Connect with us

MARKETING

Stop Treating Design Teams as Vending Machines for Your Content’s Graphics

Published

on

Stop Treating Design Teams as Vending Machines for Your Content's Graphics

A lot of content marketers treat the design team like a vending machine – insert copy, press button, get graphic.

They make design the last step in the content creation production process. The result is nearly every piece of content is planned through the lens of a writer. By the time a typical creative brief fights its way past a tyrannical project manager and reaches a designer, it’s set in stone.

Yet, design is arguably the more important half of content creation. (Heretical, I know.) If a layout is wonky, text is hard to follow, or graphics are a weird mismatch, readers may never consume the text.

#Design is the more important half of content creation. Yet, too many marketers treat designers like a vending machine, says @cgillespie317 via @CMIContent @Canto. Click To Tweet

If designers had more input, they could turn those staid text ideas often published as e-books or blog articles into engaging content formats, such as Syncari’s comic series, Chili Piper’s graphic novella, Guru’s template gallery, and Dumpling Delivery’s game.

Advertisement

Stop Treating Design Teams as Vending Machines for Your Contents

Sometimes, the mere sensation of doing things differently gives your content a serious competitive advantage.

How can you unlock that latent design potential in your organization? I asked two design directors at Fenwick. Their input changed my idea for this article considerably.

1660051715 630 Stop Treating Design Teams as Vending Machines for Your Contents

Involve designers early in the process

Amanda Tennant and Clarissa Kupfer, design directors at Fenwick, say it’s important to recognize no two designers are alike. Some are more equipped than others to be brought into the process early. A creative director is likely experienced in pitching ideas, but a production designer often is happier when they receive strict instructions.

1. Invite designers to planning meetings

Add your design partner to (nearly) every planning call. Yes, I know. Their project manager will flip out. It feels inefficient. But you are adding a second brain with a second pair of eyes, and they’re going to see things you cannot. Fenwick does this frequently and we come up with lots of cool things.

Involve designers in #content planning calls. Their second pair of eyes will see things you cannot., says @cgillespie317 via @CMIContent @Canto. Click To Tweet

For example, Fenwick did a rebrand project for a startup founder who used an odd color palette in the software he built. Amanda asked why and learned the founder is color blind. He literally sees the world differently. That influenced the corporate identity they built for him.

Advertisement

“Great storytelling is born from the co-exploration of an idea,” says Clarissa. “Recently, we had a client launching a webinar series for busy and stressed accountants. Rather than pack in more advice, I had the idea to do less and introduced a mantra slide where the speaker would pause and offer words of affirmation. It was so well received, an attendee printed it out, framed it, hung it on their office wall, and sent a picture.”

Great #storytelling is born from the co-exploration of an idea, says @ckupfr via @cgillespie317 @CMIContent @Canto. Click To Tweet


ADVERTISEMENT1659622118 458 40 Mistakes Derailing Your Content Team and How To

The Essential Guide to Brand Management

In this e-book, we outline everything you need to know to manage your digital brand identity – with tips to create a consistent brand experience across every touchpoint. Download the e-book now.


2. Encourage designers to follow their curiosity

Give your design team time to do their own ideation. Plan time for your designer to meet your subject matter expert and talk concepts. By doing this, Amanda often helps companies turn mundane interstitial graphics into something that both explains and guides.

“On a recent project, we were unsure how to bring a graphic to life, so I scheduled time to talk to the subject expert,” Amanda says. “Ends up, he didn’t love the graphic either. But he felt he didn’t have the drawing skills to bring his real dream analogy to life. What was it? A sandcastle. After a lot of playing around with that idea, we realized it could serve as both an analogy, and a sort of progress bar as you scroll through the article.”

As readers scroll through the article, the sandcastles act as a progress bar. In the visual below, the sandcastle representing the devpro stage sits without a turret, while the complete product stage includes the turret with a flag on top.

1660051716 889 Stop Treating Design Teams as Vending Machines for Your Contents

3. Leave time and budget for your design partner to involve experts

The best designed projects are a collaboration among highly skilled, somewhat narrow visual experts. Recognize your designers may need to involve specialists outside their team.

Advertisement

“Nobody’s a Swiss Army knife. Concealed within the title ‘designer’ are dozens of potential areas of expertise,” Clarissa says. “Your design partner is likely a specialist in one or two areas and a generalist in all the others. If you rush, they’ll have to do everything. But if you leave time, they can find experts to innovate in areas they can’t.”

No designer is a Swiss Army knife. Call upon specialists when you need them, says @ckupfr via @cgillespie317 @CMIContent @Canto. Click To Tweet

Fenwick, for example, relies on a freelancer to do delicate line drawings, such as the images below for Christine Deakers and Suhas Sreedhart who were profiled in a series on content operations.

