Successful Self-Promotion Part 1 :: Research & Inspiration

While many people are thinking about closing their books, getting through the end of the year, and, basically, surviving the holiday, it is actually the perfect time to think about how to promote yourself in the new year. As we move into January organizations will be ready to start executing on their roadmap for the year and you want to position yourself as top of mind when they are looking for partners in accomplishing their goals.

As with almost any design problem, we at Medley start with clearly defining the task at hand. Since this is a self-initiated project centered around promoting our design studio our primary goal was customer outreach and increased awareness of our services. We wanted to make sure our self-promotion piece represented who we were as a studio, provided a high level overview of our offerings, showcased our aesthetic, targeted the correct audience, and remained cost-effective. Here are some of the sources of inspiration we drew from when we created our own self promotion piece.

A multi-fold brochure

A collection of individual cards bound together

A folded poster mailing from Lacoste Design

A square tri-fold brochure from Workshop CA

A punch out campfire mailer from Swink

A fortune cookie in a nicely designed package from Almanac

Hand-lettered envelope by Erik Marinovich

Next time you receive something in the mail or in your inbox that seems particularly compelling ask yourself what it is that drew you to take a closer look. The design? The headline? The offer? By asking yourself those questions you are in a better position to know what might compel your audience to engage with your organization.

We ultimately decided that a simple approach would work best for us at this stage of our studio and brand development. Over the next few blog installments we will share more about our process for designing, writing, and producing a tri-fold mailer that we are sending to our initial list of 100 contacts.

If you need help thinking through how to promote your business, service, or nonprofit in new and engaging ways let’s talk!