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#representation was never the shows's goal and while it is valid to criticize some misses
gurguliare · 6 years
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Anyway I finally finally finished the TM post-mortem so have one last rundown
Really loved: Signet’s stupid relics runway show, Ali describing the Mirage/Splice resolution as “the most amazing Gift of the Magi fuckup,” and, oddly, Keith’s reflections on anarchism, though idk if enough of that made it legibly into the season---which is one of the ways Gig was underserved, I guess.
I also enjoyed and appreciated the discussion of TM’s utopianism as monumental artistic challenge. I obviously have criticisms wrt execution and I disagree with some of their analysis of TM’s failures and shortcomings, but I thought everyone was refreshingly honest about the sheer scale of the task, in a way that I often missed during the series proper---when the tone sometimes tended more toward “we’ve set ‘depicting a utopia’ as our goal, and of course we share a coherent (static) vision of what that entails, and know exactly how to get from here to there.”
I was dissatisfied at best with the conversation about redemption vs rehabilitation. I might be more convinced by the distinction if Austin had ever stopped saying “sin”... which, among other things, helps to selectively blur together abuse and other forms of violence. (I’ve given up on even dreaming of a world in which FATT covers its ass better in re: Christian-centric, frankly Catholic-centric readings of both morality and faith, and maybe it’s for the best that they lack the wherewithal to mask that.) That said, I think it’s very striking that Even Gardner’s violence and militarism seems dealt with in-story almost exclusively as a form of trauma and a thing that happens to Even Gardner, while Fourteen’s history with Castlerose is discussed (up to the time of the finale) almost exclusively in terms of Sins Fourteen Committed. I’m not saying those framings are ~flipped, but the ratio does seem off. Even has a fuckton of choices at every step of the way and experiences basically no material repercussions or visible change of heart, other than “once there are no Advent people left I’ll stop targeting Advent.” He’s also, notably, “brought back from the edge” by a played-straight romantic relationship, for some reason. Fourteen has like... half of a narrative about turning bad habits and even obsolete ideas to constructive ends, and half a narrative about reclaiming agency once safely away from your abuser, even at the cost of losing access to huge swathes of your life... but it’s an arc that goes so unacknowledged or unseen by the other characters that it never connects back up to the idea that, well, bound up in the problem of rehabilitation is the problem of forgiveness---or if we don’t like that language, then acceptance. It’s never clear on what terms Fourteen is judged and reintegrated into their community, and how and where their self-image aligns with others’ view of them.
Which is very, very lonely, and raises huge questions for me about the whole issue of Fourteen as ~disability representation and specifically as a test case for what terminal illness might look like in a utopia. It is just not clear what anyone’s goals were, as far as showing Fourteen supported in a systemic way and not just on the level of relationships. It’s very odd. I’m still puzzled by Jack and Austin’s remarks on this, especially the focus on what Jack had or hadn’t done with Fourteen in play. Literally every NPC (who has a stance on the issue at all) responds to Fourteen with undisguised horror at their memory dysfunction---the most sympathetic version of this is a lecture about integrating assistive technology into their daily routine! and the least sympathetic is the point-blank statement that Fourteen not remembering who they’ve killed is worse than killing those people in the first place. Like, what the hell? That’s a vision of morality that is entirely premised on repentance, and on the idea that expiation for a crime only comes with appropriate helpings of guilt. And it never really receives an in-universe challenge.
It was also weird to me that Grand didn’t come up at all in that part of the discussion. But then again it seemed like no one wanted to comment seriously on Grand’s arc in general; maybe Art was making really sad faces on the call or something. It’s a shame though, since you’d think it would be a good opportunity to go on some bullshit about “salvation NOT through good works,” or rather, salvation definitely through good works but everyone feels a little weird about it. Three bombs? Three bombs?
Finally, it is important that I dissect all remarks on shipping. I was a little perturbed by the discussion of Fourteen/Tender; I thought Ali’s IC reasons were perfectly valid but I found Jack’s slightly suspect, because I don’t think, uh, “this person flirts all the time but is too busy dying to pursue new romantic projects” really jives---either with Fourteen’s profound, active engagement with others (more active and deeper engagement the longer the season went on) or with Jack’s stated goal of presenting a dying person who, without being embroiled in regret or bitterness in the face of death, still loves their life. Obviously I don’t think romantic relationships are a requirement for that, but the blanket statement that Fourteen is Not That Person gave me trouble. Also, I just don’t think you can drop the “platonic relationship representation is so important” line in there without a LOT more unpacking of the pros and cons of that---who are the characters involved in that relationship, and are they people for whom nonsexual relationships are a top-of-the-line representation deficit? Also, is nonsexual vs sexual really the paradigm you want to cleave to here, in a discussion of the chemistry between an internet goddess and a hunk of data?
I’m a hypocrite though bc when they got to echogrand and went on about how it was important that Echo’s arc not center on romance I was like RIGHT ON
...
Okay. One more thing. Janine shooting down Signet/Blueberry; I was fond of this, though I obviously do not care about her opinion and will continue to do what I want---I don’t like “parental” as the trajectory for a dynamic whose foundational moment is the younger weaker party saving the older, that doesn’t do it for me. Of course children can save their parents, but they shouldn’t have to, and that certainly shouldn’t be the pattern that defines the relationship. And for Signet and Blueberry I think it really is; Signet offers Blueberry apologies, Blueberry offers Signet things Signet actually needs. That’s not parental. Nevertheless, I was fond bc it made me think about what a wealth of fun mentorship dynamics this season offered otherwise---with Tender and Morning’s Observation, and Fourteen and Sho, there are these really precious internal movements, or moments of slippage, from distrust to empathy and from faith to disillusionment, that I treasured as real, organic, slippery pieces of character writing and of writing about growth... My favorite example of this is when Morning’s Observation is FURIOUS with Tender after the fucking... rooftop debacle early on in the Wind’s Poem arc. And then again, more seriously, later, after he’s been essentially abandoned and has to save the day by drawing on parts of himself he wanted to give up. That feels like a moment of roleswap between “guardian” and “child” that is presented as appropriately bittersweet, pivotal, and rupturing, and which therefore preserves the logic of the original relationship even as it expands it. And I also love Grand’s awkward interference there, haha... esp in the context of Grand managing to disappoint Morning separately later on, when by that point it’s lost most of its oomph just because Morning has learned not to have expectations of these fucking geniuses. Which is its own mixed result.
(I wish there had been a bit more followup with Morning in the finale, actually, I don’t think he really got resolution on some stuff and I think “happy at the Brink with his moms” is more avoidant copout than anything, though not implausible or unreasonable avoidance from a character perspective. But like, the fucking... part in the Feast of Patina where it becomes increasingly apparent, throughout Morning’s glad monologue, that he did, in fact, do many of the same things as Grand? He betrayed former allies for an enemy faction in the name of convenience! That’s not all Grand did, but it’s not nothing. And everyone has to fall back on “but the Advent Group are fascists! Morning didn’t turn coat and join fascists!” when it’s like, well, would he have, if they had offered him spaghetti?
Not that I think Morning’s and Grand’s choices are remotely equivalent. But it was a very funny parallel for them to try to wriggle out of on the fly, and I wish they hadn’t---I wish they’d leaned into Morning’s lingering doubts, which would if anything have served to highlight that he does have good reason to stay. It’s just that those reasons don’t cancel out the doubts.)
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likefusion · 7 years
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How to Vet a New Marketing Channel in 3 Days or Less: I get this question a lot. “What marketing channel should I focus on?” There are many make or break decisions in business. This is one of them. The thing is, I can't give you a cut and dry answer. The nature of your business matters. So does the audience you wish to target. What I will do instead is give you a method for figuring this out for yourself. If you're starting a new business, this decision is critical. Focusing on the wrong marketing channel can set you back months and maybe even years. If you're expanding into a new market, selecting the wrong channel can also have massive ramifications. You'd be putting your existing operations at risk for a new channel that may not pan out. Just take a look at all the challenges marketers have to overcome: You can imagine that each channel comes with a unique set of difficulties. This speaks to the importance of vetting your marketing plan before you set it in motion. There's too much at stake. In this article, I'll show you how you can evaluate your options and narrow down the best choice quickly. You don't need more than three days to get this done. But first, I have a bit of wisdom to share. Resist the urge to diversify You know that voice in your head that says you need to be everywhere at once? That fear of missing out if you don't at least try everything? It's a diversion. Resist it. It is imperative that you focus on one marketing channel. At least in the beginning. You'll shortchange your success if you spread yourself thin. Here's why: You'll have less impact. If you're focusing on several channels, you're not doing everything you can to excel in any one of them. It will cost you more. Testing and thriving with a multichannel approach costs way more than you may be willing to spend. If you want an organic and cost-effective approach, stick to one channel. You'll never actually know where your strength lies. Jumping from channel to channel means you won't truly know the impact of one particular strategy on your business. You'll remain at the heels of your competitors. That's not where you want to be, is it? You want to be ahead, and the way to do that is to establish dominance in your market. Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying you should go all in on one channel and forget the rest. But multichannel marketing is complex. Only 30% of marketers are confident they can deliver on such a strategy: That's not a lot. What I'm advocating for is starting from a position of dominance. Put your energy into one strategy until it succeeds. Then, piggyback on that success to achieve wins in other areas. Does that make sense? The steps in this article will be geared towards helping you place a bullseye on the ONE channel that will serve you best. Now that we got that out of the way, let's begin. Step #1: Know your options The first thing you want to do is brainstorm all your possible options. This isn't something you have to conjure up out of thin air. You can connect with your target audience and spread your message in many different ways. Better yet, each channel has several subsets that you can zone in on. Here's a good representation: Many of these overlap. Some have even morphed into each other. It can get confusing, quickly. For example, some people consider SEO to be one marketing channel. But I can't imagine a world where SEO and content marketing aren't intertwined. You can't do one without the other. The same goes for social media and paid advertising. They're different channels. But there's a convergence. Let's imagine you decide to focus on Facebook as your primary social media platform. It would be unwise to not experiment with Facebook Ads. Considering that Facebook has developed one of the greatest ad products out there, you'd be underutilizing the full power of the platform. Marketers agree. Almost 57% plan to increase their social media ad spend. I say all this to make a simple point. While you may zone in on one channel, you'll see lots of overlap you shouldn't ignore. Go where your audience takes you. Let's look at some of your options. Content marketing This is about creating and promoting material relevant to your target audience. Content marketing is central to your success. It's been reported 90% of businesses market using this channel. It means that no matter what strategy you use, content will be a part of it. You can narrow your content down to blogging, guest blogging, podcasts, webinars, email, etc. Social media marketing You can use social media as your platform to get noticed, build authority, and grow a community. You can also use it to drive traffic to your main site. Or you can do both. It's effective either way. Paid advertising Much of marketing is organic and will take time to generate results. Paid advertising is one way to accelerate that. The downside is, you have to pay to play. Facebook ads, other social media ads, print ads, PPC, and direct response fall into this category. Public relations   PR is about building relationships and capitalizing on the optics of your business. It can be both online and offline. Press releases, conferences, events, interviews, and sponsorships are a few examples. As you can see, you have no shortage of options when it comes to marketing. I've given an overview of the main ones, but you are not limited to them. Step #2: Choose the channels aligned with your business goals You now have an idea of what's available to you. It's time to make a list of all the channels that will serve your business. Start with your business goals. Some marketing channels are better suited to achieving a particular goal than others. Goal setting is a flexible thing. You can make changes as your business evolves. This means that the marketing channel you use right now may not be viable in the future, once your business progresses. Consider what stage your business is in and what your goal for the next 90 days is. According to Jay Abraham, there are only three ways to grow a business: Increase the number of customers Increase the frequency with which a customer buys from you Increase the amount that a customer spends on a purchase Your business goals should serve one of these three phases of business. If you're still at the first stage, your goals might be brand awareness, lead generation, and customer acquisition. If you already have a list of buyers, your goal might be to increase sales. What if you already have a reliable stream of sales? There's no such thing as too many sales, but your goal at this point might be to maximize profits and retain customers. Here's what most businesses are prioritizing: These may or may not apply to you. Just focus on what your business needs at the moment. This way, you don't set goals that aren't yet attainable. By extension, it ensures you don't waste time and resources on a marketing channel that won't serve your business well. How do you select a channel that's right for your business goals? Before you even start testing, do some elimination. I'll give you a few examples, and you'll have to apply this knowledge to your business. Let's say your goal is brand awareness. PR, social media, content marketing, and even paid advertising can be used for this purpose. The easy solution? Eliminate the channels that would be less efficient. For instance, paid advertising won't be the most useful for brand awareness. But for sales or lead generation? It can crush it! (If you know what you're doing, that is). Take a look at some of the business goals that apply to the content marketing channel. It will give you an idea of what to aim for: It's also important to take into consideration what feels the most organic for your business. If you're selling something like hoverboards or bicycles, would blog posts serve you the best? Not likely. These products are lifestyle-based. You'd be better off using a visual channel that will allow you to provide an experience to potential customers. Immediately, social media comes to mind. Then you begin to narrow it down to Instagram or YouTube. This is a logical process that won't take you more than an hour to figure out. You don't have to find that one channel yet. Just eliminate what won't work, and rank your remaining options. Step #3: Narrow down the list by going where your audience is At this point, you've got a few options. It's time to prioritize. This one is easy. Find your potential customers. A marketing channel can serve your goal, but there are many platforms you can focus on. If your customers are not hanging out there, you'll be wasting your time. Note: The point of this article is not to find you a slam dunk marketing channel right away. That would take testing and experimentation. The goal here is to help you validate your chosen channel. This way, you know it's viable before you start testing it. Here's my best advice for finding out where the attention is: SEO is a great place to start competitive research is a must you can't go wrong with social media Let's look at each of these. SEO A majority of online interactions begin with a search engine (mostly Google). The first step is to evaluate the SEO landscape by searching for keywords in your industry. You'll find out what your audience is searching for and how often. This is not just essential for finding out what's happening online. Let's say there aren't that many monthly searches for your keywords. You may want to focus on an offline channel. Or you may decide this is a gap you can take advantage of. You won't know until you do some basic keyword research. A simple tool like the Google Keyword Planner will work. Type in your keyword to get search volume data. Competition research If you want to know where your customers hang out, find your competitors. First, identify the competitors. A simple Google search will do the trick. The biggest players are those who rank on the first page of SERP. Once you've got a solid list, use a tool like SimilarWeb for your research. Enter your competitor's website and press enter: You'll find a range of data. Pay attention to “Traffic source:” For Quick Sprout, the highest traffic source is search. Naturally, my primary marketing channel would be SEO and blogging. Direct is a close second, but it's a bit trickier to figure out. It represents people who type in your URL directly. It doesn't tell you where these people first came into contact with your business. The next step is to check out the individual breakdown of each traffic source. You can see where referrals are coming from: Since SEO is my dominant traffic source, I'll pay particular attention to my top organic keywords: You can also see which social media platform is the most popular. Mine is Facebook. Social media I like to take social media research a bit further. The tool to use is BuzzSumo. Type in your competitor's domain. You can also search for a keyword: You'll see all the top performing content on the site and which social platform generated the most shares. Using SimilarWeb, we saw that Facebook was Quick Sprout's top platform. BuzzSumo tells the same story: If you want to take this a bit further, you can go to these individual platforms and do some sleuthing. Check out the groups with the most members, listen in on the conversations, and get a feel for what your audience is focusing on. When you go through this process, you may find you have two or three reliable options. Which do you select? I have three criteria. Cheap. Fast. Easy. You want to pick a channel that won't cost you too much, if anything, to get started. You also want a channel that doesn't have a steep learning curve. Otherwise, you may spend too much time and money trying to figure it out. Lastly, pick the channel that will allow you to make the most headway, quickly. You must pick one, so use these criteria as the final litmus test. Conclusion Selecting a new marketing channel is a tall order. It's important you take some time to validate a potential channel before you focus on it. Marketing requires time, which can easily be wasted on ineffective strategies. It also requires cash. It means you'd want to see a solid return on both your time and money investment. The surest way to secure an attractive ROI is to vet potential marketing channels first. You can then test and double down on what's working. Most people don't go through this process of validation and testing. As long as you keep experimenting and tweaking your strategy based on your results, you'll have a significant advantage over your competitors. What is your most effective marketing channel? http://bit.ly/2wcvqrG
0 notes
reverseskydives · 7 years
Text
How to Vet a New Marketing Channel in 3 Days or Less
I get this question a lot.
“What marketing channel should I focus on?”
There are many make or break decisions in business. This is one of them.
The thing is, I can’t give you a cut and dry answer.
The nature of your business matters. So does the audience you wish to target.
What I will do instead is give you a method for figuring this out for yourself.
If you’re starting a new business, this decision is critical. Focusing on the wrong marketing channel can set you back months and maybe even years.
If you’re expanding into a new market, selecting the wrong channel can also have massive ramifications.
You’d be putting your existing operations at risk for a new channel that may not pan out.
Just take a look at all the challenges marketers have to overcome:
You can imagine that each channel comes with a unique set of difficulties.
This speaks to the importance of vetting your marketing plan before you set it in motion.
There’s too much at stake.
In this article, I’ll show you how you can evaluate your options and narrow down the best choice quickly.
You don’t need more than three days to get this done.
But first, I have a bit of wisdom to share.
Resist the urge to diversify
You know that voice in your head that says you need to be everywhere at once? That fear of missing out if you don’t at least try everything?
