Packaging your design services like TOYS

All Posts, Marketing

Toy TruckMy kids recently taught me a lesson in how they view the world I’ve put around them. Eating dinner and taking showers aren’t they’re most favorite things to do. But having “lunch” and taking bubble baths are. At first glance the two comparisons don’t seem to be much, but they actually are. It’s all in the wrapping and presentation. Much like how toys are always in bright vibrant colors, and most other products are boring and bland colored.

Consider your current design services. You probably have a website, tri-fold brochure, business card, and maybe a postcard flyer. What I want you to think about or review is how each of those mediums may look to your potential clients. Lets strip away all the marketing views for now, and focus purely on design and eye-candy appeal. Most consumers are impulse buyers. I’d like to separate that into two: visual impulse and conceptual impulse.

Visually your mediums should be entertaining to the eyes when they first see it. Almost telling a story about how much fun they’ll have with this new possible toy. Remember how excited you would get seeing that new commercial for a G.I. Joe action figure? You knew it didn’t move on its own, but seeing it do all those cool moves in the commercial gave you this urge that you had to have it. You visually saw yourself playing with that toy the same way.

A more aggressive approach would be to fine tune some of your mediums for the conceptual business owners. They’ll purchase mainly because they already understand a specific service or product need in their minds. Sure you may offer many design services, but they’re only interested in one. Once you can identify that, it will become your open door to offering other companion services to them.

I would suggest the same for when you setup a package specific for a new potential client. Do a little research and see if you can find out what may be eye-catching to them. If it’s through someone who may be referring you to their associate, ask questions about habits, likes, and what they favor. Use this information to almost customize your approach and re-edit your flyers and media kit to really get that “new toy” mesmerizing effect. Here are some tips:

  • Less clutter – It’s easier to grab a potential client’s attention when they don’t have to use too much of their brain or eyes overlooking a lot of content. That goes from websites to business cards.
  • Choose to use colors or Not – Bright colors aren’t necessarily always a good thing. Sometimes all white with one accent color could stand out more than a rainbow. However some well placed bright colors have a way of bringing back memories of long-lost toys that we loved when we were younger.
  • Vectors or real Pictures – This is another either or cases here. And I’m not talking clip art. If you’re more into vectors then stay there and keep with the theme. Same if you’re using real images. But with real images you can do a lot of easy editing to have so cool effects that could create a visual for a client’s own product.
  • Current Trends and Themes – When Transformers came out, big companies were falling over themselves to jump on the bandwagon and cross-promote using the Autobots and their products. If you have time, why not do the same with some of your flyers or brochures or website. It’s sure to get attention and spark conversation. The key would be to tie that in to a specific service on your part though.

Have you used this strategy before? If so I’d like to hear about it. Any other points and comments are also welcome in the fields below.

Where to find the best real world advice

Web Design

People and a mouseWe’re all familiar with some industry blogs. There are blogs upon blogs for just about every topic you can think of. For us in particular, designers have many interesting blogs like:

Everyday these blogs and more put out pretty good content on various topics that are relevant to us all. However, most of that content is from a true professional experience. Another words, the person writing the post usually has some level of authority on the subject and has been involved in the industry for many years. The key is to focus on the comments from real users like you.

The rich content I’m talking about, the real world advice is in the comments. I’m not negating the post itself, but you’ll hear some real honesty in the comments. Think of this; your favorite design blogger posts about some new piece of software from Adobe. They talk about their first experience using it, how much it costs them (probably nothing), and how they like or dislike using it. All of those opinions are based on their feelings for that software apart from the many other programs they have access to. The average designer, especially those just starting out, don’t have the money to just keep buying software until they find one they really gel will.

Now reading the responses in the comments area is where the real gems are. This is where you’ll hear arguments from many people on their “real world” experiences. From the amateurs talking about the learning curve on using an application, to seasoned users explaining why an open sourced program has better features and costs nothing to own. You’ll also have the opportunity to find and communicate with other people who seem to be in the same level as you are in your career, or connect with experts that may be more than willing to be a mentor you.

Point is, next time you really need advice on a topic, program, or tactic, read a few blogs that have the topic you’re looking for and read through the comments. Don’t be afraid to engage by replying to comments. Sign up to get emails whenever new comments are posted and save ones really informative so that you can use them at a later time for reference. If you’re looking to crowd source, this is also a great avenue for little effort and great returns.

Great points on why your design business will survive

Web Design

Angry customerIf you pick up a newspaper or read articles online you’ll easily find articles of companies and industries talking about fiscal performance from last quarter, or last year, or last month to now. One of the main things that big companies keep their eyes on is their money. Money that they take a lot of time forecasting how much they’ll make from day-to-day, week to week, and so on. I even believe that this is their number one priority and what they spend most of their waking business hours contemplating. This is because they are rated or graded by their track history or performance. Now what about you? Let me explain.

I don’t need to go over why every business needs a website. Been there done that. I also don’t need to explain how more and more people are losing their jobs and careers and NOT sitting around waiting for a new one – but instead becoming entrepreneurs and small business start-ups. I’m even not going to ask you if you think we’re in another dot-com era, or how mobile apps will be even more vital to a business in the next few years. What I am going to tell you is that as a designer (albeit web, graphic, programming, whatever) your market is only going to continue to grow. All of these people are entering your market in droves all across the country. They need business cards, logos, web sites, letter heads, and corporate identities, and they need all of that yesterday. Sure there are numbers about there that suggest most start-ups don’t last more than 5 years before they fail, but I think even that’s going to change due to there being not many other options past “plan b.”

All of these new businesses have something collectively that major businesses forgot. Customer service. I’m sure you don’t have to think back too long when you last had to call an 800 number and got someone who could less about you, hung up on you after you explained what help you needed, or couldn’t understand what you were saying past the script they need to read you. As a small business, all of these “corporate” gripes are remedied when consumers look towards their local providers. They get:

  • Immediate customer support
  • Local phone number to someone they probably already met in person
  • A physical location to get products or services
  • A pleasant customer experience that will be praised to all of their friends

As a designer, you can provide all of that and more with almost little effort than a good attitude and work ethic. Good work is good, but great customer care goes so much further. Especially in a world where a customer’s bad experience can be Tweeted or Facebook’d online for all the world to see. Don’t forget that those posts never come down. As long as you have a solid business plan, have a good work-flow, and know how to treat each of your clients like they’re your only one, you’ll survive this recession and plenty years after.