Back when I was in charge of communications & marketing for an architectural firm and building company, I had the pleasure of wearing many hats in a multi-faceted role. I threw the special events. I designed the materials. I worked the photos. I did the art direction. I wrote the copy. I did the websites. I designed and wrote the ads. I worked the media. All of it. I loved it.
What was part of the challenge was doing all of it for as little money as possible. I jokingly referred to my products as “Rejects from the Sunday School Wing.” You know how when you’re trying to save money things often look that way? The mission is intact, but the execution is terrible? Well, there are some arenas in which that is somewhat acceptable. Like the Sunday School Wing. But, other than that, I recommend evolving past that look and feel to your materials and aiming for a professional product.
When we entered our $3-4million house in the Luxury Home Tour, we dropped a load of dough. Looking at my budget and considering the bang for the buck, this was a wise investment. Face-to-face marketing is the most effective. With that investment came some other opportunities like the press and visibility from the tour, itself, but also our own materials we’d have to provide for the people touring the house.
What fun.
Here are a few of the pieces I designed for the Luxury Home Tour campaign. They include the pre-event advertisement, the post-event thank-you advertisement, the invitations (both for mail and for email), the promotional handouts, the event signage, and the ad I designed for a partnership with a window vendor. Visual as well as voice continuity and consistency was important–as well as integrating the look and feel of the house and the interest of our interior designer partner for the campaign.
A jack of all trades serving the interests of many masters.
It worked. It always does.
