The marketing assets you need to keep handy

More often than not, we are not the first marketing team our clients have worked with. Maybe someone else created their logo a few years back. Unless we’re rebranding them, we use that logo in almost everything we create for them. It often involves a conversation that goes something like this:

Silver Square: We’re almost done with that poster. Can you send us your logo?
Client: Can you just take it off the website?
Silver Square: That’s a low res version. If we use that on the poster, it will look pretty grainy and pixellated. We really need a vector version.
Client: The guy who designed the logo moved to Spain last year.
Silver Square: He should have given you files for the logo, though. Do you know where those would be?
Client: Not really. We may have to try to get a hold of him in Spain. Can you just recreate it?

Is this the client’s fault? No. Not if nobody ever told them what they needed to keep. So I’m going to tell you.

1.) Design Assets

You should have a copy of your logo in vector format. That means the file is going to end in eps or ai. Yes, your marketing company of 5 years is going to hang on to those files as well, but you need to have them handy. Beyond just your company logo, you also need to keep files for the logos of products, events, brand families, and any stylized logos you’ve had created (such as a holiday-themed version that appears on your client gifts each December).

2.) Design Elements

Both your life and the life of any designer you work with in the future becomes much easier if they don’t have to deconstruct old creative pieces to figure out what fonts you use. The names of the fonts is a place to start. It’s even better if you have the actual font files themselves. Those files will likely end in ttf, otf, or eot.

It also saves time (especially with printed projects) if you know detailed information about the colors you use in your marketing. If you have a brand standards guide, it neatly organizes this information (and much more). If you don’t have a brand standards guide but would like Silver Square to create one for you, give us a call at 317-569-5977 and ask for Raquel.

3.) Passwords

I can’t tell you the number of times a project gets drawn out an extra day because someone is trying to track down a password. Here are the types of passwords that can regularly hold your marketing up.

• Social Media – This includes things like your Twitter password, but do you also know who is an admin on your Facebook page? Do you know who to call to make someone from your marketing team an admin on your business’s page? What about Flickr? FourSquare?
• Email Marketing – If you’re already using a campaign service like Mail Chimp, Campaign Monitor, Exact Target, Delivra, Constant Contact, or something else – how long would it take you to track down the password?
• Website – Your site is made up of a lot of moving parts. Many of them you don’t need to think about very often, but when something needs change quickly waiting to chase down a password is a problem.
• Domain Registrar – This is where you bought yourbusiness.com and may need a few configuration changes when you make significant changes to your site. Popular registrars include GoDaddy and Network Solutions.
• Hosting – This might be the same company as your registrar (although I don’t recommend it), and this company owns the computer where the files that make up your website actually live.
• Content Management – Hopefully this is the one password that you use often and can find in minutes. Popular content management platforms are Drupal, Joomla, and (my favorite) WordPress.
• Analytics – Your marketing team can do more for you if they can see how visitors to your site are behaving. That requires logging in to whatever analytics package (Google Analytics being somewhat ubiquitous) you have in place.

So now you know. Shave days (and dollars) off of your marketing by keeping these assets ready at a moment’s notice. You’ll make your marketing team’s day.