Oxford, running her own club nights and designing many books and other assorted material for prestigious organisations such as The British Violin Making Association and The Association for Cultural Enterprise. She also held two successful graphic art exhibitions in Oxford.

Rhian moved to North Lincolnshire in 2007, setting up her multi-discipline creative services company, dare to know ltd. Her time is now divided between being commissioned for bespoke graphic art for businesses and individuals, graphic design projects, photography assignments and film production jobs. Rhian’s colourful style of graphic art has been described as ‘hyper-surreal and fantastical’, where the use of photographs to transcend the ordinary becomes ‘visual alchemy’, as described in The Journal, to create something truly unique. She also works as a creative workshop facilitator in all things creative and including podcasting, film-making and animation, as well as giving tutorials in creative software such as Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Final Cut Pro and all things ‘Mac’.

With dare to know, Rhian has enjoyed a very busy and successful first two years in business, with many workshop projects winning awards, most notably an animation won the Children’s section at the International Animation Film Festival in the Czech Republic in 2008.

Introducing Guest Blogger Rhian Lonergan-White from dare to know Ltd, a North Lincolnshire based multi-disciplinary creative services agency.

Design is an integral part of a professional-looking business, but you may not want to invest in outsourcing the work. If you have decided to DIY design and don’t know where to start, these ten tips should help you on your way.

1. Get to know your printer. A good printer can tell you the most cost-effective way to print, advise on paper weight, resolution and colour management. They will also tell you what format they can print, something you need to know way before you even get started on your design project.
2. Get more than one printing quote. Printing prices and quality vary massively from printer to printer and most expensive does not mean best quality or service, so always shop around before you decide.
3. Buy Books. There are some great books available for ‘Non-designers’ who want to design their own promotional literature. Learn simple rules that if you follow your designs will vastly improve, so invest in some books and take time to learn.
4. Collect stuff. If you find yourself in front of a leaflet stand, close your eyes, open them and take the first leaflet that you notice. Chances are, this will be well designed. If you keep a box full of designs you like and you think are good, these will help improve your designs and provide inspiration.
5. Ask people what they think. Always get a second opinion on what you have designed. You might have missed something important or may not be getting the right message across with your use of colour, fonts or images.
6. Use good software. Adobe InDesign is what I use to do Graphic Design and I wouldn’t recommend using anything else. However, it is not cheap. But, you get what you pay for and it is an invaluable tool in producing professional design.
7. Avoid Clipart. How often I have seen a poster draped in Clipart and avoided the event advertised simply as a result of this. Clipart is often used by design novices and makes the design look like it has been designed by a novice. Avoid at all costs!
8. No image is better than a bad image. Too many times have I seen designs with poor images, pixelated and inappropriate to the context of the design. You can easily tell when someone has sourced a low quality image off the internet and plonked it into a layout. It makes you look bad. If in doubt, take it out.
9. Be consistent. Find a design style that is appropriate for your business and stick to it. Consistency is vital in creating the right image.
10. Be Bold, show personality. Don’t be afraid to use striking colours or abstract images in your design. There’s nothing less inspiring than a brochure full of pictures of people in suits sitting round tables.

Feel free to contact Rhian of dare to know ltd if you need any help or guidance.

Rhian Lonergan-White BA Hons graduated in 1999 from Liverpool John Moores University with a degree in TV production. She spent 5 years with the Oxford University museum, The Ashmolean, as an in-house graphic designer, where she was responsible for exhibition, book and front-of-house design. During this time Rhian was DJ-ing in Oxford, running her own club nights and designing many books and other assorted material for prestigious organisations such as The British Violin Making Association and The Association for Cultural Enterprise. She also held two successful graphic art exhibitions in Oxford.

Rhian moved to North Lincolnshire in 2007, setting up her multi-discipline creative services company, dare to know ltd. Her time is now divided between being commissioned for bespoke graphic art for businesses and individuals, graphic design projects, photography assignments and film production jobs. Rhian’s colourful style of graphic art has been described as ‘hyper-surreal and fantastical’, where the use of photographs to transcend the ordinary becomes ‘visual alchemy’, as described in The Journal, to create something truly unique. She also works as a creative workshop facilitator in all things creative and including podcasting, film-making and animation, as well as giving tutorials in creative software such as Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Final Cut Pro and all things ‘Mac’.

With dare to know, Rhian has enjoyed a very busy and successful first two years in business, with many workshop projects winning awards, most notably an animation won the Children’s section at the International Animation Film Festival in the Czech Republic in 2008.

Resource: Mailchimp.com for E-newsletters

Tags

email marketing, mailchimp

Many of my clients often ask how they would go about  sending out email newsletters to their own customer list. One online service that I’ve been using as have several of my clients is www.mailchimp.com. It’s easy to use, offers a pay-as-you-go payment plan, brilliant for small businesses. It has stacks of excellent features to help you maintain and build your contact lists, create nice looking and effective email newsletters, and has a fully comprehensive campaign tracking and reports facility. Plus is a brilliant way of driving traffic to your website!

mailchimp.com email newsletter online service

Using email marketing, that is keeping in contact with your customers via email, is a great way to open communication channels and keep your business in the forefront of your customers’ minds.  If done well, it’s a really effective means to increase your brand/business exposure to those new and existing customers that might need your services now and in the future.

Email newsletters are perfect for promoting your products and services in a timely and appropriate fashion, letting customers know about any new offers/promotions/developments within your business, sharing customer feedback and testimonials, and just generally keeping your name out there.

