marketing and design tips for beginners

Hi – my name is Rachel, and I am a Marketing Coordinator at Total Solutions. While our Marketing Team can handle everything from building your website to running a TikTok account, my personal favorite thing to do is create beautiful, practical collateral for businesses. Through years of working with clients in all kinds of industries, I’ve collected some tips and tricks to help you create marketing and design that pop.

Define Your Vibe

This is something clients will hear me say all the time! Essentially – what is the feeling you want people to get when they look at this collateral? Excitement? Nostalgia? Responsibility? Trust? Deciding the ‘vibe’ of your piece will influence every choice you make going forward from colors to fonts, so make sure you understand where you’re heading.

Notice the Trends – and Follow Them!

If your company caters to a demographic that loves to be online and knows what’s cool – you’d better know it too! Don’t be afraid to jump on trends as they appear. Marketing is a constantly changing game, and something that doesn’t work today will be gone tomorrow. Brush it off and keep moving.  

Alternatively – say you run a more conservative and traditional company. In that case, keep your eyes and ears on what your customer is telling you. Do you spend most of your time answering the same questions? Create a series of posts on your social media channels that answers those questions! Do you have great personal relationships with your clients? Don’t be afraid to create content centered around your life and activities! You will quickly begin to see what your specific clients react to, and what they have no interest in. 

Be a Squirrel

Squirrels harvest nuts for the winter, putting them aside for later use, and you can do the same with marketing! Make sure you are keeping an eye on both local and national competitors – what are they doing? What’s successful? What’s not? Any time you see collateral that catches your eye – save it! This is your inspiration pool – soon you’ll start to see patterns emerge in the materials that speak to you, and you can begin to emulate those tactics in your own designs.  

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Marketing and Design Help

Maybe the thought of designing is overwhelming to you – or maybe it takes hours out of the day that you just don’t have? Total Solutions is here to help while letting you stay completely in control. Our Marketing Team is available to assist you as much (handling all the socials), or as little (a one-off project) as you need. Reach out today to talk to our team about how we can make your life easier and help your marketing and design work for you, rather than the other way around.