Marketing Materials

You're not likely to be bored when creating marketing materials and direct mail because it involves so many individual pieces. It's not just postcards and sales fliers, it's a little bit of everything and anything used to get the message out about a product, a service, and organization. The trick is maintaining a consistent identity across such a diverse field of documents in order to communicate a cohesive message all tied to that client (or yourself when doing your own marketing materials).

Marketing Materials created by designers using desktop publishing software include display advertising, fliers, sales circulars, and direct mail packages. Newsletters can be used as marketing or promotional vehicles as well.

Direct Mail can be anything from letters to postcards to complete packages with letters, brochures, order forms, and other pieces.

Designers can often find a niche in this area designing ads or marketing newsletters for small businesses.

For the purposes of this discussion we're not differentiating marketing from advertising. They are different. To paraphrase About.com Marketing Guide Laura Lake, advertising is a piece of the marketing pie. She goes into more detail in Marketing vs. Advertising: What's the Difference? As used in this article marketing materials are the print and electronic documents created to advertise products or services and promote a brand.

Paul Suggett, About.com Advertising, lays out eight different types of advertising methods. For desktop publishing, the ones we are most concerned with are print advertising, outdoor advertising (such as billboards and signs), and online advertising (such as designing banner ads).

Designing Marketing Materials

"Even if you do not deal with marketing and you are only designing visual communications, you should know some basics of marketing because your designs are still influenced by the message and the image your company or client is trying to communicate." — Elisabetta Bruno for About.com; What's Your Position in the Client's Mind

Before getting into the specifics of some of the types of document that might fall under the umbrella of marketing materials, some of the key points to keep in mind that work for everything are:

1. Choose the right format. Ads, direct mail, and general sales materials can take many forms.

2. Create a workable page layout by matching your fonts, images, colors, and size to the message you're trying to convey, the intended use for the piece, and how it will be seen and handled.

3. As with everything designed for print and the Web, utilize the principles of design.

Designing Ads

1. How to Write Print Ads and the Parts of an Ad are geared toward print ads including large display ads and small space ads.

2. The 5 Step Ad Design Formula of David Ogilvy is a classic layout with some variations.

3. Yellow Pages Ads Are Not Magazine Advertising is a personal commentary on how yellow page ads can do a better job if they don't try to be like other types of ads.

Designing Brochures

1. Five Types of Brochures from former About.com Advertising Guide Apryl Duncan looks at leave-behinds, brochures included in direct mail packages, and other types of brochures and how they are used.

2. Also from Apryl Duncan, Creating a Powerful Brochure offers some specific design tips that mesh the visual with the message.

Designing Direct Mail

1. As a designer you may not be the one to write the sales letter but knowing the usual bits and pieces can help you plan the layout.

2. How to Develop a Successful Direct Mail Marketing Ad Campaign from About.com Women in Business Guide Lahle Wolfe may be aimed at the business person but as the designer you can get ideas for designing direct mail pieces.

Designing Marketing Newsletters

1. These 12 parts of a newsletter may not appear in every type of newsletter but they are fairly standard elements.

2. Newsletters are not ads but a marketing newsletter can help to promote a product or service and is part of many successful marketing programs.

3. Postcard newsletters have a lot of advantages over traditional newsletters.

Integrating Print and Online Marketing and Advertising Materials

1. Use QR Codes in your print ads and marketing materials to tie your print campaign into your Web or mobile marketing presence, making your print materials more interactive.

2. Offline Advertising for Your Online Presence looks at three offline advertising mediums a business can use to drive people to their Web site. As a designer you may be tasked with coming up with creative ways to incorporate Web sites into print ads.

Printing Marketing Materials

With so many different types of documents in this category, you'll likely use a wide range of papers and printing methods. A very small home business may choose to do everything with desktop printing and for commercial printing offset lithography can handle most tasks but you may also find creative uses for thermography, letterpress, and even high speed laser printing.

Software for Creating Marketing Materials

Because of the wide range of materials in this category, if you're developing even a portion of them you may do well to go with a suite of desktop publishing software that contains page layout software, graphics software, and other tools. Adobe Creative Suite or the line-up from Serif that includes PagePlus, PhotoPlus, DrawPlus, WebPlus, and more. Or, do what many designers do and mix and match desktop publishing software to meet your specific needs and budget.

If doing a lot of direct mail you may want to utilize the mail merge features of a high-end word processing package such as Microsoft Word, which is also available in the Microsoft Office suite along with database, spreadsheet, email, presentation (PowerPoint), and page layout software (Publisher).

For the small or home-based business owner creating their own marketing materials, desktop publishing software for business professionals includes titles full of business templates such as Microsoft Publisher and Serif PagePlus plus specialty software for business cards, newsletters, and calendars.

16 Categories of Design Specialization

Marketing materials cover a wide gamut of potential desktop publishing projects and share characteristics with and can include designing collaterals, identity systems, packaging, periodicals, signage, and Web design.

1. Annual Reports & Proposals
2. Business Forms
3. Catalogs, Menus, & Product Lists
4. Collaterals (brochures, etc.)
5. Crafts & Creative Printing
6. Identity Systems (logo, letterhead)
7. Marketing Materials (ads, direct mail) (This Page)
8. Packaging
9. Periodicals (newsletters, magazines)
10. Presentation Graphics
11. Publication Art
12. The following sections are under revision and will be available by June 2012.
    • Publications (books, manuals, booklets, etc.)
    • Self-publishing
    • Signage
    • Web & Electronic Publishing
    • Word Processing, Resumes

Pick Your Path to Desktop Publishing
Get Started:	Basic Guidelines and Requirements for Desktop Publishing
Choose Software:	Desktop Publishing and Design Software
Tips & Tutorials:	How to Do Desktop Publishing
Training, Education, Jobs:	Careers in Desktop Publishing
In the Classroom:	Back to School With Desktop Publishing
Make Something:	Things to Make Using Desktop Publishing
Use Templates:	Templates for Print and Web Publishing