Mailchimp is an excellent tool to help with your email marketing efforts.  It’s main benefits are:

• the creation of professional looking emails that work with all the different types of email clients such as Outlook, gmail, hotmail, AOL and so forth, as often these will visually render the same email differently, some will remove images, some will only show text, others are very strict about what constitutes spam. Mailchimp allows you to create emails using their own tried and tested email templates, or with a little knowledge you’re able to customise these to create something truly unique.
• awesome list management capabilities. Mailchimp allows you to manage as many contact lists as you need, letting you create lists on the fly, uploading existing customers lists or even putting special code onto your website so any new ‘newsletter’ join-ups are added automatically to the relevant Mailchimp list (that is providing you abide by the current opt-in contact list regulations that stipulate all contacts on a list have knowingly agreed to opt-in to receiving your email newsletters – Data Protection Act 1998). Mailchimp list management also allows for such things as automatic and recorded unsubscribes and list segmentation.
• A fully comprehensive report and tracking centre. Each campaign sent has it’s own set of reports to tell you how many and who opened your email, how many bounced, how many regarded your email as spam, when and where emails were opened, how many were forwarded using easy to read graphics with the ability to download as an Excel spreadsheet. And all against industry benchmarks. One tool that many of my clients have found very useful is the A/B split testing that helps determine the best practice for their email campaigns. It also allows for Google Analytics integration to better track website clicks.
• Many more features including data security and privacy, maximum deliverability and plenty of useful help and support.

The best bit for small businesses is that it is free to use for up to lists of 500.  After that you simply go onto using one of their pay-monthly programmes or the pay-as-you-go plan where you purchase credits as and when you need them.

You can read more about www.mailchimp.com at their website.  Providing that you aren’t spamming customers with irrelevant and too frequent material and that your email content sends suitable and well-timed messages to customers who have opted-in to receive them, using an online service such as Mailchimp is a truly hassle-free way to start connecting with your customers and is superbly cost-effective.

You can find out more about email marketing here:

• http://www.mailchimp.com/resources/
• http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1073919418
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_marketing
• http://www.audettemedia.com/blog/email-marketing-tips/
• http://www.emailbrain.com/eb/resources.shtml

Good luck!

Don’t stop marketing – budget ways to max your mix in a recession

Tags

low cost marketing, recession marketing

We’re proud to introduce our first GUEST blogger, Tracey Baty from three60 marketing and pr, an East Yorkshire based small and rural business creative marketing specialist.

I was recently invited by Katrina Thompson  to talk to a women’s networking group www.meet-yorkshire.co.uk about marketing tips for small businesses during a recession.

My first tip was more of a plea – Don’t stop marketing!  I used information from the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) to illustrate that, although 45% of companies reduced their marketing budgets in the first quarter of 2009, 11% of companies planned to increase spend and it would be these businesses who would win out in the end. 

Jim Connolly bears this out in a recent blog post when he discovered that businesses who not only survived, but thrived during the last recession had one thing in common – they continued to invest in the key areas of their businesses; like marketing. 

As the CIM’s (Chartered Institue of Marketing) Mark Stuart says, “Customers do not stop buying in a downturn: they just buy differently.”

Having hopefully convinced the ladies of the need to step up their marketing activity, I went on to share some tips that have worked for me and my clients.  I encouraged the audience to consider low cost ways to raise awareness of their businesses and recounted my own experiences about three60 branded cycle paniers (www.bikebins.com – not sure if the idea is to promote, or not!) whilst holidaying in France – my web stats showed a marked increase in French visitors for those two weeks in August!  Not only that, but did you know you can claim 20p a mile for cycling to client meetings?

We also talked about the opportunities that recent journalist redundancies on regional newspapers afforded small business owners with a story to tell.  You can either write a short piece about the story yourself (take a look at the papers you’re targeting to get a feel for how the journalists write) and submit it to the paper (ideally with a picture of about 1MB), or call the paper or radio station and tell them about your story.  Try to choose a story that will interest their readers/listeners and take the opportunity to promote your business on the back of it.  For example, a Hull couple made headlines after the 2007 floods forced them out of their home and made them re-evaluate their lives.  Aged 50plus, they subsequently resigned from their careers and have launched their own business.

We’re very lucky to be business owners in rural East Yorkshire as we’re a very tight knit community.  Research amongst my clients suggests that they are gaining business as the recession deepens as we’re all encouraged to pull together, shop local and safeguard livelihoods and communities.  I encouraged the ladies to maximise this opportunity and to consider collaborations with other complementary businesses.  For example, the celebrated East Yorkshire Wildlife artist, Robert Fuller, is launching his latest exhibition on Father’s Day and is treating Dads to a glass of ale from nearby Wold Top Brewery.  Cheers!

Given that it was a networking meeting, there was no doubt about the extensive low cost opportunities that all types of networking affords small business owners, but the ladies were asked to consider the benefits of social media as part of their marketing armoury.  Many use Facebook and similar social networking sites to interact with friends and family but had not considered using such tools to raise awareness of their businesses and drive traffic to their websites.  A friend of mine was recently encouraged to join the online business network ecademy and within hours his business had grabbed the attention of a BNI Director in Sydney.  The result? They’re meeting up in Sydney when the client visits for a holiday next month!   

So whatever you do – don’t stop marketing! Make the most of the many low-cost but effective marketing opportunities available to you and your business.

Tracey Baty is the founder of three60 marketing and pr and specialises in helping small and rural businesses to grow through creative marketing communications.