It’s a diversion. Resist it.
It is imperative that you focus on one marketing channel.
At least in the beginning.
You’ll shortchange your success if you spread yourself thin.
Here’s why:
You’ll have less impact. If you’re focusing on several channels, you’re not doing everything you can to excel in any one of them.
It will cost you more. Testing and thriving with a multichannel approach costs way more than you may be willing to spend. If you want an organic and cost-effective approach, stick to one channel.
You’ll never actually know where your strength lies. Jumping from channel to channel means you won’t truly know the impact of one particular strategy on your business.
You’ll remain at the heels of your competitors. That’s not where you want to be, is it? You want to be ahead, and the way to do that is to establish dominance in your market.
Now, don’t misunderstand me.
I’m not saying you should go all in on one channel and forget the rest.
But multichannel marketing is complex. Only 30% of marketers are confident they can deliver on such a strategy:
That’s not a lot.
What I’m advocating for is starting from a position of dominance.
Put your energy into one strategy until it succeeds. Then, piggyback on that success to achieve wins in other areas.
Does that make sense?
The steps in this article will be geared towards helping you place a bullseye on the ONE channel that will serve you best.
Now that we got that out of the way, let’s begin.
Step #1: Know your options
The first thing you want to do is brainstorm all your possible options.
This isn’t something you have to conjure up out of thin air.
You can connect with your target audience and spread your message in many different ways.
Better yet, each channel has several subsets that you can zone in on.
Here’s a good representation:
Many of these overlap. Some have even morphed into each other.
It can get confusing, quickly.
For example, some people consider SEO to be one marketing channel.
But I can’t imagine a world where SEO and content marketing aren’t intertwined. You can’t do one without the other.
The same goes for social media and paid advertising.
They’re different channels. But there’s a convergence.
Let’s imagine you decide to focus on Facebook as your primary social media platform. It would be unwise to not experiment with Facebook Ads.
Considering that Facebook has developed one of the greatest ad products out there, you’d be underutilizing the full power of the platform.
Marketers agree. Almost 57% plan to increase their social media ad spend.
I say all this to make a simple point.
While you may zone in on one channel, you’ll see lots of overlap you shouldn’t ignore.
Go where your audience takes you.
Let’s look at some of your options.
Content marketing
This is about creating and promoting material relevant to your target audience.
Content marketing is central to your success.
It’s been reported 90% of businesses market using this channel.
It means that no matter what strategy you use, content will be a part of it.
You can narrow your content down to blogging, guest blogging, podcasts, webinars, email, etc.
Social media marketing
You can use social media as your platform to get noticed, build authority, and grow a community.
You can also use it to drive traffic to your main site.
Or you can do both. It’s effective either way.
Paid advertising
Much of marketing is organic and will take time to generate results.
Paid advertising is one way to accelerate that.
The downside is, you have to pay to play.
Facebook ads, other social media ads, print ads, PPC, and direct response fall into this category.
Public relations  
PR is about building relationships and capitalizing on the optics of your business.
It can be both online and offline. Press releases, conferences, events, interviews, and sponsorships are a few examples.
As you can see, you have no shortage of options when it comes to marketing.
I’ve given an overview of the main ones, but you are not limited to them.
Step #2: Choose the channels aligned with your business goals
You now have an idea of what’s available to you.
It’s time to make a list of all the channels that will serve your business.
Start with your business goals.
Some marketing channels are better suited to achieving a particular goal than others.
Goal setting is a flexible thing. You can make changes as your business evolves.
This means that the marketing channel you use right now may not be viable in the future, once your business progresses.
Consider what stage your business is in and what your goal for the next 90 days is.
According to Jay Abraham, there are only three ways to grow a business:
Increase the number of customers
Increase the frequency with which a customer buys from you
Increase the amount that a customer spends on a purchase
Your business goals should serve one of these three phases of business.
If you’re still at the first stage, your goals might be brand awareness, lead generation, and customer acquisition.
If you already have a list of buyers, your goal might be to increase sales.
What if you already have a reliable stream of sales?
There’s no such thing as too many sales, but your goal at this point might be to maximize profits and retain customers.
Here’s what most businesses are prioritizing:
These may or may not apply to you. Just focus on what your business needs at the moment.
This way, you don’t set goals that aren’t yet attainable.
By extension, it ensures you don’t waste time and resources on a marketing channel that won’t serve your business well.
How do you select a channel that’s right for your business goals?
Before you even start testing, do some elimination.
I’ll give you a few examples, and you’ll have to apply this knowledge to your business.
Let’s say your goal is brand awareness.
PR, social media, content marketing, and even paid advertising can be used for this purpose.
The easy solution?
Eliminate the channels that would be less efficient.
For instance, paid advertising won’t be the most useful for brand awareness.
But for sales or lead generation? It can crush it! (If you know what you’re doing, that is).
Take a look at some of the business goals that apply to the content marketing channel. It will give you an idea of what to aim for:
It’s also important to take into consideration what feels the most organic for your business.
If you’re selling something like hoverboards or bicycles, would blog posts serve you the best?
Not likely.
These products are lifestyle-based. You’d be better off using a visual channel that will allow you to provide an experience to potential customers.
Immediately, social media comes to mind.
Then you begin to narrow it down to Instagram or YouTube.
This is a logical process that won’t take you more than an hour to figure out.
You don’t have to find that one channel yet. Just eliminate what won’t work, and rank your remaining options.
Step #3: Narrow down the list by going where your audience is
At this point, you’ve got a few options. It’s time to prioritize.
This one is easy. Find your potential customers.
A marketing channel can serve your goal, but there are many platforms you can focus on.
If your customers are not hanging out there, you’ll be wasting your time.
Note:
The point of this article is not to find you a slam dunk marketing channel right away.
That would take testing and experimentation.
The goal here is to help you validate your chosen channel. This way, you know it’s viable before you start testing it.
Here’s my best advice for finding out where the attention is:
SEO is a great place to start
competitive research is a must
you can’t go wrong with social media
Let’s look at each of these.
SEO
A majority of online interactions begin with a search engine (mostly Google).
The first step is to evaluate the SEO landscape by searching for keywords in your industry.
You’ll find out what your audience is searching for and how often.
This is not just essential for finding out what’s happening online. Let’s say there aren’t that many monthly searches for your keywords.
You may want to focus on an offline channel.
Or you may decide this is a gap you can take advantage of.
You won’t know until you do some basic keyword research.
A simple tool like the Google Keyword Planner will work.
Type in your keyword to get search volume data.
Competition research
If you want to know where your customers hang out, find your competitors.
First, identify the competitors.
A simple Google search will do the trick. The biggest players are those who rank on the first page of SERP.
Once you’ve got a solid list, use a tool like SimilarWeb for your research.
Enter your competitor’s website and press enter:
You’ll find a range of data. Pay attention to “Traffic source:”
For Quick Sprout, the highest traffic source is search.
Naturally, my primary marketing channel would be SEO and blogging.
Direct is a close second, but it’s a bit trickier to figure out.
It represents people who type in your URL directly. It doesn’t tell you where these people first came into contact with your business.
The next step is to check out the individual breakdown of each traffic source.
You can see where referrals are coming from:
Since SEO is my dominant traffic source, I’ll pay particular attention to my top organic keywords:
You can also see which social media platform is the most popular. Mine is Facebook.
Social media
I like to take social media research a bit further.
The tool to use is BuzzSumo.
Type in your competitor’s domain. You can also search for a keyword:
You’ll see all the top performing content on the site and which social platform generated the most shares.
Using SimilarWeb, we saw that Facebook was Quick Sprout’s top platform.
BuzzSumo tells the same story:
If you want to take this a bit further, you can go to these individual platforms and do some sleuthing.
Check out the groups with the most members, listen in on the conversations, and get a feel for what your audience is focusing on.
When you go through this process, you may find you have two or three reliable options.
Which do you select?
I have three criteria.
Cheap. Fast. Easy.
You want to pick a channel that won’t cost you too much, if anything, to get started.
You also want a channel that doesn’t have a steep learning curve. Otherwise, you may spend too much time and money trying to figure it out.
Lastly, pick the channel that will allow you to make the most headway, quickly.
You must pick one, so use these criteria as the final litmus test.
Conclusion
Selecting a new marketing channel is a tall order.
It’s important you take some time to validate a potential channel before you focus on it.
Marketing requires time, which can easily be wasted on ineffective strategies.
It also requires cash.
It means you’d want to see a solid return on both your time and money investment.
The surest way to secure an attractive ROI is to vet potential marketing channels first.
You can then test and double down on what’s working.
Most people don’t go through this process of validation and testing.
As long as you keep experimenting and tweaking your strategy based on your results, you’ll have a significant advantage over your competitors.
What is your most effective marketing channel?
from Social Media Marketing http://ift.tt/2wGtagU via Social Media Marketing
0 notes
filipeteimuraz · 7 years
Text
How to Vet a New Marketing Channel in 3 Days or Less
I get this question a lot.
“What marketing channel should I focus on?”
There are many make or break decisions in business. This is one of them.
The thing is, I can’t give you a cut and dry answer.
The nature of your business matters. So does the audience you wish to target.
What I will do instead is give you a method for figuring this out for yourself.
If you’re starting a new business, this decision is critical. Focusing on the wrong marketing channel can set you back months and maybe even years.
If you’re expanding into a new market, selecting the wrong channel can also have massive ramifications.
You’d be putting your existing operations at risk for a new channel that may not pan out.
Just take a look at all the challenges marketers have to overcome:
You can imagine that each channel comes with a unique set of difficulties.
This speaks to the importance of vetting your marketing plan before you set it in motion.
There’s too much at stake.
In this article, I’ll show you how you can evaluate your options and narrow down the best choice quickly.
You don’t need more than three days to get this done.
But first, I have a bit of wisdom to share.
Resist the urge to diversify
You know that voice in your head that says you need to be everywhere at once? That fear of missing out if you don’t at least try everything?
It’s a diversion. Resist it.
It is imperative that you focus on one marketing channel.
At least in the beginning.
You’ll shortchange your success if you spread yourself thin.
Here’s why:
You’ll have less impact. If you’re focusing on several channels, you’re not doing everything you can to excel in any one of them.
It will cost you more. Testing and thriving with a multichannel approach costs way more than you may be willing to spend. If you want an organic and cost-effective approach, stick to one channel.
You’ll never actually know where your strength lies. Jumping from channel to channel means you won’t truly know the impact of one particular strategy on your business.
You’ll remain at the heels of your competitors. That’s not where you want to be, is it? You want to be ahead, and the way to do that is to establish dominance in your market.
Now, don’t misunderstand me.
I’m not saying you should go all in on one channel and forget the rest.
But multichannel marketing is complex. Only 30% of marketers are confident they can deliver on such a strategy:
That’s not a lot.
What I’m advocating for is starting from a position of dominance.
Put your energy into one strategy until it succeeds. Then, piggyback on that success to achieve wins in other areas.
Does that make sense?
The steps in this article will be geared towards helping you place a bullseye on the ONE channel that will serve you best.
Now that we got that out of the way, let’s begin.
Step #1: Know your options
The first thing you want to do is brainstorm all your possible options.
This isn’t something you have to conjure up out of thin air.
You can connect with your target audience and spread your message in many different ways.
Better yet, each channel has several subsets that you can zone in on.
Here’s a good representation:
Many of these overlap. Some have even morphed into each other.
It can get confusing, quickly.
For example, some people consider SEO to be one marketing channel.
But I can’t imagine a world where SEO and content marketing aren’t intertwined. You can’t do one without the other.
The same goes for social media and paid advertising.
They’re different channels. But there’s a convergence.
Let’s imagine you decide to focus on Facebook as your primary social media platform. It would be unwise to not experiment with Facebook Ads.
Considering that Facebook has developed one of the greatest ad products out there, you’d be underutilizing the full power of the platform.
Marketers agree. Almost 57% plan to increase their social media ad spend.
I say all this to make a simple point.
While you may zone in on one channel, you’ll see lots of overlap you shouldn’t ignore.
Go where your audience takes you.
Let’s look at some of your options.
Content marketing
This is about creating and promoting material relevant to your target audience.
Content marketing is central to your success.
It’s been reported 90% of businesses market using this channel.
It means that no matter what strategy you use, content will be a part of it.
You can narrow your content down to blogging, guest blogging, podcasts, webinars, email, etc.
Social media marketing
You can use social media as your platform to get noticed, build authority, and grow a community.
You can also use it to drive traffic to your main site.
Or you can do both. It’s effective either way.
Paid advertising
Much of marketing is organic and will take time to generate results.
Paid advertising is one way to accelerate that.
The downside is, you have to pay to play.
Facebook ads, other social media ads, print ads, PPC, and direct response fall into this category.
Public relations  
PR is about building relationships and capitalizing on the optics of your business.
It can be both online and offline. Press releases, conferences, events, interviews, and sponsorships are a few examples.
As you can see, you have no shortage of options when it comes to marketing.
I’ve given an overview of the main ones, but you are not limited to them.
Step #2: Choose the channels aligned with your business goals
You now have an idea of what’s available to you.
It’s time to make a list of all the channels that will serve your business.
Start with your business goals.
Some marketing channels are better suited to achieving a particular goal than others.
Goal setting is a flexible thing. You can make changes as your business evolves.
This means that the marketing channel you use right now may not be viable in the future, once your business progresses.
Consider what stage your business is in and what your goal for the next 90 days is.
According to Jay Abraham, there are only three ways to grow a business:
Increase the number of customers
Increase the frequency with which a customer buys from you
Increase the amount that a customer spends on a purchase
Your business goals should serve one of these three phases of business.
If you’re still at the first stage, your goals might be brand awareness, lead generation, and customer acquisition.
If you already have a list of buyers, your goal might be to increase sales.
What if you already have a reliable stream of sales?
There’s no such thing as too many sales, but your goal at this point might be to maximize profits and retain customers.
Here’s what most businesses are prioritizing:
These may or may not apply to you. Just focus on what your business needs at the moment.
This way, you don’t set goals that aren’t yet attainable.
By extension, it ensures you don’t waste time and resources on a marketing channel that won’t serve your business well.
How do you select a channel that’s right for your business goals?
Before you even start testing, do some elimination.
I’ll give you a few examples, and you’ll have to apply this knowledge to your business.
Let’s say your goal is brand awareness.
PR, social media, content marketing, and even paid advertising can be used for this purpose.
The easy solution?
Eliminate the channels that would be less efficient.
For instance, paid advertising won’t be the most useful for brand awareness.
But for sales or lead generation? It can crush it! (If you know what you’re doing, that is).
Take a look at some of the business goals that apply to the content marketing channel. It will give you an idea of what to aim for:
It’s also important to take into consideration what feels the most organic for your business.
If you’re selling something like hoverboards or bicycles, would blog posts serve you the best?
Not likely.
These products are lifestyle-based. You’d be better off using a visual channel that will allow you to provide an experience to potential customers.
Immediately, social media comes to mind.
Then you begin to narrow it down to Instagram or YouTube.
This is a logical process that won’t take you more than an hour to figure out.
You don’t have to find that one channel yet. Just eliminate what won’t work, and rank your remaining options.
Step #3: Narrow down the list by going where your audience is
At this point, you’ve got a few options. It’s time to prioritize.
This one is easy. Find your potential customers.
A marketing channel can serve your goal, but there are many platforms you can focus on.
If your customers are not hanging out there, you’ll be wasting your time.
Note:
The point of this article is not to find you a slam dunk marketing channel right away.
That would take testing and experimentation.
The goal here is to help you validate your chosen channel. This way, you know it’s viable before you start testing it.
Here’s my best advice for finding out where the attention is:
SEO is a great place to start
competitive research is a must
you can’t go wrong with social media
Let’s look at each of these.
SEO
A majority of online interactions begin with a search engine (mostly Google).
The first step is to evaluate the SEO landscape by searching for keywords in your industry.
You’ll find out what your audience is searching for and how often.
This is not just essential for finding out what’s happening online. Let’s say there aren’t that many monthly searches for your keywords.
You may want to focus on an offline channel.
Or you may decide this is a gap you can take advantage of.
You won’t know until you do some basic keyword research.
A simple tool like the Google Keyword Planner will work.
Type in your keyword to get search volume data.
Competition research
If you want to know where your customers hang out, find your competitors.
First, identify the competitors.
A simple Google search will do the trick. The biggest players are those who rank on the first page of SERP.
Once you’ve got a solid list, use a tool like SimilarWeb for your research.
Enter your competitor’s website and press enter:
You’ll find a range of data. Pay attention to “Traffic source:”
For Quick Sprout, the highest traffic source is search.
Naturally, my primary marketing channel would be SEO and blogging.
Direct is a close second, but it’s a bit trickier to figure out.
It represents people who type in your URL directly. It doesn’t tell you where these people first came into contact with your business.
The next step is to check out the individual breakdown of each traffic source.
You can see where referrals are coming from:
Since SEO is my dominant traffic source, I’ll pay particular attention to my top organic keywords:
You can also see which social media platform is the most popular. Mine is Facebook.
Social media
I like to take social media research a bit further.
The tool to use is BuzzSumo.
Type in your competitor’s domain. You can also search for a keyword:
You’ll see all the top performing content on the site and which social platform generated the most shares.
Using SimilarWeb, we saw that Facebook was Quick Sprout’s top platform.
