Articles: strategy

Strategy sounds grand, yet in practice it comes down to a few plain questions asked before any design begins. Who are we speaking to, what should happen after somebody reads this, and what to leave out so the message stays sharp.

One leaflet or a series

The usual instinct is to fit everything onto a single sheet. The result is often the opposite of what was intended, because the reader cannot tell where to look. Splitting the content across several pieces normally works better and lets you spread them over time.

• One piece, one subject - one service, one offer, one invitation.
• A shared look - the same colours and lettering, so the series is recognisable.
• An order - the general piece first, the detailed ones after it.
• A clear next step - a phone number, an address, a code to enter on your site.

Price as part of the message

The second article tackles something harder: how to present cost. When price is the only information given, a customer compares numbers alone and moves to a cheaper supplier at the first opportunity. It is worth showing what the offer actually includes, how ordering works and what happens if something goes wrong. The conversation then stops being only about the figure.

Both questions are best settled before design starts. Rearranging a layout in a finished file is easy; changing the idea behind a whole campaign is not.