One of my clients,
Silver Screen Design, sells promotional materials, mainly to college organizations for the many events and awareness activities these organizations promote on campus. About four years ago, Silver Screen Design put out a paper planning calendar for its customers with tips in the sidebar next to the calendar for creating fresh, exciting promotions. The calendar was well-received, and Silver Screen wanted to replicate the success of the calendar for the 2012-2013 school year.
The Challenge: A Fresh, Modern Look
Silver Screen Design contacted me to update the calendar. They wanted a more modern look for the calendar, something that would entice the student leaders to actually open it, hang it by their desks, and refer to it when they were planning events like Homecoming, Orientation, or Senior Week.
Silver Screen Design also wanted short articles – around 200 words each – that would help the student leaders plan their events and promotions. These articles would range from the principles of good graphic design to how to make the most of social media. They had to be bite-size, because Silver Screen Design knows how busy their customers are.
The Solution: Independent Graphic Designer, Copywriter Partnership
The first step for Silver Screen Design was to find a graphic designer to create a new layout. Silver Screen Design wanted a clean design that left enough space on the page for the students to not feel overwhelmed. I immediately suggested
Allison Biggs | Graphic Designer, my go-to graphic designer on client projects. Silver Screen Design agreed that her designs were modern and fresh, and in June, Allison and I commenced work on the calendar. Since Allison and I were tasked with a lot of the planning, we met to sketch out design and layout, come up with themes, and determine other content for the calendar. (I told you we work well together!) We then held a conference call with Silver Screen Design before we officially started work to get approval.
Allison designed the entire calendar, using Silver Screen Design’s product images and stock designs. I suggested a list of topics, like leveraging public relations and ways to utilize guerrilla marketing tactics, then wrote the articles to a college audience, using a slightly informal voice and more conversational voice than I’d use for white papers.
[tweetthis]For B2C , atypical content marketing may work better. [/tweetthis]
The Result: A Fun, Fresh, Useful Marketing Piece
Silver Screen Design will now mail the calendar to its customers, who previously praised the idea of a calendar as a helpful, practical promotion. The company has its designs in front of its target market every day and has given them ideas to promote events and their organizations.
The lesson in all this is that you don’t have to be a B2B software or hardware company to harness the power of content marketing. For B2C markets, white papers and case studies may be complementary, but atypical content marketing, like calendars or other useful tools for your customers, may work even better for lead generation and sales success.
Allison and I not only offer graphic design and copywriting packages for our clients; we also offer white paper and e-book packages. And, as with Silver Screen Design, we can also design and write unique tools, like calendars, for marketing efforts. Small and medium-size businesses just starting out with content marketing often don’t know where to start, but by using an experienced writer and graphic designer, they can generate more leads and sales.
If you’re interested in seeing what well-designed content marketing can do for your business, contact me.
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