BuzzSumo tells the same story:
If you want to take this a bit further, you can go to these individual platforms and do some sleuthing.
Check out the groups with the most members, listen in on the conversations, and get a feel for what your audience is focusing on.
When you go through this process, you may find you have two or three reliable options.
Which do you select?
I have three criteria.
Cheap. Fast. Easy.
You want to pick a channel that won’t cost you too much, if anything, to get started.
You also want a channel that doesn’t have a steep learning curve. Otherwise, you may spend too much time and money trying to figure it out.
Lastly, pick the channel that will allow you to make the most headway, quickly.
You must pick one, so use these criteria as the final litmus test.
Conclusion
Selecting a new marketing channel is a tall order.
It’s important you take some time to validate a potential channel before you focus on it.
Marketing requires time, which can easily be wasted on ineffective strategies.
It also requires cash.
It means you’d want to see a solid return on both your time and money investment.
The surest way to secure an attractive ROI is to vet potential marketing channels first.
You can then test and double down on what’s working.
Most people don’t go through this process of validation and testing.
As long as you keep experimenting and tweaking your strategy based on your results, you’ll have a significant advantage over your competitors.
What is your most effective marketing channel?
https://www.quicksprout.com/2017/09/22/how-to-vet-a-new-marketing-channel-in-3-days-or-less/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-to-vet-new-marketing-channel-in-3_22.html
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repwincostl4m0a2 · 7 years
Text
Mastering the Design Approval Process
Being a designer means channeling your soul into bringing something new into the world… only to have a group of strangers tear it — and your self worth — apart. Critiques are an unwavering part of any designer’s life and are easily the worst part of the job. Formally educated designers leave the womb of university thinking it will be easier once they’re out in the “real world,” only to find out it’s actually more difficult. In school, at least feedback is given with a firm understanding of design principles and the project at hand.
Now you have to present your designs to clients, bosses, and colleagues. You might have the odd project where you’re working with someone as knowledgeable on design as you, but I wouldn’t count on it. Instead, you can expect the life to be sucked out of you while you try and persuade your critics to abandon their preconceived notions of “good design.”
There’s good news: it doesn’t have to be this way. Sure, design critiques will never be easy… but they don’t have to be a bloodbath.
After fifteen years of making mistakes during the critique process I’ve come across three common reasons things don’t go as planned; I’ve even discovered ways to prevent it. What are those reasons you ask?
The design gets evaluated by personal preferences
Failing to establish yourself as the expert
You’ve actually missed the mark
The harsh reality is it’s likely your fault when things go wrong.
Enough preamble. Let’s talk about how you can save your soul.
Design is evaluated by personal preferences
“I don’t like the color purple.” Awesome… actually, neither do I… but your customers love it. The all too prevalent “personal preference” derails many design critiques sending them spiraling out of control into a fiery crash in the ditch. Nothing strikes more fear into my heart than hearing someone say “I can’t design myself, but I know what looks good.” Everyone has their own taste in music, fashion, colors, and style, but none of those tastes are relevant to the design at hand. You know something is wrong when you hear the phrase “I like.”
“I like” precedes a personal preference—not what could be most effective to the audience. I forbid my students from using it in the classroom because what you like, what I like, and what your audience likes is not the same. We’re not talking about what you’d hang on your wall. We’re talking about what will improve your business.
The “right design” is the concept that performs best, which isn’t always the one you like the most. There are hundreds of instances where less attractive designs actually perform better. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.
The question is, how do you get your critics out of their own head? The answer: by reframing the discussion.
Reframe the Discussion
The words you use and questions you ask have a profound effect on the responses you get. “What do you think?” elicits a different response than “Does this align our objectives?” But let me take a step back. Before you even ask for feedback set some boundaries. Make your audience respond from the perspective of the target audience. Tell them that instead of starting with “I think” to start with “John Smith would / wouldn’t…” (Presumably John Smith would be one of your personas—more on this later.)
Once you’ve established the rules ask questions such as:
How does this align with our objectives?
Does this accommodate our users and their needs?
Does this accurately represent the brand voice?
Education might be the first step, but it’s rarely effective on it’s own. Evaluating design from the perspective of others takes practice. Lots of it. You’ve had years of experience, your critics likely have none. So what’s a designer to do? Present your reasoning.
Document and Present  Your Design Research
The best design is informed by research. Through research the designer acquires a vivid picture of who this is intended for, the desired outcome and surrounding landscape.  It’s much easier to justify color schemes when you have data to back up your decisions. While there are dozens of valid research techniques, we’ve found personas to be particularly effective in this situation.
For those unfamiliar, personas are fictional representations of your intended audience. You bring them to life by giving them a name, head shot, and enough demographic and psychographic details so it feels as though you could have a conversation with them. Now instead of talking about the all-too-nebulous “target audience” you can have a fruitful conversation about good ol’ Martha Melancamp and how this website fits into her retired life filled with family time, reading, and frequent travel.
With personas in hand you can politely say, “Yes, I agree purple is the worst color to grace this planet…but what does Martha think?”
With these two techniques you should cut down on the amount of irrelevant feedback. The next common issue is deals with establishing expertise.
Failing to Establish Yourself as the Expert
You and I both know that design is a rigorous, system-driven process backed by principles, theory, convention, and research. Many don’t… and guess what, it’s your job to know that, not theirs. Your critics have no idea you’ve thought through every detail, weighed pros and cons, and ultimately landed at hundreds if not thousands of informed decisions.
Any unjustified suggestion to move, resize, or delete an element is a pretty good sign you’re not being viewed as an expert. You want clients to ask questions when something feels off—not start giving orders. “Why did you place this here?” is good. “Move the sidebar to the other side” is bad.
How do you solve this? Education, explanation, and asking the right questions.
Don’t just talk, educate
The best designers do as much educating as they do designing. Teaching “design think” quashes misinformed feedback and empowers others to solve their own complex problems. Lofty thinking I know, but there are real-world benefits that will make your life much easier. Educating the review team conveys your expertise and communicates everything is backed by research and established conventions.
This is not a one-and-done process, you’ll demonstrate your knowledge throughout the process. That said, much of the groundwork is laid at the beginning during the design discovery process. If for no other reason than it’s much easier to internalize design theory when you don’t have a concept staring you in the face.
When you start the initial design conversations, pretend as if you’re teaching a design course. Talk about best practices, hierarchy, typography, and visual language. Share examples of decisions you make and typical thought process. We go so far as producing a design strategy where we outline all the considerations we’ve identified, goals and their priorities, buyer personas, branding considerations, and key elements. We find the document gets initial buy-in and serves as a reference point to revisit discussions if necessary.
The obvious benefit of this effort is equipping your audience with an informed decision, but there is another hidden benefit. You develop a teacher / student relationship—one where you’re the authority and they’re the pupil.
The next critical step after you’ve crafted your initial concept is to explain the reasons behind your design decisions.
Explain your reasoning
You know, a great way to prevent people from assuming design decisions were arbitrary? Tell them. If your design process involves emailing a concept with the message “let me know what you think?” you’re just asking for trouble. How is someone supposed to know what you were thinking if you don’t tell them? If you’re like me you have an internal dialog during the design process. “This element has too much emphasis; I’m going to make it smaller,” “This color is too strong; I’ll find a more subdued shade,” or “These two pieces of content are related; I’ll group them together.”
You’ve seen every combination that didn’t work. If you don’t capture and communicate your reasoning then it feels arbitrary. The reviewer has no choice but to consider their gut reaction, where does it feel like this should go? I design with a notepad open. Every time I attempt something that doesn’t work I make a note. Every time I land on a solution I make a note. When it’s time to explain the concept I can articulate my intentions.
The most well articulated reasoning won’t help if you’ve simply missed the mark.
Your Design Misses the Mark
Yes, designers are fallible. We misunderstand stakeholders, rush through design research, and let personal biases cloud our thought processes. When it happens don’t let your ego get the best of you. Learn the lesson and move on. So how do you prevent this? Let’s look at the two most common reasons for missing the mark and how to avoid them.
Designing for the Wrong Audience
Other designers are not the target audience (an overwhelming majority of the time.) “Sexy design” is a temptress that will frequently call your name, especially if you’re working on a mundane topic. The delight of praise from your peers won’t feel as sweet when the concept under performs and the client hires a different agency next time around. Admiration is great, but food and shelter is much, much better.
Many of my best performing designs were the ones I personally liked the least.
Designing for yourself isn’t the only audience temptress, you can also be tempted to design for your client. Some clients will show up with a collection of websites they like. You could seek quick approval by imitating their examples, but this will only hurt you both in the long run. When the design under performs the client’s business will suffer and it will be your fault.
Inadequate Design Research
Your solutions are only as strong as your understanding of the situation. Talking to client stakeholders is a good start, but there are many ways to layer on additional insights that will guide your end result. Talk to the target audience, consume the media they consume, watch their behavior online, dig into the analytics and see what they’re doing on the site now.
When in doubt use tools to validate your current direction like the Five Second Test or UserZoom. Testing design concepts eliminates speculation and opinion, giving you data to inform the next design iteration.
Wrapping it Up
Allows critics to better understand what feedback they should be providing by laying the groundwork early. Digging deep into the problem at hand will inform your approach so you don’t miss the mark and creates an opportunity to document critical elements like objectives, KPI’s, personas, etc… You’ll also be able to explain your reasoning using the documentation as justification. Finally, when it’s time to get feedback the right questions will illicit the best responses from both parties.
There’s no guarantee you’ll never have difficulty during the visual design phase, but these steps will make your life and your client’s experience more satisfying and productive.
The post Mastering the Design Approval Process appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2o3iAYr
0 notes
grgedoors02142 · 7 years
Text
Mastering the Design Approval Process
Being a designer means channeling your soul into bringing something new into the world… only to have a group of strangers tear it — and your self worth — apart. Critiques are an unwavering part of any designer’s life and are easily the worst part of the job. Formally educated designers leave the womb of university thinking it will be easier once they’re out in the “real world,” only to find out it’s actually more difficult. In school, at least feedback is given with a firm understanding of design principles and the project at hand.
Now you have to present your designs to clients, bosses, and colleagues. You might have the odd project where you’re working with someone as knowledgeable on design as you, but I wouldn’t count on it. Instead, you can expect the life to be sucked out of you while you try and persuade your critics to abandon their preconceived notions of “good design.”
There’s good news: it doesn’t have to be this way. Sure, design critiques will never be easy… but they don’t have to be a bloodbath.
After fifteen years of making mistakes during the critique process I’ve come across three common reasons things don’t go as planned; I’ve even discovered ways to prevent it. What are those reasons you ask?
The design gets evaluated by personal preferences
Failing to establish yourself as the expert
You’ve actually missed the mark
The harsh reality is it’s likely your fault when things go wrong.
Enough preamble. Let’s talk about how you can save your soul.
Design is evaluated by personal preferences
“I don’t like the color purple.” Awesome… actually, neither do I… but your customers love it. The all too prevalent “personal preference” derails many design critiques sending them spiraling out of control into a fiery crash in the ditch. Nothing strikes more fear into my heart than hearing someone say “I can’t design myself, but I know what looks good.” Everyone has their own taste in music, fashion, colors, and style, but none of those tastes are relevant to the design at hand. You know something is wrong when you hear the phrase “I like.”
“I like” precedes a personal preference—not what could be most effective to the audience. I forbid my students from using it in the classroom because what you like, what I like, and what your audience likes is not the same. We’re not talking about what you’d hang on your wall. We’re talking about what will improve your business.
The “right design” is the concept that performs best, which isn’t always the one you like the most. There are hundreds of instances where less attractive designs actually perform better. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.
The question is, how do you get your critics out of their own head? The answer: by reframing the discussion.
Reframe the Discussion
The words you use and questions you ask have a profound effect on the responses you get. “What do you think?” elicits a different response than “Does this align our objectives?” But let me take a step back. Before you even ask for feedback set some boundaries. Make your audience respond from the perspective of the target audience. Tell them that instead of starting with “I think” to start with “John Smith would / wouldn’t…” (Presumably John Smith would be one of your personas—more on this later.)
Once you’ve established the rules ask questions such as:
How does this align with our objectives?
Does this accommodate our users and their needs?
Does this accurately represent the brand voice?
Education might be the first step, but it’s rarely effective on it’s own. Evaluating design from the perspective of others takes practice. Lots of it. You’ve had years of experience, your critics likely have none. So what’s a designer to do? Present your reasoning.
Document and Present  Your Design Research
The best design is informed by research. Through research the designer acquires a vivid picture of who this is intended for, the desired outcome and surrounding landscape.  It’s much easier to justify color schemes when you have data to back up your decisions. While there are dozens of valid research techniques, we’ve found personas to be particularly effective in this situation.
For those unfamiliar, personas are fictional representations of your intended audience. You bring them to life by giving them a name, head shot, and enough demographic and psychographic details so it feels as though you could have a conversation with them. Now instead of talking about the all-too-nebulous “target audience” you can have a fruitful conversation about good ol’ Martha Melancamp and how this website fits into her retired life filled with family time, reading, and frequent travel.
With personas in hand you can politely say, “Yes, I agree purple is the worst color to grace this planet…but what does Martha think?”
With these two techniques you should cut down on the amount of irrelevant feedback. The next common issue is deals with establishing expertise.
Failing to Establish Yourself as the Expert
You and I both know that design is a rigorous, system-driven process backed by principles, theory, convention, and research. Many don’t… and guess what, it’s your job to know that, not theirs. Your critics have no idea you’ve thought through every detail, weighed pros and cons, and ultimately landed at hundreds if not thousands of informed decisions.
Any unjustified suggestion to move, resize, or delete an element is a pretty good sign you’re not being viewed as an expert. You want clients to ask questions when something feels off—not start giving orders. “Why did you place this here?” is good. “Move the sidebar to the other side” is bad.
How do you solve this? Education, explanation, and asking the right questions.
Don’t just talk, educate
The best designers do as much educating as they do designing. Teaching “design think” quashes misinformed feedback and empowers others to solve their own complex problems. Lofty thinking I know, but there are real-world benefits that will make your life much easier. Educating the review team conveys your expertise and communicates everything is backed by research and established conventions.
This is not a one-and-done process, you’ll demonstrate your knowledge throughout the process. That said, much of the groundwork is laid at the beginning during the design discovery process. If for no other reason than it’s much easier to internalize design theory when you don’t have a concept staring you in the face.
When you start the initial design conversations, pretend as if you’re teaching a design course. Talk about best practices, hierarchy, typography, and visual language. Share examples of decisions you make and typical thought process. We go so far as producing a design strategy where we outline all the considerations we’ve identified, goals and their priorities, buyer personas, branding considerations, and key elements. We find the document gets initial buy-in and serves as a reference point to revisit discussions if necessary.
The obvious benefit of this effort is equipping your audience with an informed decision, but there is another hidden benefit. You develop a teacher / student relationship—one where you’re the authority and they’re the pupil.
The next critical step after you’ve crafted your initial concept is to explain the reasons behind your design decisions.
Explain your reasoning
You know, a great way to prevent people from assuming design decisions were arbitrary? Tell them. If your design process involves emailing a concept with the message “let me know what you think?” you’re just asking for trouble. How is someone supposed to know what you were thinking if you don’t tell them? If you’re like me you have an internal dialog during the design process. “This element has too much emphasis; I’m going to make it smaller,” “This color is too strong; I’ll find a more subdued shade,” or “These two pieces of content are related; I’ll group them together.”
You’ve seen every combination that didn’t work. If you don’t capture and communicate your reasoning then it feels arbitrary. The reviewer has no choice but to consider their gut reaction, where does it feel like this should go? I design with a notepad open. Every time I attempt something that doesn’t work I make a note. Every time I land on a solution I make a note. When it’s time to explain the concept I can articulate my intentions.
The most well articulated reasoning won’t help if you’ve simply missed the mark.
Your Design Misses the Mark
Yes, designers are fallible. We misunderstand stakeholders, rush through design research, and let personal biases cloud our thought processes. When it happens don’t let your ego get the best of you. Learn the lesson and move on. So how do you prevent this? Let’s look at the two most common reasons for missing the mark and how to avoid them.
Designing for the Wrong Audience
Other designers are not the target audience (an overwhelming majority of the time.) “Sexy design” is a temptress that will frequently call your name, especially if you’re working on a mundane topic. The delight of praise from your peers won’t feel as sweet when the concept under performs and the client hires a different agency next time around. Admiration is great, but food and shelter is much, much better.
Many of my best performing designs were the ones I personally liked the least.
Designing for yourself isn’t the only audience temptress, you can also be tempted to design for your client. Some clients will show up with a collection of websites they like. You could seek quick approval by imitating their examples, but this will only hurt you both in the long run. When the design under performs the client’s business will suffer and it will be your fault.
Inadequate Design Research
Your solutions are only as strong as your understanding of the situation. Talking to client stakeholders is a good start, but there are many ways to layer on additional insights that will guide your end result. Talk to the target audience, consume the media they consume, watch their behavior online, dig into the analytics and see what they’re doing on the site now.
When in doubt use tools to validate your current direction like the Five Second Test or UserZoom. Testing design concepts eliminates speculation and opinion, giving you data to inform the next design iteration.
Wrapping it Up
Allows critics to better understand what feedback they should be providing by laying the groundwork early. Digging deep into the problem at hand will inform your approach so you don’t miss the mark and creates an opportunity to document critical elements like objectives, KPI’s, personas, etc… You’ll also be able to explain your reasoning using the documentation as justification. Finally, when it’s time to get feedback the right questions will illicit the best responses from both parties.
