Slow Summer? Time to Crank Out the Promotional Pieces
Clients have vanished to exotic destinations, time is hanging heavy on your hands? Well, probably not. Any "free" time seems to get sucked into a black hole of getting caught up with paperwork or mastering new capabilities in Creative Suite applications. But how to keep that design edge sharp during the summer doldrums? Well, when's the last time you created promotional pieces for yourself or your clients? I was reminded of this recently when I posted an article by John McWade, of Before & After magazine, on Graphics.com.
In Designing a Small Chart Promotional Piece John points out that "Usefulness is the idea behind these flat, lightly magnetic vinyl charts; pass them out to your customers, and you stay in their kitchens forever. They’re great for visibility." You can approach this from two perspectives. First, what would be an appropriate promotional piece that you could offer your customers, as something to add to an existing campaign or as a new project. If you can come up with something that's a fit in form and function for internal use by employees of your larger clients, as ongoing giveaways for their clients or for a special event, it's worth pitching.
Then there are self-promotional pieces for your own design services. These can range from utililiarian objects to whimsical flights of fancy, with a goal of reminding your client base about your services or to generate new interest from prospects. There is enough art involved in this that HOW Magazine devotes one of its annual competitions to the topic, as well as its September/October issue. In fact, why not take a shot at getting one of your promotional items included in their next competition? You should be entering design competitions on a regular basis, since such awards add luster to your brand and justify the big bucks you bill clients. Here's how one winner of last year's competition added the recognition to its site.
What have your experiences been creating self-promotions for yourself or your clients? And if you know of great examples, why not add a pointer to them below?
I think the biggest mistake any designer can make is to wait until the workload is low to start creating a self-promotion strategy or marketing piece. If work is not coming in the door, going into panic mode is not usually going to make potential projects magically appear in a timely manner. Designers need to be putting time and energy into self-promotion ALL the time - even when they are at their busiest - to create a possible even flow of project work. I have no client contact on Fridays - my "office hours" are Monday through Thursday; 8:00 to 5:00 - and several hours of each Friday is spent on ongoing marketing efforts. The result is that I am sometimes scheduling projects out as my as three months in advance.