How a Promotional Piece Is Created
You're flipping through your favorite magazine and an advertisement catches your eye. It's for a new kind a hiking shoes. The picture of the happy family ambling cheerfully along a hiking path, against a spectacular mountain background, captivates you. The copy of the ad emphasizes comfort and safety, which further convinces you to rush to your local sportswear store and try on a pair.
The ad did its job. But how was it created? What were the steps taken by the company between “We need to sell more hiking shoes” to placing the finished advertisement in the magazine?
Communications projects go through a relatively predictable series of steps. Whether you're a small-business owner doing it all yourself or part of a larger marketing team at a corporation or ad agency, the general process is relatively the same. (The only real difference is the amount of cooks in the kitchen.)
Imagine you are the staff writer for that hiking shoes manufacturer. Where did you fit into the overall process? What happened before and after you wrote your masterpiece of advertising copy?
What's the Problem?
Most communications projects are initiated by a problem, challenge, or desire. For example, a company may need to increase sales of a new product, drive more visitors to its Web site, or attract more buyers into its stores.
In the case of our hiking manufacturer, there is a new brand of shoes to launch. Buyers have to be made aware of the new product and be presented with good reasons to purchase it. Otherwise, the shoes might languish on the store shelves and not sell very quickly. Or, worse, the retailers might return them.
Deciding on the Solution
Once the problem is identified, deciding on the solution is the most important step in the process. The marketing team at the company must determine what it is they need to produce. A brochure? A flyer? A special Web site? A television commercial? It's never an easy decision.
At larger companies or ad agencies, members of the marketing team may get together to brainstorm ideas. At smaller companies, there may be just one marketing manager or business owner involved, sitting at a desk staring at the ceiling, hoping to come up with an answer. The question always is: What is the most effective means of reaching and persuading the target audience?
For our hiking manufacturer, the target market is active families. So the company decided that ads in family-oriented magazines — especially those that focus on family vacations, adventures, and sports — would be the best strategy.
Bringing Ideas to Life
At this stage, the project is defined. It's a full-page advertisement.
The next thing a marketing department or ad agency might do is prepare a creative brief. (This is explained in more detail in Chapter 3.) This document guides the writers, designers, illustrators, photographers, and others involved in actually creating the ad.
At a smaller company there may not be a creative brief. So the process is often less formal. The marketing manager or business owner might simply describe what is needed to his freelance designer or design firm by phone or e-mail.
As the staff writer for our hiking manufacturer, you will likely work closely with a designer to develop some initial ideas for the ad. These are often referred to as concepts. A concept might include two or three headline ideas and associated visuals. These may be mocked up and presented to others involved in the project so that the best idea can be selected.
A mockup of a concept can be as simple as a rough pencil sketch or as elaborate as a full-color layout that's nearly a finished piece.
Once the concept is chosen, you get to work writing the copy. The project leader — the marketing manager or creative director — may also need to assign a photographer, illustrator, and other creative professionals to the job. That, of course, depends on the requirements of the ad.
Dealing with Approvals
Once the ad is completed in draft form, it gets reviewed and approved by the powers that be. In a larger company, this is usually the senior managers involved in the project. This can lead to a lot of conflicting opinions and ideas. The larger the approval committee, the longer the approval process tends to be.
In a smaller company things are a lot simpler. Typically it's the marketing manager or business owner who approves the ad. He or she either likes it as is, hates it and sends the whole thing back to the drawing board, or requests that revisions be made. It's the third scenario that occurs most often.
Requests for revisions are common when creating a promotional piece. Don't take them personally. Everyone wants to make sure that the final piece is the most effective it can be. No matter how perfect you thought your first draft was, a revision — even when you complete it grudgingly — often makes the copy even better.
Putting on the Finishing Touches
Once the copy and design is approved, your job as the copywriter is essentially over. But that doesn't mean the work on the promotional piece is finished. Far from it. The project now enters the stage where it has to be prepared for its intended media.
The computer files for a print ad — or any print piece — need to be carefully prepared for commercial printing. This is often called prepress or the mechanicals. It involves such issues as crop markings, color codes, and color separations.
If a promotional piece is destined for the Internet — a Web page, for example — then the computer code, usually HTML, needs to be carefully checked to ensure that everything displays and works correctly (often called preflight). The last thing you want are dead links or images that don't appear.
Measuring Results
Finally, the ad is completed, sent to the magazine, and appears as scheduled in the upcoming issue. Does that mean the project is finished? Put to bed? Done? Not entirely.
The final step in the process is evaluating results. Did the ad work? Did it solve the problem that prompted its creation? It's not always easy to measure the effectiveness of a promotional piece. But when it is possible, the information can be used to make the next ad, brochure, or Web page even better.