There’s no guarantee you’ll never have difficulty during the visual design phase, but these steps will make your life and your client’s experience more satisfying and productive.
The post Mastering the Design Approval Process appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2o3iAYr
0 notes
rtscrndr53704 · 7 years
Text
Mastering the Design Approval Process
Being a designer means channeling your soul into bringing something new into the world… only to have a group of strangers tear it — and your self worth — apart. Critiques are an unwavering part of any designer’s life and are easily the worst part of the job. Formally educated designers leave the womb of university thinking it will be easier once they’re out in the “real world,” only to find out it’s actually more difficult. In school, at least feedback is given with a firm understanding of design principles and the project at hand.
Now you have to present your designs to clients, bosses, and colleagues. You might have the odd project where you’re working with someone as knowledgeable on design as you, but I wouldn’t count on it. Instead, you can expect the life to be sucked out of you while you try and persuade your critics to abandon their preconceived notions of “good design.”
There’s good news: it doesn’t have to be this way. Sure, design critiques will never be easy… but they don’t have to be a bloodbath.
After fifteen years of making mistakes during the critique process I’ve come across three common reasons things don’t go as planned; I’ve even discovered ways to prevent it. What are those reasons you ask?
The design gets evaluated by personal preferences
Failing to establish yourself as the expert
You’ve actually missed the mark
The harsh reality is it’s likely your fault when things go wrong.
Enough preamble. Let’s talk about how you can save your soul.
Design is evaluated by personal preferences
“I don’t like the color purple.” Awesome… actually, neither do I… but your customers love it. The all too prevalent “personal preference” derails many design critiques sending them spiraling out of control into a fiery crash in the ditch. Nothing strikes more fear into my heart than hearing someone say “I can’t design myself, but I know what looks good.” Everyone has their own taste in music, fashion, colors, and style, but none of those tastes are relevant to the design at hand. You know something is wrong when you hear the phrase “I like.”
“I like” precedes a personal preference—not what could be most effective to the audience. I forbid my students from using it in the classroom because what you like, what I like, and what your audience likes is not the same. We’re not talking about what you’d hang on your wall. We’re talking about what will improve your business.
The “right design” is the concept that performs best, which isn’t always the one you like the most. There are hundreds of instances where less attractive designs actually perform better. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.
The question is, how do you get your critics out of their own head? The answer: by reframing the discussion.
Reframe the Discussion
The words you use and questions you ask have a profound effect on the responses you get. “What do you think?” elicits a different response than “Does this align our objectives?” But let me take a step back. Before you even ask for feedback set some boundaries. Make your audience respond from the perspective of the target audience. Tell them that instead of starting with “I think” to start with “John Smith would / wouldn’t…” (Presumably John Smith would be one of your personas—more on this later.)
Once you’ve established the rules ask questions such as:
How does this align with our objectives?
Does this accommodate our users and their needs?
Does this accurately represent the brand voice?
Education might be the first step, but it’s rarely effective on it’s own. Evaluating design from the perspective of others takes practice. Lots of it. You’ve had years of experience, your critics likely have none. So what’s a designer to do? Present your reasoning.
Document and Present  Your Design Research
The best design is informed by research. Through research the designer acquires a vivid picture of who this is intended for, the desired outcome and surrounding landscape.  It’s much easier to justify color schemes when you have data to back up your decisions. While there are dozens of valid research techniques, we’ve found personas to be particularly effective in this situation.
For those unfamiliar, personas are fictional representations of your intended audience. You bring them to life by giving them a name, head shot, and enough demographic and psychographic details so it feels as though you could have a conversation with them. Now instead of talking about the all-too-nebulous “target audience” you can have a fruitful conversation about good ol’ Martha Melancamp and how this website fits into her retired life filled with family time, reading, and frequent travel.
With personas in hand you can politely say, “Yes, I agree purple is the worst color to grace this planet…but what does Martha think?”
With these two techniques you should cut down on the amount of irrelevant feedback. The next common issue is deals with establishing expertise.
Failing to Establish Yourself as the Expert
You and I both know that design is a rigorous, system-driven process backed by principles, theory, convention, and research. Many don’t… and guess what, it’s your job to know that, not theirs. Your critics have no idea you’ve thought through every detail, weighed pros and cons, and ultimately landed at hundreds if not thousands of informed decisions.
Any unjustified suggestion to move, resize, or delete an element is a pretty good sign you’re not being viewed as an expert. You want clients to ask questions when something feels off—not start giving orders. “Why did you place this here?” is good. “Move the sidebar to the other side” is bad.
How do you solve this? Education, explanation, and asking the right questions.
Don’t just talk, educate
The best designers do as much educating as they do designing. Teaching “design think” quashes misinformed feedback and empowers others to solve their own complex problems. Lofty thinking I know, but there are real-world benefits that will make your life much easier. Educating the review team conveys your expertise and communicates everything is backed by research and established conventions.
This is not a one-and-done process, you’ll demonstrate your knowledge throughout the process. That said, much of the groundwork is laid at the beginning during the design discovery process. If for no other reason than it’s much easier to internalize design theory when you don’t have a concept staring you in the face.
When you start the initial design conversations, pretend as if you’re teaching a design course. Talk about best practices, hierarchy, typography, and visual language. Share examples of decisions you make and typical thought process. We go so far as producing a design strategy where we outline all the considerations we’ve identified, goals and their priorities, buyer personas, branding considerations, and key elements. We find the document gets initial buy-in and serves as a reference point to revisit discussions if necessary.
The obvious benefit of this effort is equipping your audience with an informed decision, but there is another hidden benefit. You develop a teacher / student relationship—one where you’re the authority and they’re the pupil.
The next critical step after you’ve crafted your initial concept is to explain the reasons behind your design decisions.
Explain your reasoning
You know, a great way to prevent people from assuming design decisions were arbitrary? Tell them. If your design process involves emailing a concept with the message “let me know what you think?” you’re just asking for trouble. How is someone supposed to know what you were thinking if you don’t tell them? If you’re like me you have an internal dialog during the design process. “This element has too much emphasis; I’m going to make it smaller,” “This color is too strong; I’ll find a more subdued shade,” or “These two pieces of content are related; I’ll group them together.”
You’ve seen every combination that didn’t work. If you don’t capture and communicate your reasoning then it feels arbitrary. The reviewer has no choice but to consider their gut reaction, where does it feel like this should go? I design with a notepad open. Every time I attempt something that doesn’t work I make a note. Every time I land on a solution I make a note. When it’s time to explain the concept I can articulate my intentions.
The most well articulated reasoning won’t help if you’ve simply missed the mark.
Your Design Misses the Mark
Yes, designers are fallible. We misunderstand stakeholders, rush through design research, and let personal biases cloud our thought processes. When it happens don’t let your ego get the best of you. Learn the lesson and move on. So how do you prevent this? Let’s look at the two most common reasons for missing the mark and how to avoid them.
Designing for the Wrong Audience
Other designers are not the target audience (an overwhelming majority of the time.) “Sexy design” is a temptress that will frequently call your name, especially if you’re working on a mundane topic. The delight of praise from your peers won’t feel as sweet when the concept under performs and the client hires a different agency next time around. Admiration is great, but food and shelter is much, much better.
Many of my best performing designs were the ones I personally liked the least.
Designing for yourself isn’t the only audience temptress, you can also be tempted to design for your client. Some clients will show up with a collection of websites they like. You could seek quick approval by imitating their examples, but this will only hurt you both in the long run. When the design under performs the client’s business will suffer and it will be your fault.
Inadequate Design Research
Your solutions are only as strong as your understanding of the situation. Talking to client stakeholders is a good start, but there are many ways to layer on additional insights that will guide your end result. Talk to the target audience, consume the media they consume, watch their behavior online, dig into the analytics and see what they’re doing on the site now.
When in doubt use tools to validate your current direction like the Five Second Test or UserZoom. Testing design concepts eliminates speculation and opinion, giving you data to inform the next design iteration.
Wrapping it Up
Allows critics to better understand what feedback they should be providing by laying the groundwork early. Digging deep into the problem at hand will inform your approach so you don’t miss the mark and creates an opportunity to document critical elements like objectives, KPI’s, personas, etc… You’ll also be able to explain your reasoning using the documentation as justification. Finally, when it’s time to get feedback the right questions will illicit the best responses from both parties.
There’s no guarantee you’ll never have difficulty during the visual design phase, but these steps will make your life and your client’s experience more satisfying and productive.
The post Mastering the Design Approval Process appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2o3iAYr
0 notes
chpatdoorsl3z0a1 · 7 years
Text
Mastering the Design Approval Process
Being a designer means channeling your soul into bringing something new into the world… only to have a group of strangers tear it — and your self worth — apart. Critiques are an unwavering part of any designer’s life and are easily the worst part of the job. Formally educated designers leave the womb of university thinking it will be easier once they’re out in the “real world,” only to find out it’s actually more difficult. In school, at least feedback is given with a firm understanding of design principles and the project at hand.
Now you have to present your designs to clients, bosses, and colleagues. You might have the odd project where you’re working with someone as knowledgeable on design as you, but I wouldn’t count on it. Instead, you can expect the life to be sucked out of you while you try and persuade your critics to abandon their preconceived notions of “good design.”
There’s good news: it doesn’t have to be this way. Sure, design critiques will never be easy… but they don’t have to be a bloodbath.
After fifteen years of making mistakes during the critique process I’ve come across three common reasons things don’t go as planned; I’ve even discovered ways to prevent it. What are those reasons you ask?
The design gets evaluated by personal preferences
Failing to establish yourself as the expert
You’ve actually missed the mark
The harsh reality is it’s likely your fault when things go wrong.
Enough preamble. Let’s talk about how you can save your soul.
Design is evaluated by personal preferences
“I don’t like the color purple.” Awesome… actually, neither do I… but your customers love it. The all too prevalent “personal preference” derails many design critiques sending them spiraling out of control into a fiery crash in the ditch. Nothing strikes more fear into my heart than hearing someone say “I can’t design myself, but I know what looks good.” Everyone has their own taste in music, fashion, colors, and style, but none of those tastes are relevant to the design at hand. You know something is wrong when you hear the phrase “I like.”
“I like” precedes a personal preference—not what could be most effective to the audience. I forbid my students from using it in the classroom because what you like, what I like, and what your audience likes is not the same. We’re not talking about what you’d hang on your wall. We’re talking about what will improve your business.
The “right design” is the concept that performs best, which isn’t always the one you like the most. There are hundreds of instances where less attractive designs actually perform better. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.
The question is, how do you get your critics out of their own head? The answer: by reframing the discussion.
Reframe the Discussion
The words you use and questions you ask have a profound effect on the responses you get. “What do you think?” elicits a different response than “Does this align our objectives?” But let me take a step back. Before you even ask for feedback set some boundaries. Make your audience respond from the perspective of the target audience. Tell them that instead of starting with “I think” to start with “John Smith would / wouldn’t…” (Presumably John Smith would be one of your personas—more on this later.)
Once you’ve established the rules ask questions such as:
How does this align with our objectives?
Does this accommodate our users and their needs?
Does this accurately represent the brand voice?
Education might be the first step, but it’s rarely effective on it’s own. Evaluating design from the perspective of others takes practice. Lots of it. You’ve had years of experience, your critics likely have none. So what’s a designer to do? Present your reasoning.
Document and Present  Your Design Research
The best design is informed by research. Through research the designer acquires a vivid picture of who this is intended for, the desired outcome and surrounding landscape.  It’s much easier to justify color schemes when you have data to back up your decisions. While there are dozens of valid research techniques, we’ve found personas to be particularly effective in this situation.
For those unfamiliar, personas are fictional representations of your intended audience. You bring them to life by giving them a name, head shot, and enough demographic and psychographic details so it feels as though you could have a conversation with them. Now instead of talking about the all-too-nebulous “target audience” you can have a fruitful conversation about good ol’ Martha Melancamp and how this website fits into her retired life filled with family time, reading, and frequent travel.
With personas in hand you can politely say, “Yes, I agree purple is the worst color to grace this planet…but what does Martha think?”
With these two techniques you should cut down on the amount of irrelevant feedback. The next common issue is deals with establishing expertise.
Failing to Establish Yourself as the Expert
You and I both know that design is a rigorous, system-driven process backed by principles, theory, convention, and research. Many don’t… and guess what, it’s your job to know that, not theirs. Your critics have no idea you’ve thought through every detail, weighed pros and cons, and ultimately landed at hundreds if not thousands of informed decisions.
Any unjustified suggestion to move, resize, or delete an element is a pretty good sign you’re not being viewed as an expert. You want clients to ask questions when something feels off—not start giving orders. “Why did you place this here?” is good. “Move the sidebar to the other side” is bad.
How do you solve this? Education, explanation, and asking the right questions.
Don’t just talk, educate
The best designers do as much educating as they do designing. Teaching “design think” quashes misinformed feedback and empowers others to solve their own complex problems. Lofty thinking I know, but there are real-world benefits that will make your life much easier. Educating the review team conveys your expertise and communicates everything is backed by research and established conventions.
This is not a one-and-done process, you’ll demonstrate your knowledge throughout the process. That said, much of the groundwork is laid at the beginning during the design discovery process. If for no other reason than it’s much easier to internalize design theory when you don’t have a concept staring you in the face.
When you start the initial design conversations, pretend as if you’re teaching a design course. Talk about best practices, hierarchy, typography, and visual language. Share examples of decisions you make and typical thought process. We go so far as producing a design strategy where we outline all the considerations we’ve identified, goals and their priorities, buyer personas, branding considerations, and key elements. We find the document gets initial buy-in and serves as a reference point to revisit discussions if necessary.
The obvious benefit of this effort is equipping your audience with an informed decision, but there is another hidden benefit. You develop a teacher / student relationship—one where you’re the authority and they’re the pupil.
The next critical step after you’ve crafted your initial concept is to explain the reasons behind your design decisions.
Explain your reasoning
You know, a great way to prevent people from assuming design decisions were arbitrary? Tell them. If your design process involves emailing a concept with the message “let me know what you think?” you’re just asking for trouble. How is someone supposed to know what you were thinking if you don’t tell them? If you’re like me you have an internal dialog during the design process. “This element has too much emphasis; I’m going to make it smaller,” “This color is too strong; I’ll find a more subdued shade,” or “These two pieces of content are related; I’ll group them together.”
You’ve seen every combination that didn’t work. If you don’t capture and communicate your reasoning then it feels arbitrary. The reviewer has no choice but to consider their gut reaction, where does it feel like this should go? I design with a notepad open. Every time I attempt something that doesn’t work I make a note. Every time I land on a solution I make a note. When it’s time to explain the concept I can articulate my intentions.
The most well articulated reasoning won’t help if you’ve simply missed the mark.
Your Design Misses the Mark
Yes, designers are fallible. We misunderstand stakeholders, rush through design research, and let personal biases cloud our thought processes. When it happens don’t let your ego get the best of you. Learn the lesson and move on. So how do you prevent this? Let’s look at the two most common reasons for missing the mark and how to avoid them.
Designing for the Wrong Audience
Other designers are not the target audience (an overwhelming majority of the time.) “Sexy design” is a temptress that will frequently call your name, especially if you’re working on a mundane topic. The delight of praise from your peers won’t feel as sweet when the concept under performs and the client hires a different agency next time around. Admiration is great, but food and shelter is much, much better.
Many of my best performing designs were the ones I personally liked the least.
Designing for yourself isn’t the only audience temptress, you can also be tempted to design for your client. Some clients will show up with a collection of websites they like. You could seek quick approval by imitating their examples, but this will only hurt you both in the long run. When the design under performs the client’s business will suffer and it will be your fault.
Inadequate Design Research
Your solutions are only as strong as your understanding of the situation. Talking to client stakeholders is a good start, but there are many ways to layer on additional insights that will guide your end result. Talk to the target audience, consume the media they consume, watch their behavior online, dig into the analytics and see what they’re doing on the site now.
When in doubt use tools to validate your current direction like the Five Second Test or UserZoom. Testing design concepts eliminates speculation and opinion, giving you data to inform the next design iteration.
Wrapping it Up
Allows critics to better understand what feedback they should be providing by laying the groundwork early. Digging deep into the problem at hand will inform your approach so you don’t miss the mark and creates an opportunity to document critical elements like objectives, KPI’s, personas, etc… You’ll also be able to explain your reasoning using the documentation as justification. Finally, when it’s time to get feedback the right questions will illicit the best responses from both parties.
There’s no guarantee you’ll never have difficulty during the visual design phase, but these steps will make your life and your client’s experience more satisfying and productive.
The post Mastering the Design Approval Process appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2o3iAYr
0 notes
porchenclose10019 · 7 years
Text
Mastering the Design Approval Process
Being a designer means channeling your soul into bringing something new into the world… only to have a group of strangers tear it — and your self worth — apart. Critiques are an unwavering part of any designer’s life and are easily the worst part of the job. Formally educated designers leave the womb of university thinking it will be easier once they’re out in the “real world,” only to find out it’s actually more difficult. In school, at least feedback is given with a firm understanding of design principles and the project at hand.
Now you have to present your designs to clients, bosses, and colleagues. You might have the odd project where you’re working with someone as knowledgeable on design as you, but I wouldn’t count on it. Instead, you can expect the life to be sucked out of you while you try and persuade your critics to abandon their preconceived notions of “good design.”
