9 Tips for Great Design of Your Marketing Materials

1) Don't just hire a good designer. Hire someone who has had plenty of experience designing business collateral. Your designer needs to ask you the right questions about the project. And he/ she needs to be able to turn the design round reasonably fast too.

2) Write the copy first. I believe the copy drives the project. (Unless this is a print ad, in which case the visual and headline will often dominate).

3) Read your copy word for word to your designer. You'd be amazed how often designers don't understand the project because they haven't been properly briefed. Your designer is going to be expressing in design the same persuasive arguments that you / your writer will be articulating in words.

4) Ensure that your designer communicates your branding i.e. the values you are trying to communicate.

5) Check that the copy is easy to read once it has been laid out by your designer. If the design takes too much attention to itself, then your readers won't be following your arguments.

6) A professional designer will give you a creative brief: he sets out on paper the brief as he understands it. This includes the brand and the benefits of the offer in question. The creative brief means misunderstandings get cleared up before it they are too expensive to change.

7) He'll then present you with 2-3 design options for your review, about 3 weeks later.

8) Remember, you aren't choosing the color for your sports car, you are choosing the piece that best reflects the brand and personality of your company or offering.

9) Finally your designer brings you the finished product. He instructs printers and oversees production.

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About The Author

I'm Neroli Lacey of Beyond Communications Inc. in Minneapolis, MN. I've been helping executives transform their businesses and their lives with outstanding marketing materials since 1995. VISA, 3M and Perot Systems are some of my bigger clients. I have worked with clients in Boston, San Francisco, Dallas, Austin, Minneapolis, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Dublin and Delhi. I used to be one of the top journalists in Britain writing for The Times, The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian, The Evening Standard, New Statesman, Vogue and Tatler.

Before newspapers I was an investment banker. I grew up in London, England, studying Latin with Greek at Bristol University.

Please visit my website: www.beyondcommunications.com

Or contact me at: neroli@beyondcommunications.com

612-215-3826