If I’ve learned anything during my time in PR, it’s that your image is everything. No matter what form it takes, any material you produce which is seen by the public, is going to affect their perception of you to some degree.
Outsourcing the production of your marketing material to a professional, will always be my number one recommendation – and there are increasing numbers of very affordable resources to chose from. But when budgets are tight, it’s simply not always an option, I get that.
Nevertheless, when this happens, it doesn’t mean the world has to know about it. There are common clues that tend to give DIY marketing away: mistakes in press releases, using a million different fonts, blurry images, pixelated logos – these things let you down, but just a few tweaks could quite easily help you save face.
This is why, over the coming months, I’ll be uploading a series of blogs designed to help you avoid the howlers: the cringe-worthy schoolboy errors that bring your street cred crashing down.
When you need to produce something yourself, this will be an armoury of pointers, tricks of the trade, tools, templates and downloads: if I were a supermarket, these would be your kitchen cupboard essentials.
The series will start soon – leave your email in the comments below to receive free PDFs direct to your inbox.