There’s good news: it doesn’t have to be this way. Sure, design critiques will never be easy… but they don’t have to be a bloodbath.
After fifteen years of making mistakes during the critique process I’ve come across three common reasons things don’t go as planned; I’ve even discovered ways to prevent it. What are those reasons you ask?
The design gets evaluated by personal preferences
Failing to establish yourself as the expert
You’ve actually missed the mark
The harsh reality is it’s likely your fault when things go wrong.
Enough preamble. Let’s talk about how you can save your soul.
Design is evaluated by personal preferences
“I don’t like the color purple.” Awesome… actually, neither do I… but your customers love it. The all too prevalent “personal preference” derails many design critiques sending them spiraling out of control into a fiery crash in the ditch. Nothing strikes more fear into my heart than hearing someone say “I can’t design myself, but I know what looks good.” Everyone has their own taste in music, fashion, colors, and style, but none of those tastes are relevant to the design at hand. You know something is wrong when you hear the phrase “I like.”
“I like” precedes a personal preference—not what could be most effective to the audience. I forbid my students from using it in the classroom because what you like, what I like, and what your audience likes is not the same. We’re not talking about what you’d hang on your wall. We’re talking about what will improve your business.
The “right design” is the concept that performs best, which isn’t always the one you like the most. There are hundreds of instances where less attractive designs actually perform better. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.
The question is, how do you get your critics out of their own head? The answer: by reframing the discussion.
Reframe the Discussion
The words you use and questions you ask have a profound effect on the responses you get. “What do you think?” elicits a different response than “Does this align our objectives?” But let me take a step back. Before you even ask for feedback set some boundaries. Make your audience respond from the perspective of the target audience. Tell them that instead of starting with “I think” to start with “John Smith would / wouldn’t…” (Presumably John Smith would be one of your personas—more on this later.)
Once you’ve established the rules ask questions such as:
How does this align with our objectives?
Does this accommodate our users and their needs?
Does this accurately represent the brand voice?
Education might be the first step, but it’s rarely effective on it’s own. Evaluating design from the perspective of others takes practice. Lots of it. You’ve had years of experience, your critics likely have none. So what’s a designer to do? Present your reasoning.
Document and Present  Your Design Research
The best design is informed by research. Through research the designer acquires a vivid picture of who this is intended for, the desired outcome and surrounding landscape.  It’s much easier to justify color schemes when you have data to back up your decisions. While there are dozens of valid research techniques, we’ve found personas to be particularly effective in this situation.
For those unfamiliar, personas are fictional representations of your intended audience. You bring them to life by giving them a name, head shot, and enough demographic and psychographic details so it feels as though you could have a conversation with them. Now instead of talking about the all-too-nebulous “target audience” you can have a fruitful conversation about good ol’ Martha Melancamp and how this website fits into her retired life filled with family time, reading, and frequent travel.
With personas in hand you can politely say, “Yes, I agree purple is the worst color to grace this planet…but what does Martha think?”
With these two techniques you should cut down on the amount of irrelevant feedback. The next common issue is deals with establishing expertise.
Failing to Establish Yourself as the Expert
You and I both know that design is a rigorous, system-driven process backed by principles, theory, convention, and research. Many don’t… and guess what, it’s your job to know that, not theirs. Your critics have no idea you’ve thought through every detail, weighed pros and cons, and ultimately landed at hundreds if not thousands of informed decisions.
Any unjustified suggestion to move, resize, or delete an element is a pretty good sign you’re not being viewed as an expert. You want clients to ask questions when something feels off—not start giving orders. “Why did you place this here?” is good. “Move the sidebar to the other side” is bad.
How do you solve this? Education, explanation, and asking the right questions.
Don’t just talk, educate
The best designers do as much educating as they do designing. Teaching “design think” quashes misinformed feedback and empowers others to solve their own complex problems. Lofty thinking I know, but there are real-world benefits that will make your life much easier. Educating the review team conveys your expertise and communicates everything is backed by research and established conventions.
This is not a one-and-done process, you’ll demonstrate your knowledge throughout the process. That said, much of the groundwork is laid at the beginning during the design discovery process. If for no other reason than it’s much easier to internalize design theory when you don’t have a concept staring you in the face.
When you start the initial design conversations, pretend as if you’re teaching a design course. Talk about best practices, hierarchy, typography, and visual language. Share examples of decisions you make and typical thought process. We go so far as producing a design strategy where we outline all the considerations we’ve identified, goals and their priorities, buyer personas, branding considerations, and key elements. We find the document gets initial buy-in and serves as a reference point to revisit discussions if necessary.
The obvious benefit of this effort is equipping your audience with an informed decision, but there is another hidden benefit. You develop a teacher / student relationship—one where you’re the authority and they’re the pupil.
The next critical step after you’ve crafted your initial concept is to explain the reasons behind your design decisions.
Explain your reasoning
You know, a great way to prevent people from assuming design decisions were arbitrary? Tell them. If your design process involves emailing a concept with the message “let me know what you think?” you’re just asking for trouble. How is someone supposed to know what you were thinking if you don’t tell them? If you’re like me you have an internal dialog during the design process. “This element has too much emphasis; I’m going to make it smaller,” “This color is too strong; I’ll find a more subdued shade,” or “These two pieces of content are related; I’ll group them together.”
You’ve seen every combination that didn’t work. If you don’t capture and communicate your reasoning then it feels arbitrary. The reviewer has no choice but to consider their gut reaction, where does it feel like this should go? I design with a notepad open. Every time I attempt something that doesn’t work I make a note. Every time I land on a solution I make a note. When it’s time to explain the concept I can articulate my intentions.
The most well articulated reasoning won’t help if you’ve simply missed the mark.
Your Design Misses the Mark
Yes, designers are fallible. We misunderstand stakeholders, rush through design research, and let personal biases cloud our thought processes. When it happens don’t let your ego get the best of you. Learn the lesson and move on. So how do you prevent this? Let’s look at the two most common reasons for missing the mark and how to avoid them.
Designing for the Wrong Audience
Other designers are not the target audience (an overwhelming majority of the time.) “Sexy design” is a temptress that will frequently call your name, especially if you’re working on a mundane topic. The delight of praise from your peers won’t feel as sweet when the concept under performs and the client hires a different agency next time around. Admiration is great, but food and shelter is much, much better.
Many of my best performing designs were the ones I personally liked the least.
Designing for yourself isn’t the only audience temptress, you can also be tempted to design for your client. Some clients will show up with a collection of websites they like. You could seek quick approval by imitating their examples, but this will only hurt you both in the long run. When the design under performs the client’s business will suffer and it will be your fault.
Inadequate Design Research
Your solutions are only as strong as your understanding of the situation. Talking to client stakeholders is a good start, but there are many ways to layer on additional insights that will guide your end result. Talk to the target audience, consume the media they consume, watch their behavior online, dig into the analytics and see what they’re doing on the site now.
When in doubt use tools to validate your current direction like the Five Second Test or UserZoom. Testing design concepts eliminates speculation and opinion, giving you data to inform the next design iteration.
Wrapping it Up
Allows critics to better understand what feedback they should be providing by laying the groundwork early. Digging deep into the problem at hand will inform your approach so you don’t miss the mark and creates an opportunity to document critical elements like objectives, KPI’s, personas, etc… You’ll also be able to explain your reasoning using the documentation as justification. Finally, when it’s time to get feedback the right questions will illicit the best responses from both parties.
There’s no guarantee you’ll never have difficulty during the visual design phase, but these steps will make your life and your client’s experience more satisfying and productive.
The post Mastering the Design Approval Process appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2o3iAYr
0 notes
repwinpril9y0a1 · 7 years
Text
Mastering the Design Approval Process
Being a designer means channeling your soul into bringing something new into the world… only to have a group of strangers tear it — and your self worth — apart. Critiques are an unwavering part of any designer’s life and are easily the worst part of the job. Formally educated designers leave the womb of university thinking it will be easier once they’re out in the “real world,” only to find out it’s actually more difficult. In school, at least feedback is given with a firm understanding of design principles and the project at hand.
Now you have to present your designs to clients, bosses, and colleagues. You might have the odd project where you’re working with someone as knowledgeable on design as you, but I wouldn’t count on it. Instead, you can expect the life to be sucked out of you while you try and persuade your critics to abandon their preconceived notions of “good design.”
There’s good news: it doesn’t have to be this way. Sure, design critiques will never be easy… but they don’t have to be a bloodbath.
After fifteen years of making mistakes during the critique process I’ve come across three common reasons things don’t go as planned; I’ve even discovered ways to prevent it. What are those reasons you ask?
The design gets evaluated by personal preferences
Failing to establish yourself as the expert
You’ve actually missed the mark
The harsh reality is it’s likely your fault when things go wrong.
Enough preamble. Let’s talk about how you can save your soul.
Design is evaluated by personal preferences
“I don’t like the color purple.” Awesome… actually, neither do I… but your customers love it. The all too prevalent “personal preference” derails many design critiques sending them spiraling out of control into a fiery crash in the ditch. Nothing strikes more fear into my heart than hearing someone say “I can’t design myself, but I know what looks good.” Everyone has their own taste in music, fashion, colors, and style, but none of those tastes are relevant to the design at hand. You know something is wrong when you hear the phrase “I like.”
“I like” precedes a personal preference—not what could be most effective to the audience. I forbid my students from using it in the classroom because what you like, what I like, and what your audience likes is not the same. We’re not talking about what you’d hang on your wall. We’re talking about what will improve your business.
The “right design” is the concept that performs best, which isn’t always the one you like the most. There are hundreds of instances where less attractive designs actually perform better. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.
The question is, how do you get your critics out of their own head? The answer: by reframing the discussion.
Reframe the Discussion
The words you use and questions you ask have a profound effect on the responses you get. “What do you think?” elicits a different response than “Does this align our objectives?” But let me take a step back. Before you even ask for feedback set some boundaries. Make your audience respond from the perspective of the target audience. Tell them that instead of starting with “I think” to start with “John Smith would / wouldn’t…” (Presumably John Smith would be one of your personas—more on this later.)
Once you’ve established the rules ask questions such as:
How does this align with our objectives?
Does this accommodate our users and their needs?
Does this accurately represent the brand voice?
Education might be the first step, but it’s rarely effective on it’s own. Evaluating design from the perspective of others takes practice. Lots of it. You’ve had years of experience, your critics likely have none. So what’s a designer to do? Present your reasoning.
Document and Present  Your Design Research
The best design is informed by research. Through research the designer acquires a vivid picture of who this is intended for, the desired outcome and surrounding landscape.  It’s much easier to justify color schemes when you have data to back up your decisions. While there are dozens of valid research techniques, we’ve found personas to be particularly effective in this situation.
For those unfamiliar, personas are fictional representations of your intended audience. You bring them to life by giving them a name, head shot, and enough demographic and psychographic details so it feels as though you could have a conversation with them. Now instead of talking about the all-too-nebulous “target audience” you can have a fruitful conversation about good ol’ Martha Melancamp and how this website fits into her retired life filled with family time, reading, and frequent travel.
With personas in hand you can politely say, “Yes, I agree purple is the worst color to grace this planet…but what does Martha think?”
With these two techniques you should cut down on the amount of irrelevant feedback. The next common issue is deals with establishing expertise.
Failing to Establish Yourself as the Expert
You and I both know that design is a rigorous, system-driven process backed by principles, theory, convention, and research. Many don’t… and guess what, it’s your job to know that, not theirs. Your critics have no idea you’ve thought through every detail, weighed pros and cons, and ultimately landed at hundreds if not thousands of informed decisions.
Any unjustified suggestion to move, resize, or delete an element is a pretty good sign you’re not being viewed as an expert. You want clients to ask questions when something feels off—not start giving orders. “Why did you place this here?” is good. “Move the sidebar to the other side” is bad.
How do you solve this? Education, explanation, and asking the right questions.
Don’t just talk, educate
The best designers do as much educating as they do designing. Teaching “design think” quashes misinformed feedback and empowers others to solve their own complex problems. Lofty thinking I know, but there are real-world benefits that will make your life much easier. Educating the review team conveys your expertise and communicates everything is backed by research and established conventions.
This is not a one-and-done process, you’ll demonstrate your knowledge throughout the process. That said, much of the groundwork is laid at the beginning during the design discovery process. If for no other reason than it’s much easier to internalize design theory when you don’t have a concept staring you in the face.
When you start the initial design conversations, pretend as if you’re teaching a design course. Talk about best practices, hierarchy, typography, and visual language. Share examples of decisions you make and typical thought process. We go so far as producing a design strategy where we outline all the considerations we’ve identified, goals and their priorities, buyer personas, branding considerations, and key elements. We find the document gets initial buy-in and serves as a reference point to revisit discussions if necessary.
The obvious benefit of this effort is equipping your audience with an informed decision, but there is another hidden benefit. You develop a teacher / student relationship—one where you’re the authority and they’re the pupil.
The next critical step after you’ve crafted your initial concept is to explain the reasons behind your design decisions.
Explain your reasoning
You know, a great way to prevent people from assuming design decisions were arbitrary? Tell them. If your design process involves emailing a concept with the message “let me know what you think?” you’re just asking for trouble. How is someone supposed to know what you were thinking if you don’t tell them? If you’re like me you have an internal dialog during the design process. “This element has too much emphasis; I’m going to make it smaller,” “This color is too strong; I’ll find a more subdued shade,” or “These two pieces of content are related; I’ll group them together.”
You’ve seen every combination that didn’t work. If you don’t capture and communicate your reasoning then it feels arbitrary. The reviewer has no choice but to consider their gut reaction, where does it feel like this should go? I design with a notepad open. Every time I attempt something that doesn’t work I make a note. Every time I land on a solution I make a note. When it’s time to explain the concept I can articulate my intentions.
The most well articulated reasoning won’t help if you’ve simply missed the mark.
Your Design Misses the Mark
Yes, designers are fallible. We misunderstand stakeholders, rush through design research, and let personal biases cloud our thought processes. When it happens don’t let your ego get the best of you. Learn the lesson and move on. So how do you prevent this? Let’s look at the two most common reasons for missing the mark and how to avoid them.
Designing for the Wrong Audience
Other designers are not the target audience (an overwhelming majority of the time.) “Sexy design” is a temptress that will frequently call your name, especially if you’re working on a mundane topic. The delight of praise from your peers won’t feel as sweet when the concept under performs and the client hires a different agency next time around. Admiration is great, but food and shelter is much, much better.
Many of my best performing designs were the ones I personally liked the least.
Designing for yourself isn’t the only audience temptress, you can also be tempted to design for your client. Some clients will show up with a collection of websites they like. You could seek quick approval by imitating their examples, but this will only hurt you both in the long run. When the design under performs the client’s business will suffer and it will be your fault.
Inadequate Design Research
Your solutions are only as strong as your understanding of the situation. Talking to client stakeholders is a good start, but there are many ways to layer on additional insights that will guide your end result. Talk to the target audience, consume the media they consume, watch their behavior online, dig into the analytics and see what they’re doing on the site now.
When in doubt use tools to validate your current direction like the Five Second Test or UserZoom. Testing design concepts eliminates speculation and opinion, giving you data to inform the next design iteration.
Wrapping it Up
Allows critics to better understand what feedback they should be providing by laying the groundwork early. Digging deep into the problem at hand will inform your approach so you don’t miss the mark and creates an opportunity to document critical elements like objectives, KPI’s, personas, etc… You’ll also be able to explain your reasoning using the documentation as justification. Finally, when it’s time to get feedback the right questions will illicit the best responses from both parties.
There’s no guarantee you’ll never have difficulty during the visual design phase, but these steps will make your life and your client’s experience more satisfying and productive.
The post Mastering the Design Approval Process appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2o3iAYr
0 notes
stormdoors78476 · 7 years
Text
Mastering the Design Approval Process
Being a designer means channeling your soul into bringing something new into the world… only to have a group of strangers tear it — and your self worth — apart. Critiques are an unwavering part of any designer’s life and are easily the worst part of the job. Formally educated designers leave the womb of university thinking it will be easier once they’re out in the “real world,” only to find out it’s actually more difficult. In school, at least feedback is given with a firm understanding of design principles and the project at hand.
Now you have to present your designs to clients, bosses, and colleagues. You might have the odd project where you’re working with someone as knowledgeable on design as you, but I wouldn’t count on it. Instead, you can expect the life to be sucked out of you while you try and persuade your critics to abandon their preconceived notions of “good design.”
There’s good news: it doesn’t have to be this way. Sure, design critiques will never be easy… but they don’t have to be a bloodbath.
After fifteen years of making mistakes during the critique process I’ve come across three common reasons things don’t go as planned; I’ve even discovered ways to prevent it. What are those reasons you ask?
The design gets evaluated by personal preferences
Failing to establish yourself as the expert
You’ve actually missed the mark
The harsh reality is it’s likely your fault when things go wrong.
Enough preamble. Let’s talk about how you can save your soul.
Design is evaluated by personal preferences
“I don’t like the color purple.” Awesome… actually, neither do I… but your customers love it. The all too prevalent “personal preference” derails many design critiques sending them spiraling out of control into a fiery crash in the ditch. Nothing strikes more fear into my heart than hearing someone say “I can’t design myself, but I know what looks good.” Everyone has their own taste in music, fashion, colors, and style, but none of those tastes are relevant to the design at hand. You know something is wrong when you hear the phrase “I like.”
