Where in the world am I today?: St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, The Caribbean
I touched on the concept of BRANDING in a blog post earlier in the month, but wanted to take it a bit further to discuss the importance of cross media consistency. Having all of your marketing materials have a consistent look/feel though the use of a well defined colour pallet, specifically chosen fonts and an eye catching logo means that possible buyers will receive a unified marketing message and know that it’s you any time they see these elements put together in the same way.
Say you run into someone after your show and you hand them a business card. That potential client loved your show and goes to your website to check out your on-line presence. If the business card that you handed out uses a completely different colour scheme or design structure that potential client may question whether they’ve actually reached the right web site.
If on the other hand that same potential client calls you and asks for a promotional DVD to show to the committee that’s in charge of hiring talent for their next corporate function and you deliver a well put together video that arrives in a box with a slick looking liner that’s consistent with the business card you originally handed out, you’ll not only create a strong first impression for the committee members that haven’t seen your show, you’ll also add credibility to the one guy who did see your show and loved it and is basically acting as your one-man cheering section. Why wouldn’t you want to make his job as easy as possible?
So how do you do it? How do you create this consistent look and feel and how can you be sure that it actually does represent who you are and what you do so that the image that you’re presenting in your marketing materials is consistent with the look/feel the client gets when you walk on stage. Consider talking with a professional graphics designer or possibly find someone who’s studying design at school who’s looking to make their career in design. Chances are that they’ll have a much stronger vocabulary when it comes to the language of putting design elements together than you do.
If you’re the sort of person who likes doing thing yourself, then get yourself some books on design and start studying. Even then, I’d still recommend sitting down with a designer to lay the foundation for the work that you’re looking at doing. Having a second set of eyes that are well versed in how to make things look their best is always a good idea. Once you’ve picked colours that work with your on-stage image and have selected fonts that help support that image and perhaps even crafted a logo that incorporates the colours and possibly the font(s), you’ll have what I call the foundation in place.
Once you’ve determined the elements that form your foundation, crafting any piece of promotional material becomes easier because everything you design (or is designed for you) will come out of a common set of elements that you took the time to think about and establish as being consistent with the image you want to deliver be it on your business card, on your website, in a brochure or even on stage. This consistency will serve you well.