1660051716 845 Stop Treating Design Teams as Vending Machines for Your Contents

Don’t forget the project manager

Involving designers early can be seen as wasteful or a move away from the waterfall process. Get your project managers to buy into the concept. It’s worth the effort when you can involve your designer early and they have the freedom to say, “What if instead, we did X?”

The value of those collaborations with designers only grows as you work more together.

So, this week, crack open the design vending machine. Invite your designer to coffee, give them a seat at your next content ideation meeting, and see what happens when they aren’t forced to color within the lines left by non-designers.

Advertisement

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

 Register to attend Content Marketing World in Cleveland, Ohio. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. 

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute



Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address

MARKETING

Trends in Content Localization – Moz

Published

on

Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

Source link

Advertisement
Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

MARKETING

How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

Published

on

How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

(more…)

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

MARKETING

More promotions and more layoffs

Published

on

More promotions and more layoffs

For martech professionals salaries are good and promotions are coming faster, unfortunately, layoffs are coming faster, too. That’s according to the just-released 2024 Martech Salary and Career Survey. Another very unfortunate finding: The median salary of women below the C-suite level is 35% less than what men earn.

The last year saw many different economic trends, some at odds with each other. Although unemployment remained very low overall and the economy grew, some businesses — especially those in technology and media — cut both jobs and spending. Reasons cited for the cuts include during the early years of the pandemic, higher interest rates and corporate greed.

Dig deeper: How to overcome marketing budget cuts and hiring freezes

Be that as it may, for the employed it remains a good time to be a martech professional. Salaries remain lucrative compared to many other professions, with an overall median salary of $128,643. 

Advertisement

Here are the median salaries by role:

  • Senior management $199,653
  • Director $157,776
  • Manager $99,510
  • Staff $89,126

Senior managers make more than twice what staff make. Directors and up had a $163,395 median salary compared to manager/staff roles, where the median was $94,818.

One-third of those surveyed said they were promoted in the last 12 months, a finding that was nearly equal among director+ (32%) and managers and staff (30%). 

PX3zocqNZfzMbWNEZhW9dZnAgkdPrLW8fjkrbVrcEkrNJpJiXrVKkjlQ0Tzuj8YKh Ht9HTEvmxDDt0ZsntfYiZHS0NJ7zEZ 6yMT3OjZajbaXBFV1D2Pk5euJeHKdRuzOzM5ZUxwNtsVNaiIbNrd Q

Extend the time frame to two years, and nearly three-quarters of director+ respondents say they received a promotion, while the same can be said for two-thirds of manager and staff respondents.

Dig deeper: Skills-based hiring for modern marketing teams

Employee turnover 

In 2023, we asked survey respondents if they noticed an increase in employee churn and whether they would classify that churn as a “moderate” or “significant” increase. For 2024, given the attention on cost reductions and layoffs, we asked if the churn they witnessed was “voluntary” (e.g., people leaving for another role) or “involuntary” (e.g., a layoff or dismissal). More than half of the marketing technology professionals said churn increased in the last year. Nearly one-third classified most of the churn as “involuntary.”

FIHUBtZJfK3IzbyZl C6WXBPTE64Gzg1URDzQUXCrD8YkAPZS7mmjpmAAiuhhheJUE4dGVcn6e9XW87ogLVz0Ya4rqHwB8WfXTHS W0hRW7yEdr2bQNjlTwnXvNhMv9NZ092pq1ws7lu DYqLV8i6fcFIHUBtZJfK3IzbyZl C6WXBPTE64Gzg1URDzQUXCrD8YkAPZS7mmjpmAAiuhhheJUE4dGVcn6e9XW87ogLVz0Ya4rqHwB8WfXTHS W0hRW7yEdr2bQNjlTwnXvNhMv9NZ092pq1ws7lu DYqLV8i6fc

Men and Women

Screenshot 2024 03 21 124540Screenshot 2024 03 21 124540

This year, instead of using average salary figures, we used the median figures to lessen the impact of outliers in the salary data. As a result, the gap between salaries for men and women is even more glaring than it was previously.

In last year’s report, men earned an average of 24% more than women. This year the median salary of men is 35% more than the median salary of women. That is until you get to the upper echelons. Women at director and up earned 5% more than men.

Methodology

The 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey is a joint project of MarTech.org and chiefmartec.com. We surveyed 305 marketers between December 2023 and February 2024; 297 of those provided salary information. Nearly 63% (191) of respondents live in North America; 16% (50) live in Western Europe. The conclusions in this report are limited to responses from those individuals only. Other regions were excluded due to the limited number of respondents. 

Advertisement

Download your copy of the 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey here. No registration is required.

Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.

Source link

Advertisement
Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

Trending

Follow by Email
RSS