“I like” precedes a personal preference—not what could be most effective to the audience. I forbid my students from using it in the classroom because what you like, what I like, and what your audience likes is not the same. We’re not talking about what you’d hang on your wall. We’re talking about what will improve your business.
The “right design” is the concept that performs best, which isn’t always the one you like the most. There are hundreds of instances where less attractive designs actually perform better. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.
The question is, how do you get your critics out of their own head? The answer: by reframing the discussion.
Reframe the Discussion
The words you use and questions you ask have a profound effect on the responses you get. “What do you think?” elicits a different response than “Does this align our objectives?” But let me take a step back. Before you even ask for feedback set some boundaries. Make your audience respond from the perspective of the target audience. Tell them that instead of starting with “I think” to start with “John Smith would / wouldn’t…” (Presumably John Smith would be one of your personas—more on this later.)
Once you’ve established the rules ask questions such as:
How does this align with our objectives?
Does this accommodate our users and their needs?
Does this accurately represent the brand voice?
Education might be the first step, but it’s rarely effective on it’s own. Evaluating design from the perspective of others takes practice. Lots of it. You’ve had years of experience, your critics likely have none. So what’s a designer to do? Present your reasoning.
Document and Present  Your Design Research
The best design is informed by research. Through research the designer acquires a vivid picture of who this is intended for, the desired outcome and surrounding landscape.  It’s much easier to justify color schemes when you have data to back up your decisions. While there are dozens of valid research techniques, we’ve found personas to be particularly effective in this situation.
For those unfamiliar, personas are fictional representations of your intended audience. You bring them to life by giving them a name, head shot, and enough demographic and psychographic details so it feels as though you could have a conversation with them. Now instead of talking about the all-too-nebulous “target audience” you can have a fruitful conversation about good ol’ Martha Melancamp and how this website fits into her retired life filled with family time, reading, and frequent travel.
With personas in hand you can politely say, “Yes, I agree purple is the worst color to grace this planet…but what does Martha think?”
With these two techniques you should cut down on the amount of irrelevant feedback. The next common issue is deals with establishing expertise.
Failing to Establish Yourself as the Expert
You and I both know that design is a rigorous, system-driven process backed by principles, theory, convention, and research. Many don’t… and guess what, it’s your job to know that, not theirs. Your critics have no idea you’ve thought through every detail, weighed pros and cons, and ultimately landed at hundreds if not thousands of informed decisions.
Any unjustified suggestion to move, resize, or delete an element is a pretty good sign you’re not being viewed as an expert. You want clients to ask questions when something feels off—not start giving orders. “Why did you place this here?” is good. “Move the sidebar to the other side” is bad.
How do you solve this? Education, explanation, and asking the right questions.
Don’t just talk, educate
The best designers do as much educating as they do designing. Teaching “design think” quashes misinformed feedback and empowers others to solve their own complex problems. Lofty thinking I know, but there are real-world benefits that will make your life much easier. Educating the review team conveys your expertise and communicates everything is backed by research and established conventions.
This is not a one-and-done process, you’ll demonstrate your knowledge throughout the process. That said, much of the groundwork is laid at the beginning during the design discovery process. If for no other reason than it’s much easier to internalize design theory when you don’t have a concept staring you in the face.
When you start the initial design conversations, pretend as if you’re teaching a design course. Talk about best practices, hierarchy, typography, and visual language. Share examples of decisions you make and typical thought process. We go so far as producing a design strategy where we outline all the considerations we’ve identified, goals and their priorities, buyer personas, branding considerations, and key elements. We find the document gets initial buy-in and serves as a reference point to revisit discussions if necessary.
The obvious benefit of this effort is equipping your audience with an informed decision, but there is another hidden benefit. You develop a teacher / student relationship—one where you’re the authority and they’re the pupil.
The next critical step after you’ve crafted your initial concept is to explain the reasons behind your design decisions.
Explain your reasoning
You know, a great way to prevent people from assuming design decisions were arbitrary? Tell them. If your design process involves emailing a concept with the message “let me know what you think?” you’re just asking for trouble. How is someone supposed to know what you were thinking if you don’t tell them? If you’re like me you have an internal dialog during the design process. “This element has too much emphasis; I’m going to make it smaller,” “This color is too strong; I’ll find a more subdued shade,” or “These two pieces of content are related; I’ll group them together.”
You’ve seen every combination that didn’t work. If you don’t capture and communicate your reasoning then it feels arbitrary. The reviewer has no choice but to consider their gut reaction, where does it feel like this should go? I design with a notepad open. Every time I attempt something that doesn’t work I make a note. Every time I land on a solution I make a note. When it’s time to explain the concept I can articulate my intentions.
The most well articulated reasoning won’t help if you’ve simply missed the mark.
Your Design Misses the Mark
Yes, designers are fallible. We misunderstand stakeholders, rush through design research, and let personal biases cloud our thought processes. When it happens don’t let your ego get the best of you. Learn the lesson and move on. So how do you prevent this? Let’s look at the two most common reasons for missing the mark and how to avoid them.
Designing for the Wrong Audience
Other designers are not the target audience (an overwhelming majority of the time.) “Sexy design” is a temptress that will frequently call your name, especially if you’re working on a mundane topic. The delight of praise from your peers won’t feel as sweet when the concept under performs and the client hires a different agency next time around. Admiration is great, but food and shelter is much, much better.
Many of my best performing designs were the ones I personally liked the least.
Designing for yourself isn’t the only audience temptress, you can also be tempted to design for your client. Some clients will show up with a collection of websites they like. You could seek quick approval by imitating their examples, but this will only hurt you both in the long run. When the design under performs the client’s business will suffer and it will be your fault.
Inadequate Design Research
Your solutions are only as strong as your understanding of the situation. Talking to client stakeholders is a good start, but there are many ways to layer on additional insights that will guide your end result. Talk to the target audience, consume the media they consume, watch their behavior online, dig into the analytics and see what they’re doing on the site now.
When in doubt use tools to validate your current direction like the Five Second Test or UserZoom. Testing design concepts eliminates speculation and opinion, giving you data to inform the next design iteration.
Wrapping it Up
Allows critics to better understand what feedback they should be providing by laying the groundwork early. Digging deep into the problem at hand will inform your approach so you don’t miss the mark and creates an opportunity to document critical elements like objectives, KPI’s, personas, etc… You’ll also be able to explain your reasoning using the documentation as justification. Finally, when it’s time to get feedback the right questions will illicit the best responses from both parties.
There’s no guarantee you’ll never have difficulty during the visual design phase, but these steps will make your life and your client’s experience more satisfying and productive.
The post Mastering the Design Approval Process appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2o3iAYr
0 notes
likefusion · 7 years
Text
How to Vet a New Marketing Channel in 3 Days or Less: I get this question a lot. “What marketing channel should I focus on?” There are many make or break decisions in business. This is one of them. The thing is, I can't give you a cut and dry answer. The nature of your business matters. So does the audience that you wish to target. What I will do instead is give you a method for figuring this out for yourself. If you're starting a new business, this decision is critical. Focusing on the wrong marketing channel can set you back months and maybe even years. If you're expanding into a new market, selecting the wrong channel can also have massive ramifications. You'd be putting your existing operations at risk for a new channel that may not pan out. Just take a look at all the challenges that marketers have to overcome. You can imagine that each channel comes with a unique set of difficulties. This speaks to the importance of vetting your marketing plan before you set it in motion. There's just too much at stake. In this article, I'll show you how you can evaluate your options and narrow down on the best choice quickly. You don't need more than three days to get this done. But first, I have a bit of wisdom to share. Resist the urge to diversify You know that voice in your head that says you need to be everywhere at once? That fear of missing out if you don't at least try everything? It's a diversion. Resist it. It is imperative that you focus on one marketing channel. At least in the beginning. It's going to shortchange your success if you spread yourself thin. Here's why. You'll have less impact. If you're focusing on several channels, it means you're not doing everything you can to excel in any one of them. It will cost you more. Testing and thriving with a multichannel approach costs way more than you may be willing to spend. If you want an organic and cost-effective approach, stick to one channel. You'll never actually know where your strength lies. Jumping from channel to channel means you won't truly know the impact of one particular strategy on your business. You'll remain at the heels of your competitors. That's not where you want to be, is it? You want to be ahead, and the way to do that is to establish dominance in your market. Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that you should go all in on one channel and forget the rest. But multichannel marketing is complex. Only 30% of marketers are confident that they can deliver on such a strategy. That's not a lot. So what I'm advocating for is starting from a position of dominance. Put your energy into one strategy until it succeeds. Then, piggyback on that success to achieve wins in other areas. Does that make sense? The steps in this article will be geared towards helping you place a bullseye on the ONE channel that will serve you best. Now that we got that out of the way, let's begin. Step #1: Know your options The first thing you want to do is brainstorm all your possible options. This isn't something that you have to materialize out of thin air. There are dozens of ways that you can connect with your target audience and spread your message. Better yet, each channel has several subsets that you can zone in on. Here's a good representation: Many of these overlap. Some have even morphed into each other. It can get confusing, quickly. For example, some people consider SEO to be one marketing channel. But I can't imagine a world where SEO and content marketing aren't intertwined. You can't do one without the other. The same thing goes for social media and paid advertising. They're different channels. But there's a convergence. Let's imagine you decide to focus on Facebook as your primary social media platform. It would be unwise to not experiment with Facebook Ads. Considering that Facebook has developed one of the greatest Ad products out there, you'd be underutilizing the full power of the platform. Marketers agree. Almost 57% plan to increase their social media ad spend. I say all this to make a simple point. While you may zone in on one channel, you'll see lots of overlap that you shouldn't ignore. Go where your audience takes you. Let's look at some of your options. Content marketing This is about creating and promoting material that is relevant to your target audience. Content marketing is central. 90% of businesses market using this channel. It means that no matter what strategy you use, content will be a part of it. You can narrow your content down to blogging, guest blogging, podcasts, webinars, email, etc. Social media marketing You can use social media as your platform to get noticed, build authority, and grow a community. You can also use it to drive traffic to your main site. Or you can do both. It's effective either way. Paid advertising Much of marketing is organic and will take time to generate results. Paid advertising is one way to accelerate that. The downside is, you have to pay to play. Facebook ads, other social media ads, print ads, PPC, and direct response fall into this category. Public relations   PR is about building relationships and capitalizing on the optics of your business. It can be both online and offline. Press releases, conferences, events, interviews, and sponsorships are a few examples. As you can see, you have no shortage of options when it comes to marketing. I've given an overview of the main ones, but know that you are not limited to these alone. Step #2: Choose the channels that are aligned with your business goals You now have an idea of what's available to you. It's time to make a list of all the channels that will serve your business. Start with your business goals. Some marketing channels are better suited to achieve a particular goal than others. Goal setting is a flexible thing. You can make changes as your business evolves. This means that the marketing channel you use right now may not be viable when your business progresses. Consider what stage your business is in and what your goal is for the next 90 days. According to Jay Abraham, there are only three ways to grow a business: Increase your number of customers Increase the amount that a customer spends on a purchase Increase the frequency that a customer buys from you Your business goals should serve one of these three phases of business. If you're still at the first stage, your goals might be brand awareness, lead generation, and customer acquisition. If you already have a list of buyers, your goal might be to increase sales. What if you already have a reliable stream of sales? There's no such thing as too many sales, but your goal at this point might be to maximize profits and retain customers. Here's what most businesses are prioritizing: These may or may not apply to you. Just focus on what your business needs at the moment. This way, you don't make goals that aren't yet attainable. By extension, it ensures that you don't waste time and resources on a marketing channel that won't serve your business well. How do you select a channel that's right for your business goals? Before you even start testing, do some elimination. I'll give you a few examples, and you'll have to use your judgment. Let's say that your goal is brand awareness. PR, social media, content marketing, and even paid advertising can be used for this purpose. The easy solution? Eliminate the channels that would be less efficient. For instance, paid advertising won't be the most useful for brand awareness. But for sales or lead generation? It can crush it! (If you know what you're doing, that is). Take a look at some of the business goals that apply to the content marketing channel. It will give you an idea of what to aim for. It's also important to take into consideration what feels the most organic for your business. If you're selling something like hoverboards or bicycles, would blog posts serve you the best? Likely not. These products are lifestyle-based. You'd be better off using a visual channel that will allow you to provide an experience to potential customers. Immediately, social media comes to mind. Then you begin to narrow it down to Instagram or Youtube. This is a logical process that won't take you more than an hour to figure out. You don't have to find that one channel yet. Just eliminate what won't work and rank your remaining options. Step #3: Narrow down the list by going where your audience is You've got a few options. It's time to prioritize. This one is easy. Find your potential customers. A marketing channel can serve your goal, but there are many platforms you can focus on. If your customers are not hanging out there, you'll be wasting your time. Note: The point of this article is not to find you a slam dunk marketing channel right away. That would take testing and experimentation. The goal here is to help you validate your chosen channel. This way, you know it's viable before you start testing it. Here's my best advice for finding out where the attention is. SEO is a great place to start. Competitive research is a must. You can't go wrong with social media. Let's look at each of these. SEO Online is where most of the magic happens. And a majority of online interactions begin with a search engine (mostly Google). So the first step is to evaluate the SEO landscape by searching for keywords in your industry. You'll find out what your audience is searching for and how often. This is not just essential for finding out what's happening online. Let's say that there aren't that many monthly searches for your keywords. You may want to focus on an offline channel. Or you may decide that this is a gap that you can take advantage of. You won't know until you do some basic keyword research. A simple tool like the Google Keyword Planner will work. Type in your keyword and get search volume data. Competitive research If you want to know where your customers hang out, find your competitors. First, identify who those competitors are. A simple google search will do the trick. The biggest players are those who rank on the first page of search. Once you've got a solid list, use a tool like SimilarWeb for your research. Enter your competitor's website and press enter. You'll find a range of data. Pay attention to “Traffic sources.” For Quick Sprout, the highest traffic source is search. Naturally, my primary marketing channel would be SEO and blogging. Direct is a close second, but it's a bit trickier to figure out. It represents the people who type in your URL directly into their search bar. It doesn't tell you where these people first came into contact with your business. The next step is to check out the individual breakdown of each traffic source. You can see where referrals are coming from. Since SEO is my dominant traffic source, I'll pay particular attention to my top organic keywords. You can also see which social media platform is the most popular. Mine is Facebook. Social media I like to take social media research a bit further. The tool to use is BuzzSumo. Type in your competitor's domain. You can also search for a keyword. You'll see all the top performing content on the site and which social platform generated the most shares. Using SimilarWeb, we saw that Facebook was Quick Sprout's top platform. BuzzSumo tells the same story. If you want to take this a bit further, you can go to these individual platforms and do some sleuthing. Check out the groups with the most members, listen in on the conversations, and a get a feel for where your audience is focusing their attention. When you go through this process, you may find that you have 2 or 3 reliable options. Which do you select? I have three criteria. Cheap. Fast. Easy. You want to pick a channel that won't cost you too much, if anything, to get started. You also want a channel that doesn't have a steep learning curve. Otherwise, you may spend too much time and money trying to figure it out. Lastly, pick the channel that will allow you to make the most headway, quickly. You must pick one, so use these criteria as the final litmus test. Conclusion Selecting a new marketing channel is a tall order. It's important that you take some time to validate a potential channel before you focus on it. Marketing requires time that can easily be wasted on ineffective strategies. It also requires cash. It means that you'd want to see a solid return on both your time and money investment. The surest way to secure an attractive ROI is to vet potential marketing channels first. You can then test and double down on what's working. Most people don't go through this process of validation and testing. So as long as you keep experimenting and tweaking your strategy based on your results, you'll have a significant advantage over competitors. What is your most effective marketing channel? http://bit.ly/2yo06Ii
0 notes
reverseskydives · 7 years
Text
How to Vet a New Marketing Channel in 3 Days or Less
I get this question a lot.
“What marketing channel should I focus on?”
There are many make or break decisions in business. This is one of them.
The thing is, I can’t give you a cut and dry answer.
The nature of your business matters. So does the audience that you wish to target.
What I will do instead is give you a method for figuring this out for yourself.
If you’re starting a new business, this decision is critical. Focusing on the wrong marketing channel can set you back months and maybe even years.
If you’re expanding into a new market, selecting the wrong channel can also have massive ramifications.
You’d be putting your existing operations at risk for a new channel that may not pan out.
Just take a look at all the challenges that marketers have to overcome.
You can imagine that each channel comes with a unique set of difficulties.
This speaks to the importance of vetting your marketing plan before you set it in motion.
There’s just too much at stake.
In this article, I’ll show you how you can evaluate your options and narrow down on the best choice quickly.
You don’t need more than three days to get this done.
But first, I have a bit of wisdom to share.
Resist the urge to diversify
You know that voice in your head that says you need to be everywhere at once?
That fear of missing out if you don’t at least try everything?
It’s a diversion. Resist it.
It is imperative that you focus on one marketing channel.
At least in the beginning.
It’s going to shortchange your success if you spread yourself thin.
Here’s why.
You’ll have less impact. If you’re focusing on several channels, it means you’re not doing everything you can to excel in any one of them.
It will cost you more. Testing and thriving with a multichannel approach costs way more than you may be willing to spend. If you want an organic and cost-effective approach, stick to one channel.
