Treating Your Website and Design Work as Assets
Over the 20+ years that we’ve been providing company branding and website design in Las Cruces and nationwide, we’ve discovered a common mistake that many small businesses make when it comes to their marketing materials: the lack of forward thinking.
A prime example is when organizations treat a new website or marketing piece like a static, one-time project, never to be touched again. In today’s fast-paced business environment, that kind of mindset just won’t cut it. To be most effective, your company marketing needs to continue to evolve and adapt to your market – and your website is a critical component of that marketing.
In short, it’s vital for businesses to treat their web and design work as valuable assets and investments in their overall company marketing package.
Let’s explore what this means.
The power and value of your creative assets
Every piece of marketing material you produce is a creative asset. Like other business assets, such as your products, technology infrastructure or even office furniture, your creative and marketing assets have an inherent value. They are an important part of your business, to be leveraged in various media and across different channels. Their core goal: to resonate with numerous audiences: not just prospective leads, but also your most loyal customers and even your own employees.
It’s a costly mistake to create these assets with a “set it and forget it” mentality. Having a new business logo created, for example, is only one step of a multilayered branding strategy. That logo is likely to be used in many places: on your website, in brochures, sales sheets, signage and so on. And in each one, thought needs to be given to the color schemes, fonts, layouts and other factors to ensure the branding is cohesive and consistent.
In that sense, your logo is not merely an image file. It’s an asset: just one piece of a larger investment in your company’s branding and marketing. And the more cohesive you make all the materials that comprise that branding, the more powerful it becomes.
Why good creative direction is invaluable
So, how do you ensure you’re maximizing the investment of your website and other creative assets?
This is where the guidance of experienced creative professionals becomes invaluable. As each new creative asset is created or adapted for different needs, you need to have knowledgeable partners you can rely on to manage the overall creative direction. Without that direction, things can quickly fall apart.
For example, consider the development of a new company website—arguably your most powerful and hardest-working marketing asset. No matter how tight the deadline, no business should ever slap something on the web without giving any thought to the overall marketing strategy (though unfortunately that’s what many small businesses do).
Experienced creative professionals can help you answer the questions that will ensure the success of your website (and your business), such as:
- What are the most important goals of the website?
- Who is the audience?
- What will be needed to make the website resonate most with that audience (i.e. design, copy, functionality and all other elements)
- How can the back-end development help to ensure that those goals are achieved?
- How can the site be efficiently expanded and adapted over time as business needs evolve?
With the right creative direction, your website and any accompanying assets will make a bigger impact on your audience and ultimately your bottom line. That’s why it’s so important to work with a team that can manage that direction, provide expertise and help you get the most out of your marketing investments.
Let’s discuss your strategy
Get in touch with us at Sullivan Design to discuss the creative direction for your website and other marketing assets.
