The way your content looks is a big deal. And I mean big.
You could say design is 60,000x more important than text—at least the moment someone lands on your content—because that’s how much faster people’s brains process visual information. Messaging matters, but first impressions live and die by design.
So go give your designers a hug, because people connect to their work right off the bat. They’re the reason people stick around to actually read your content.
Keeping designers looped into content campaigns is essential for any marketing team. But writers and editors don’t always appreciate how much time, energy, and thought goes into designing content assets.
Too often, content marketing workflows are bottlenecked at the design phase. Expectations aren’t set. Designers are overwhelmed with unforeseen requests. Last minute changes stall progress.
Here are four ways to quell the chaos and kick your design process into shape.
1. Embrace Workflow Tools
Trying to organize your design process manually, whether through emails or Google Docs, isn’t a good idea. There are great tools and marketing platforms at your disposal. Use them.
Trello is our top choice for organizing design requests at Kapost. The easy-to-use boards promote collaboration, allowing anyone on the team to submit requests while our designers handle them. Once a request is approved and a deadline is set, we use our own content marketing software to organize design tasks within the writing, editing, publishing, and promotion timeline of the asset or campaign. This helps everyone stay aligned on what’s due and when, and keeps comments and revisions in one place instead of getting lost in lengthy email threads.
2. Be Structured
There’s no one design process that’s going to work for every organization. That said, it’s important to figure out the one that will work for yours.
Find the bottlenecks in your process, collaborate with designers to understand their needs for efficiency and their preferred communication style, and involve your stakeholders in the solution. Create a clear plan for how your assets will move through the design phase, and prepare for possible situations such as changes in design ideas or last-minute adjustments. Share this plan with everyone on your team.
3. Be Flexible
Being flexible is just as important as being structured. In the wild world of content, things change. And fast. Build flexibility into your process and set expectations with your writers, editors, and designers that change may happen. To work in a creative professional world, you must always be iterating. Don’t be afraid of change. Just have a plan for it.
4. Listen
While you may think you know all there is to know about design and front-end development, pause a moment to listen to the people who are hired as experts in the field. In the end, designers have a much more intimate knowledge about how long projects will take, how a content asset should read, what will work, and what won’t. Build trust with your designers by giving them yours. Share your design concepts and inspiration early, then let them run with it. Micromanaging the process won’t do anyone any good.
Designers who feel valued will do better work. Keep your team motivated and operating at the highest level level by incorporating these four elements into a system that addresses needs, removes common stumbling blocks, and guides your content seamlessly through launch.