You’ll never actually know where your strength lies. Jumping from channel to channel means you won’t truly know the impact of one particular strategy on your business.
You’ll remain at the heels of your competitors. That’s not where you want to be, is it? You want to be ahead, and the way to do that is to establish dominance in your market.
Now, don’t misunderstand me.
I’m not saying that you should go all in on one channel and forget the rest.
But multichannel marketing is complex. Only 30% of marketers are confident that they can deliver on such a strategy.
That’s not a lot.
So what I’m advocating for is starting from a position of dominance.
Put your energy into one strategy until it succeeds. Then, piggyback on that success to achieve wins in other areas.
Does that make sense?
The steps in this article will be geared towards helping you place a bullseye on the ONE channel that will serve you best.
Now that we got that out of the way, let’s begin.
Step #1: Know your options
The first thing you want to do is brainstorm all your possible options.
This isn’t something that you have to materialize out of thin air.
There are dozens of ways that you can connect with your target audience and spread your message.
Better yet, each channel has several subsets that you can zone in on.
Here’s a good representation:
Many of these overlap. Some have even morphed into each other.
It can get confusing, quickly.
For example, some people consider SEO to be one marketing channel.
But I can’t imagine a world where SEO and content marketing aren’t intertwined. You can’t do one without the other.
The same thing goes for social media and paid advertising.
They’re different channels. But there’s a convergence.
Let’s imagine you decide to focus on Facebook as your primary social media platform. It would be unwise to not experiment with Facebook Ads.
Considering that Facebook has developed one of the greatest Ad products out there, you’d be underutilizing the full power of the platform.
Marketers agree. Almost 57% plan to increase their social media ad spend.
I say all this to make a simple point.
While you may zone in on one channel, you’ll see lots of overlap that you shouldn’t ignore.
Go where your audience takes you.
Let’s look at some of your options.
Content marketing
This is about creating and promoting material that is relevant to your target audience.
Content marketing is central.
90% of businesses market using this channel.
It means that no matter what strategy you use, content will be a part of it.
You can narrow your content down to blogging, guest blogging, podcasts, webinars, email, etc.
Social media marketing
You can use social media as your platform to get noticed, build authority, and grow a community.
You can also use it to drive traffic to your main site.
Or you can do both. It’s effective either way.
Paid advertising
Much of marketing is organic and will take time to generate results.
Paid advertising is one way to accelerate that.
The downside is, you have to pay to play.
Facebook ads, other social media ads, print ads, PPC, and direct response fall into this category.
Public relations  
PR is about building relationships and capitalizing on the optics of your business.
It can be both online and offline. Press releases, conferences, events, interviews, and sponsorships are a few examples.
As you can see, you have no shortage of options when it comes to marketing.
I’ve given an overview of the main ones, but know that you are not limited to these alone.
Step #2: Choose the channels that are aligned with your business goals
You now have an idea of what’s available to you.
It’s time to make a list of all the channels that will serve your business.
Start with your business goals.
Some marketing channels are better suited to achieve a particular goal than others.
Goal setting is a flexible thing. You can make changes as your business evolves.
This means that the marketing channel you use right now may not be viable when your business progresses.
Consider what stage your business is in and what your goal is for the next 90 days.
According to Jay Abraham, there are only three ways to grow a business:
Increase your number of customers
Increase the amount that a customer spends on a purchase
Increase the frequency that a customer buys from you
Your business goals should serve one of these three phases of business.
If you’re still at the first stage, your goals might be brand awareness, lead generation, and customer acquisition.
If you already have a list of buyers, your goal might be to increase sales.
What if you already have a reliable stream of sales?
There’s no such thing as too many sales, but your goal at this point might be to maximize profits and retain customers.
Here’s what most businesses are prioritizing:
These may or may not apply to you. Just focus on what your business needs at the moment.
This way, you don’t make goals that aren’t yet attainable.
By extension, it ensures that you don’t waste time and resources on a marketing channel that won’t serve your business well.
How do you select a channel that’s right for your business goals?
Before you even start testing, do some elimination.
I’ll give you a few examples, and you’ll have to use your judgment.
Let’s say that your goal is brand awareness.
PR, social media, content marketing, and even paid advertising can be used for this purpose.
The easy solution?
Eliminate the channels that would be less efficient.
For instance, paid advertising won’t be the most useful for brand awareness.
But for sales or lead generation? It can crush it! (If you know what you’re doing, that is).
Take a look at some of the business goals that apply to the content marketing channel. It will give you an idea of what to aim for.
It’s also important to take into consideration what feels the most organic for your business.
If you’re selling something like hoverboards or bicycles, would blog posts serve you the best?
Likely not.
These products are lifestyle-based. You’d be better off using a visual channel that will allow you to provide an experience to potential customers.
Immediately, social media comes to mind.
Then you begin to narrow it down to Instagram or Youtube.
This is a logical process that won’t take you more than an hour to figure out.
You don’t have to find that one channel yet. Just eliminate what won’t work and rank your remaining options.
Step #3: Narrow down the list by going where your audience is
You’ve got a few options.
It’s time to prioritize.
This one is easy. Find your potential customers.
A marketing channel can serve your goal, but there are many platforms you can focus on.
If your customers are not hanging out there, you’ll be wasting your time.
Note:
The point of this article is not to find you a slam dunk marketing channel right away.
That would take testing and experimentation.
The goal here is to help you validate your chosen channel. This way, you know it’s viable before you start testing it.
Here’s my best advice for finding out where the attention is.
SEO is a great place to start.
Competitive research is a must.
You can’t go wrong with social media.
Let’s look at each of these.
SEO
Online is where most of the magic happens.
And a majority of online interactions begin with a search engine (mostly Google).
So the first step is to evaluate the SEO landscape by searching for keywords in your industry.
You’ll find out what your audience is searching for and how often.
This is not just essential for finding out what’s happening online. Let’s say that there aren’t that many monthly searches for your keywords.
You may want to focus on an offline channel.
Or you may decide that this is a gap that you can take advantage of.
You won’t know until you do some basic keyword research.
A simple tool like the Google Keyword Planner will work.
Type in your keyword and get search volume data.
Competitive research
If you want to know where your customers hang out, find your competitors.
First, identify who those competitors are.
A simple google search will do the trick. The biggest players are those who rank on the first page of search.
Once you’ve got a solid list, use a tool like SimilarWeb for your research.
Enter your competitor’s website and press enter.
You’ll find a range of data. Pay attention to “Traffic sources.”
For Quick Sprout, the highest traffic source is search.
Naturally, my primary marketing channel would be SEO and blogging.
Direct is a close second, but it’s a bit trickier to figure out.
It represents the people who type in your URL directly into their search bar. It doesn’t tell you where these people first came into contact with your business.
The next step is to check out the individual breakdown of each traffic source.
You can see where referrals are coming from.
Since SEO is my dominant traffic source, I’ll pay particular attention to my top organic keywords.
You can also see which social media platform is the most popular. Mine is Facebook.
Social media
I like to take social media research a bit further.
The tool to use is BuzzSumo.
Type in your competitor’s domain. You can also search for a keyword.
You’ll see all the top performing content on the site and which social platform generated the most shares.
Using SimilarWeb, we saw that Facebook was Quick Sprout’s top platform.
BuzzSumo tells the same story.
If you want to take this a bit further, you can go to these individual platforms and do some sleuthing.
Check out the groups with the most members, listen in on the conversations, and a get a feel for where your audience is focusing their attention.
When you go through this process, you may find that you have 2 or 3 reliable options.
Which do you select?
I have three criteria.
Cheap. Fast. Easy.
You want to pick a channel that won’t cost you too much, if anything, to get started.
You also want a channel that doesn’t have a steep learning curve. Otherwise, you may spend too much time and money trying to figure it out.
Lastly, pick the channel that will allow you to make the most headway, quickly.
You must pick one, so use these criteria as the final litmus test.
Conclusion
Selecting a new marketing channel is a tall order.
It’s important that you take some time to validate a potential channel before you focus on it.
Marketing requires time that can easily be wasted on ineffective strategies.
It also requires cash.
It means that you’d want to see a solid return on both your time and money investment.
The surest way to secure an attractive ROI is to vet potential marketing channels first.
You can then test and double down on what’s working.
Most people don’t go through this process of validation and testing.
So as long as you keep experimenting and tweaking your strategy based on your results, you’ll have a significant advantage over competitors.
What is your most effective marketing channel?
from Social Media Marketing http://ift.tt/2jCR8DM via Social Media Marketing
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filipeteimuraz · 7 years
Text
How to Vet a New Marketing Channel in 3 Days or Less
I get this question a lot.
“What marketing channel should I focus on?”
There are many make or break decisions in business. This is one of them.
The thing is, I can’t give you a cut and dry answer.
The nature of your business matters. So does the audience that you wish to target.
What I will do instead is give you a method for figuring this out for yourself.
If you’re starting a new business, this decision is critical. Focusing on the wrong marketing channel can set you back months and maybe even years.
If you’re expanding into a new market, selecting the wrong channel can also have massive ramifications.
You’d be putting your existing operations at risk for a new channel that may not pan out.
Just take a look at all the challenges that marketers have to overcome.
You can imagine that each channel comes with a unique set of difficulties.
This speaks to the importance of vetting your marketing plan before you set it in motion.
There’s just too much at stake.
In this article, I’ll show you how you can evaluate your options and narrow down on the best choice quickly.
You don’t need more than three days to get this done.
But first, I have a bit of wisdom to share.
Resist the urge to diversify
You know that voice in your head that says you need to be everywhere at once?
That fear of missing out if you don’t at least try everything?
It’s a diversion. Resist it.
It is imperative that you focus on one marketing channel.
At least in the beginning.
It’s going to shortchange your success if you spread yourself thin.
Here’s why.
You’ll have less impact. If you’re focusing on several channels, it means you’re not doing everything you can to excel in any one of them.
It will cost you more. Testing and thriving with a multichannel approach costs way more than you may be willing to spend. If you want an organic and cost-effective approach, stick to one channel.
You’ll never actually know where your strength lies. Jumping from channel to channel means you won’t truly know the impact of one particular strategy on your business.
You’ll remain at the heels of your competitors. That’s not where you want to be, is it? You want to be ahead, and the way to do that is to establish dominance in your market.
Now, don’t misunderstand me.
I’m not saying that you should go all in on one channel and forget the rest.
But multichannel marketing is complex. Only 30% of marketers are confident that they can deliver on such a strategy.
That’s not a lot.
So what I’m advocating for is starting from a position of dominance.
Put your energy into one strategy until it succeeds. Then, piggyback on that success to achieve wins in other areas.
Does that make sense?
The steps in this article will be geared towards helping you place a bullseye on the ONE channel that will serve you best.
Now that we got that out of the way, let’s begin.
Step #1: Know your options
The first thing you want to do is brainstorm all your possible options.
This isn’t something that you have to materialize out of thin air.
There are dozens of ways that you can connect with your target audience and spread your message.
Better yet, each channel has several subsets that you can zone in on.
Here’s a good representation:
Many of these overlap. Some have even morphed into each other.
It can get confusing, quickly.
For example, some people consider SEO to be one marketing channel.
But I can’t imagine a world where SEO and content marketing aren’t intertwined. You can’t do one without the other.
The same thing goes for social media and paid advertising.
They’re different channels. But there’s a convergence.
Let’s imagine you decide to focus on Facebook as your primary social media platform. It would be unwise to not experiment with Facebook Ads.
Considering that Facebook has developed one of the greatest Ad products out there, you’d be underutilizing the full power of the platform.
Marketers agree. Almost 57% plan to increase their social media ad spend.
I say all this to make a simple point.
While you may zone in on one channel, you’ll see lots of overlap that you shouldn’t ignore.
Go where your audience takes you.
Let’s look at some of your options.
Content marketing
This is about creating and promoting material that is relevant to your target audience.
Content marketing is central.
90% of businesses market using this channel.
It means that no matter what strategy you use, content will be a part of it.
You can narrow your content down to blogging, guest blogging, podcasts, webinars, email, etc.
Social media marketing
You can use social media as your platform to get noticed, build authority, and grow a community.
You can also use it to drive traffic to your main site.
Or you can do both. It’s effective either way.
Paid advertising
Much of marketing is organic and will take time to generate results.
Paid advertising is one way to accelerate that.
The downside is, you have to pay to play.
Facebook ads, other social media ads, print ads, PPC, and direct response fall into this category.
Public relations  
PR is about building relationships and capitalizing on the optics of your business.
It can be both online and offline. Press releases, conferences, events, interviews, and sponsorships are a few examples.
As you can see, you have no shortage of options when it comes to marketing.
I’ve given an overview of the main ones, but know that you are not limited to these alone.
Step #2: Choose the channels that are aligned with your business goals
You now have an idea of what’s available to you.
It’s time to make a list of all the channels that will serve your business.
Start with your business goals.
Some marketing channels are better suited to achieve a particular goal than others.
Goal setting is a flexible thing. You can make changes as your business evolves.
This means that the marketing channel you use right now may not be viable when your business progresses.
Consider what stage your business is in and what your goal is for the next 90 days.
According to Jay Abraham, there are only three ways to grow a business:
Increase your number of customers
Increase the amount that a customer spends on a purchase
Increase the frequency that a customer buys from you
Your business goals should serve one of these three phases of business.
If you’re still at the first stage, your goals might be brand awareness, lead generation, and customer acquisition.
If you already have a list of buyers, your goal might be to increase sales.
What if you already have a reliable stream of sales?
There’s no such thing as too many sales, but your goal at this point might be to maximize profits and retain customers.
Here’s what most businesses are prioritizing:
These may or may not apply to you. Just focus on what your business needs at the moment.
This way, you don’t make goals that aren’t yet attainable.
By extension, it ensures that you don’t waste time and resources on a marketing channel that won’t serve your business well.
How do you select a channel that’s right for your business goals?
Before you even start testing, do some elimination.
I’ll give you a few examples, and you’ll have to use your judgment.
Let’s say that your goal is brand awareness.
PR, social media, content marketing, and even paid advertising can be used for this purpose.
The easy solution?
Eliminate the channels that would be less efficient.
For instance, paid advertising won’t be the most useful for brand awareness.
But for sales or lead generation? It can crush it! (If you know what you’re doing, that is).
Take a look at some of the business goals that apply to the content marketing channel. It will give you an idea of what to aim for.
It’s also important to take into consideration what feels the most organic for your business.
If you’re selling something like hoverboards or bicycles, would blog posts serve you the best?
Likely not.
These products are lifestyle-based. You’d be better off using a visual channel that will allow you to provide an experience to potential customers.
Immediately, social media comes to mind.
Then you begin to narrow it down to Instagram or Youtube.
This is a logical process that won’t take you more than an hour to figure out.
You don’t have to find that one channel yet. Just eliminate what won’t work and rank your remaining options.
Step #3: Narrow down the list by going where your audience is
You’ve got a few options.
It’s time to prioritize.
This one is easy. Find your potential customers.
A marketing channel can serve your goal, but there are many platforms you can focus on.
If your customers are not hanging out there, you’ll be wasting your time.
Note:
The point of this article is not to find you a slam dunk marketing channel right away.
That would take testing and experimentation.
The goal here is to help you validate your chosen channel. This way, you know it’s viable before you start testing it.
Here’s my best advice for finding out where the attention is.
SEO is a great place to start.
Competitive research is a must.
You can’t go wrong with social media.
Let’s look at each of these.
SEO
Online is where most of the magic happens.
And a majority of online interactions begin with a search engine (mostly Google).
So the first step is to evaluate the SEO landscape by searching for keywords in your industry.
You’ll find out what your audience is searching for and how often.
This is not just essential for finding out what’s happening online. Let’s say that there aren’t that many monthly searches for your keywords.
You may want to focus on an offline channel.
Or you may decide that this is a gap that you can take advantage of.
You won’t know until you do some basic keyword research.
A simple tool like the Google Keyword Planner will work.
Type in your keyword and get search volume data.
Competitive research
If you want to know where your customers hang out, find your competitors.
First, identify who those competitors are.
A simple google search will do the trick. The biggest players are those who rank on the first page of search.
Once you’ve got a solid list, use a tool like SimilarWeb for your research.
Enter your competitor’s website and press enter.
You’ll find a range of data. Pay attention to “Traffic sources.”
For Quick Sprout, the highest traffic source is search.
Naturally, my primary marketing channel would be SEO and blogging.
Direct is a close second, but it’s a bit trickier to figure out.
It represents the people who type in your URL directly into their search bar. It doesn’t tell you where these people first came into contact with your business.
The next step is to check out the individual breakdown of each traffic source.
You can see where referrals are coming from.
Since SEO is my dominant traffic source, I’ll pay particular attention to my top organic keywords.
You can also see which social media platform is the most popular. Mine is Facebook.
Social media
I like to take social media research a bit further.
The tool to use is BuzzSumo.
Type in your competitor’s domain. You can also search for a keyword.
You’ll see all the top performing content on the site and which social platform generated the most shares.
Using SimilarWeb, we saw that Facebook was Quick Sprout’s top platform.
BuzzSumo tells the same story.
If you want to take this a bit further, you can go to these individual platforms and do some sleuthing.
Check out the groups with the most members, listen in on the conversations, and a get a feel for where your audience is focusing their attention.
When you go through this process, you may find that you have 2 or 3 reliable options.
Which do you select?
I have three criteria.
Cheap. Fast. Easy.
You want to pick a channel that won’t cost you too much, if anything, to get started.
You also want a channel that doesn’t have a steep learning curve. Otherwise, you may spend too much time and money trying to figure it out.
Lastly, pick the channel that will allow you to make the most headway, quickly.
You must pick one, so use these criteria as the final litmus test.
Conclusion
Selecting a new marketing channel is a tall order.
It’s important that you take some time to validate a potential channel before you focus on it.
Marketing requires time that can easily be wasted on ineffective strategies.
It also requires cash.
It means that you’d want to see a solid return on both your time and money investment.
The surest way to secure an attractive ROI is to vet potential marketing channels first.
You can then test and double down on what’s working.
Most people don’t go through this process of validation and testing.
So as long as you keep experimenting and tweaking your strategy based on your results, you’ll have a significant advantage over competitors.
What is your most effective marketing channel?
https://www.quicksprout.com/2017/09/17/how-to-vet-a-new-marketing-channel-in-3-days-or-less/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-to-vet-new-marketing-channel-in-3.html
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pat78701 · 7 years
Text
Mastering the Design Approval Process
Being a designer means channeling your soul into bringing something new into the world… only to have a group of strangers tear it — and your self worth — apart. Critiques are an unwavering part of any designer’s life and are easily the worst part of the job. Formally educated designers leave the womb of university thinking it will be easier once they’re out in the “real world,” only to find out it’s actually more difficult. In school, at least feedback is given with a firm understanding of design principles and the project at hand.
Now you have to present your designs to clients, bosses, and colleagues. You might have the odd project where you’re working with someone as knowledgeable on design as you, but I wouldn’t count on it. Instead, you can expect the life to be sucked out of you while you try and persuade your critics to abandon their preconceived notions of “good design.”
There’s good news: it doesn’t have to be this way. Sure, design critiques will never be easy… but they don’t have to be a bloodbath.
After fifteen years of making mistakes during the critique process I’ve come across three common reasons things don’t go as planned; I’ve even discovered ways to prevent it. What are those reasons you ask?
The design gets evaluated by personal preferences
Failing to establish yourself as the expert
You’ve actually missed the mark
The harsh reality is it’s likely your fault when things go wrong.
Enough preamble. Let’s talk about how you can save your soul.
Design is evaluated by personal preferences
“I don’t like the color purple.” Awesome… actually, neither do I… but your customers love it. The all too prevalent “personal preference” derails many design critiques sending them spiraling out of control into a fiery crash in the ditch. Nothing strikes more fear into my heart than hearing someone say “I can’t design myself, but I know what looks good.” Everyone has their own taste in music, fashion, colors, and style, but none of those tastes are relevant to the design at hand. You know something is wrong when you hear the phrase “I like.”
“I like” precedes a personal preference—not what could be most effective to the audience. I forbid my students from using it in the classroom because what you like, what I like, and what your audience likes is not the same. We’re not talking about what you’d hang on your wall. We’re talking about what will improve your business.
The “right design” is the concept that performs best, which isn’t always the one you like the most. There are hundreds of instances where less attractive designs actually perform better. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.
The question is, how do you get your critics out of their own head? The answer: by reframing the discussion.
Reframe the Discussion
The words you use and questions you ask have a profound effect on the responses you get. “What do you think?” elicits a different response than “Does this align our objectives?” But let me take a step back. Before you even ask for feedback set some boundaries. Make your audience respond from the perspective of the target audience. Tell them that instead of starting with “I think” to start with “John Smith would / wouldn’t…” (Presumably John Smith would be one of your personas—more on this later.)
Once you’ve established the rules ask questions such as:
How does this align with our objectives?
Does this accommodate our users and their needs?
Does this accurately represent the brand voice?
Education might be the first step, but it’s rarely effective on it’s own. Evaluating design from the perspective of others takes practice. Lots of it. You’ve had years of experience, your critics likely have none. So what’s a designer to do? Present your reasoning.
Document and Present  Your Design Research
The best design is informed by research. Through research the designer acquires a vivid picture of who this is intended for, the desired outcome and surrounding landscape.  It’s much easier to justify color schemes when you have data to back up your decisions. While there are dozens of valid research techniques, we’ve found personas to be particularly effective in this situation.
For those unfamiliar, personas are fictional representations of your intended audience. You bring them to life by giving them a name, head shot, and enough demographic and psychographic details so it feels as though you could have a conversation with them. Now instead of talking about the all-too-nebulous “target audience” you can have a fruitful conversation about good ol’ Martha Melancamp and how this website fits into her retired life filled with family time, reading, and frequent travel.
With personas in hand you can politely say, “Yes, I agree purple is the worst color to grace this planet…but what does Martha think?”
With these two techniques you should cut down on the amount of irrelevant feedback. The next common issue is deals with establishing expertise.
Failing to Establish Yourself as the Expert
You and I both know that design is a rigorous, system-driven process backed by principles, theory, convention, and research. Many don’t… and guess what, it’s your job to know that, not theirs. Your critics have no idea you’ve thought through every detail, weighed pros and cons, and ultimately landed at hundreds if not thousands of informed decisions.
Any unjustified suggestion to move, resize, or delete an element is a pretty good sign you’re not being viewed as an expert. You want clients to ask questions when something feels off—not start giving orders. “Why did you place this here?” is good. “Move the sidebar to the other side” is bad.
How do you solve this? Education, explanation, and asking the right questions.
Don’t just talk, educate
The best designers do as much educating as they do designing. Teaching “design think” quashes misinformed feedback and empowers others to solve their own complex problems. Lofty thinking I know, but there are real-world benefits that will make your life much easier. Educating the review team conveys your expertise and communicates everything is backed by research and established conventions.
This is not a one-and-done process, you’ll demonstrate your knowledge throughout the process. That said, much of the groundwork is laid at the beginning during the design discovery process. If for no other reason than it’s much easier to internalize design theory when you don’t have a concept staring you in the face.
When you start the initial design conversations, pretend as if you’re teaching a design course. Talk about best practices, hierarchy, typography, and visual language. Share examples of decisions you make and typical thought process. We go so far as producing a design strategy where we outline all the considerations we’ve identified, goals and their priorities, buyer personas, branding considerations, and key elements. We find the document gets initial buy-in and serves as a reference point to revisit discussions if necessary.
The obvious benefit of this effort is equipping your audience with an informed decision, but there is another hidden benefit. You develop a teacher / student relationship—one where you’re the authority and they’re the pupil.
The next critical step after you’ve crafted your initial concept is to explain the reasons behind your design decisions.
Explain your reasoning
You know, a great way to prevent people from assuming design decisions were arbitrary? Tell them. If your design process involves emailing a concept with the message “let me know what you think?” you’re just asking for trouble. How is someone supposed to know what you were thinking if you don’t tell them? If you’re like me you have an internal dialog during the design process. “This element has too much emphasis; I’m going to make it smaller,” “This color is too strong; I’ll find a more subdued shade,” or “These two pieces of content are related; I’ll group them together.”
You’ve seen every combination that didn’t work. If you don’t capture and communicate your reasoning then it feels arbitrary. The reviewer has no choice but to consider their gut reaction, where does it feel like this should go? I design with a notepad open. Every time I attempt something that doesn’t work I make a note. Every time I land on a solution I make a note. When it’s time to explain the concept I can articulate my intentions.
The most well articulated reasoning won’t help if you’ve simply missed the mark.
Your Design Misses the Mark
Yes, designers are fallible. We misunderstand stakeholders, rush through design research, and let personal biases cloud our thought processes. When it happens don’t let your ego get the best of you. Learn the lesson and move on. So how do you prevent this? Let’s look at the two most common reasons for missing the mark and how to avoid them.
Designing for the Wrong Audience
Other designers are not the target audience (an overwhelming majority of the time.) “Sexy design” is a temptress that will frequently call your name, especially if you’re working on a mundane topic. The delight of praise from your peers won’t feel as sweet when the concept under performs and the client hires a different agency next time around. Admiration is great, but food and shelter is much, much better.
Many of my best performing designs were the ones I personally liked the least.
Designing for yourself isn’t the only audience temptress, you can also be tempted to design for your client. Some clients will show up with a collection of websites they like. You could seek quick approval by imitating their examples, but this will only hurt you both in the long run. When the design under performs the client’s business will suffer and it will be your fault.
Inadequate Design Research
Your solutions are only as strong as your understanding of the situation. Talking to client stakeholders is a good start, but there are many ways to layer on additional insights that will guide your end result. Talk to the target audience, consume the media they consume, watch their behavior online, dig into the analytics and see what they’re doing on the site now.
When in doubt use tools to validate your current direction like the Five Second Test or UserZoom. Testing design concepts eliminates speculation and opinion, giving you data to inform the next design iteration.
Wrapping it Up
Allows critics to better understand what feedback they should be providing by laying the groundwork early. Digging deep into the problem at hand will inform your approach so you don’t miss the mark and creates an opportunity to document critical elements like objectives, KPI’s, personas, etc… You’ll also be able to explain your reasoning using the documentation as justification. Finally, when it’s time to get feedback the right questions will illicit the best responses from both parties.
There’s no guarantee you’ll never have difficulty during the visual design phase, but these steps will make your life and your client’s experience more satisfying and productive.
The post Mastering the Design Approval Process appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.
from DIYS http://ift.tt/2o3iAYr
0 notes
rtawngs20815 · 7 years
Text
Mastering the Design Approval Process
Being a designer means channeling your soul into bringing something new into the world… only to have a group of strangers tear it — and your self worth — apart. Critiques are an unwavering part of any designer’s life and are easily the worst part of the job. Formally educated designers leave the womb of university thinking it will be easier once they’re out in the “real world,” only to find out it’s actually more difficult. In school, at least feedback is given with a firm understanding of design principles and the project at hand.
Now you have to present your designs to clients, bosses, and colleagues. You might have the odd project where you’re working with someone as knowledgeable on design as you, but I wouldn’t count on it. Instead, you can expect the life to be sucked out of you while you try and persuade your critics to abandon their preconceived notions of “good design.”
There’s good news: it doesn’t have to be this way. Sure, design critiques will never be easy… but they don’t have to be a bloodbath.
After fifteen years of making mistakes during the critique process I’ve come across three common reasons things don’t go as planned; I’ve even discovered ways to prevent it. What are those reasons you ask?
The design gets evaluated by personal preferences
Failing to establish yourself as the expert
You’ve actually missed the mark
The harsh reality is it’s likely your fault when things go wrong.
Enough preamble. Let’s talk about how you can save your soul.
Design is evaluated by personal preferences
“I don’t like the color purple.” Awesome… actually, neither do I… but your customers love it. The all too prevalent “personal preference” derails many design critiques sending them spiraling out of control into a fiery crash in the ditch. Nothing strikes more fear into my heart than hearing someone say “I can’t design myself, but I know what looks good.” Everyone has their own taste in music, fashion, colors, and style, but none of those tastes are relevant to the design at hand. You know something is wrong when you hear the phrase “I like.”
“I like” precedes a personal preference—not what could be most effective to the audience. I forbid my students from using it in the classroom because what you like, what I like, and what your audience likes is not the same. We’re not talking about what you’d hang on your wall. We’re talking about what will improve your business.
The “right design” is the concept that performs best, which isn’t always the one you like the most. There are hundreds of instances where less attractive designs actually perform better. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.
The question is, how do you get your critics out of their own head? The answer: by reframing the discussion.
Reframe the Discussion
The words you use and questions you ask have a profound effect on the responses you get. “What do you think?” elicits a different response than “Does this align our objectives?” But let me take a step back. Before you even ask for feedback set some boundaries. Make your audience respond from the perspective of the target audience. Tell them that instead of starting with “I think” to start with “John Smith would / wouldn’t…” (Presumably John Smith would be one of your personas—more on this later.)
Once you’ve established the rules ask questions such as:
How does this align with our objectives?
Does this accommodate our users and their needs?
Does this accurately represent the brand voice?
Education might be the first step, but it’s rarely effective on it’s own. Evaluating design from the perspective of others takes practice. Lots of it. You’ve had years of experience, your critics likely have none. So what’s a designer to do? Present your reasoning.
Document and Present  Your Design Research
The best design is informed by research. Through research the designer acquires a vivid picture of who this is intended for, the desired outcome and surrounding landscape.  It’s much easier to justify color schemes when you have data to back up your decisions. While there are dozens of valid research techniques, we’ve found personas to be particularly effective in this situation.
For those unfamiliar, personas are fictional representations of your intended audience. You bring them to life by giving them a name, head shot, and enough demographic and psychographic details so it feels as though you could have a conversation with them. Now instead of talking about the all-too-nebulous “target audience” you can have a fruitful conversation about good ol’ Martha Melancamp and how this website fits into her retired life filled with family time, reading, and frequent travel.
With personas in hand you can politely say, “Yes, I agree purple is the worst color to grace this planet…but what does Martha think?”
With these two techniques you should cut down on the amount of irrelevant feedback. The next common issue is deals with establishing expertise.
Failing to Establish Yourself as the Expert
You and I both know that design is a rigorous, system-driven process backed by principles, theory, convention, and research. Many don’t… and guess what, it’s your job to know that, not theirs. Your critics have no idea you’ve thought through every detail, weighed pros and cons, and ultimately landed at hundreds if not thousands of informed decisions.
Any unjustified suggestion to move, resize, or delete an element is a pretty good sign you’re not being viewed as an expert. You want clients to ask questions when something feels off—not start giving orders. “Why did you place this here?” is good. “Move the sidebar to the other side” is bad.
How do you solve this? Education, explanation, and asking the right questions.
Don’t just talk, educate
The best designers do as much educating as they do designing. Teaching “design think” quashes misinformed feedback and empowers others to solve their own complex problems. Lofty thinking I know, but there are real-world benefits that will make your life much easier. Educating the review team conveys your expertise and communicates everything is backed by research and established conventions.
This is not a one-and-done process, you’ll demonstrate your knowledge throughout the process. That said, much of the groundwork is laid at the beginning during the design discovery process. If for no other reason than it’s much easier to internalize design theory when you don’t have a concept staring you in the face.
When you start the initial design conversations, pretend as if you’re teaching a design course. Talk about best practices, hierarchy, typography, and visual language. Share examples of decisions you make and typical thought process. We go so far as producing a design strategy where we outline all the considerations we’ve identified, goals and their priorities, buyer personas, branding considerations, and key elements. We find the document gets initial buy-in and serves as a reference point to revisit discussions if necessary.
The obvious benefit of this effort is equipping your audience with an informed decision, but there is another hidden benefit. You develop a teacher / student relationship—one where you’re the authority and they’re the pupil.
The next critical step after you’ve crafted your initial concept is to explain the reasons behind your design decisions.
Explain your reasoning
You know, a great way to prevent people from assuming design decisions were arbitrary? Tell them. If your design process involves emailing a concept with the message “let me know what you think?” you’re just asking for trouble. How is someone supposed to know what you were thinking if you don’t tell them? If you’re like me you have an internal dialog during the design process. “This element has too much emphasis; I’m going to make it smaller,” “This color is too strong; I’ll find a more subdued shade,” or “These two pieces of content are related; I’ll group them together.”
You’ve seen every combination that didn’t work. If you don’t capture and communicate your reasoning then it feels arbitrary. The reviewer has no choice but to consider their gut reaction, where does it feel like this should go? I design with a notepad open. Every time I attempt something that doesn’t work I make a note. Every time I land on a solution I make a note. When it’s time to explain the concept I can articulate my intentions.
The most well articulated reasoning won’t help if you’ve simply missed the mark.
Your Design Misses the Mark
Yes, designers are fallible. We misunderstand stakeholders, rush through design research, and let personal biases cloud our thought processes. When it happens don’t let your ego get the best of you. Learn the lesson and move on. So how do you prevent this? Let’s look at the two most common reasons for missing the mark and how to avoid them.
Designing for the Wrong Audience
Other designers are not the target audience (an overwhelming majority of the time.) “Sexy design” is a temptress that will frequently call your name, especially if you’re working on a mundane topic. The delight of praise from your peers won’t feel as sweet when the concept under performs and the client hires a different agency next time around. Admiration is great, but food and shelter is much, much better.
Many of my best performing designs were the ones I personally liked the least.
Designing for yourself isn’t the only audience temptress, you can also be tempted to design for your client. Some clients will show up with a collection of websites they like. You could seek quick approval by imitating their examples, but this will only hurt you both in the long run. When the design under performs the client’s business will suffer and it will be your fault.
Inadequate Design Research
Your solutions are only as strong as your understanding of the situation. Talking to client stakeholders is a good start, but there are many ways to layer on additional insights that will guide your end result. Talk to the target audience, consume the media they consume, watch their behavior online, dig into the analytics and see what they’re doing on the site now.
When in doubt use tools to validate your current direction like the Five Second Test or UserZoom. Testing design concepts eliminates speculation and opinion, giving you data to inform the next design iteration.
Wrapping it Up
Allows critics to better understand what feedback they should be providing by laying the groundwork early. Digging deep into the problem at hand will inform your approach so you don’t miss the mark and creates an opportunity to document critical elements like objectives, KPI’s, personas, etc… You’ll also be able to explain your reasoning using the documentation as justification. Finally, when it’s time to get feedback the right questions will illicit the best responses from both parties.
There’s no guarantee you’ll never have difficulty during the visual design phase, but these steps will make your life and your client’s experience more satisfying and productive.
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