New school prospectus
Do schools have to produce a prospectus? Department of Education regulations came into effect in 2012 to say that schools don’t need to produce a school prospectus. Although schools may now hold key information online, why do so many still produce a new school prospectus and should you consider a printed prospectus for your school? To know more you can get help for special needs individuals from attorneys. Here are some key questions to ask when you’re thinking about whether your school and its community would benefit from having a printed prospectus: Our curriculum information is on our website so parents can access it at all times. We don’t need a prospectus! It’s true that regulations mean that all schools have to publish curriculum information on their websites. Pupils, parents and prospective parents can access that information when they need it, but they don’t give a real ‘feel for a school’, so you need to setup what your school have, including a playground with playground markings direct and more. A new school prospectus allows you to tell a story about your pupils, staff and ethos in a way that downloadable lists can’t do. You know the feeling of leafing through a magazine and having the time to take in all of the relevant information? It can be the same for your prospectus. Being able to take the time to get a feel for your school through great content and superb photos can never be replaced by a bunch of copy-heavy pdfs! It will take too long Actually, it won’t! We recently turned around a prospectus for a school in Manchester in under four weeks, closely followed by another. If you know what you want to say, good communications specialists can come in and turn your notes into engaging content that sells your school. Add to the mix a seasoned photographer and a fab graphic designer and you have yourselves the A-team, who will turn your bullet points into a beautiful school prospectus, delivered to your door for less than you think. I can’t afford a new school prospectus It costs a lot less than you think to produce a new school prospectus. A good content writer and designer will want your business so will work with you and to your budgets and timescales. We always do. There’s no harm in getting quotes – in fact get three quotes to ensure that the team you pick is competitive, as well as experienced. You may be surprised at how little it costs in terms of its impact to your school and numbers on roll. Let us know if we can help with your new school prospectus.
Briefing a graphic designer
Briefing a graphic designer – get the best value for money and service by following our guide. You want a new logo, website, brochure, leaflet or business card to be designed and you know what you want to say, but you haven’t the first clue about how to design it. So, you call in the services of a reputable graphic designer to help you to realise your vision. How do you effectively communicate your needs to ensure that you get value for money and the best service? Get creative Most good graphic designers will present clients with a creative brief sheet in order to find out, in detail, the exact requirements. If yours doesn’t, follow our simple steps and you’ll get the best value for money with the most effective result. About your business When briefing a graphic designer it’s useful to tell them a little bit about your business: what products or services do you provide? Who are your customers? What are your future goals? Writing down two or three sentences about your business will give a designer a good basic understanding of what you do and who you do it for. This can help them to find out more about where you fit in your industry. Target audience Be as specific as possible. Whose attention are you trying to grab? Is your campaign aimed at a family market? Over 50s? Students? The business community? Information about your audience can give a graphic designer the heads up on content and more importantly design. Although your brand may have an overarching corporate look and feel, different audiences will require different approaches. Stylistic preferences Although we mentioned corporate branding and audience above, you may have an idea about how you want the finished article to look. Do you want something bold? Are you after something more discreet? Being as detailed as possible at this stage, and with this question, can save time and money. If a graphic designer has clear instructions on ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ you’re less likely to be presented with draft designs that are way off the mark in terms of what you envisaged. Tell them what you don’t like It will pay dividends in cost savings if you’re clear from the outset about what you don’t like. If you fail to give a graphic designer this information they may present you with options that you really don’t like. Being honest from the start can ensure that the illustrative style that you hate or the typeface that gives you a headache won’t be used in your designs. Example images It’s a great idea to use something like Pinterest to gather images that you like. You can share a mood board with the graphic designer, which will give them an instant idea of what you require – and save, as above, on time spent barking up the wrong design tree. Anything else? If there is anything else, no matter how insignificant it may seem, tell your designer. The more information you give them the better, and the further your money will go! Contact us with any graphic design queries you may have. We’ll pop over to see you, bring along a creative brief to go through and provide you with a competitive quote. View our graphic design work for businesses View our graphic design work for education View our branding and logo designs
Business copywriting – how to do it the right way
Business copywriting – how to do it the right way Business copywriting: Do you need to up your game when it comes to writing content about your products or services? Do you have good intentions to put pen to paper, but something else always comes up? You’re not alone if you’re guilty of a scattergun approach when it comes to marketing your business through good copywriting. For more business management tools and ideas, check out this new guide on how to generate form w-2 for tax payments. The scattergun approach (we’re all guilty) There’s little gain in having a great idea one week, swiftly composing a few social media posts and promoting that idea without an eye on the bigger picture. This is the way many businesses operate, and it’s so easy to do. How to improve your copywriting for business and your content schedules Look at the bigger picture to tighten up your business copywriting: tie your business in with local, regional and national events, separate your business into relevant services and products and concentrate on these in a methodical way, and look at what your clients need and when they need it and you’ll gain a clearer understanding of what content you need to produce. This can give you a clear content schedule for months. It also allows you to find some meaningful way to measure your written output. How about this? Write down your business’s USPs (unique selling points). What do you do above and beyond your competitors? What aspect of your service is excellent? Why do customers come to you and return? Then, write a story for each of your USPs and use that content across all of your marketing channels. Do you have lots of glowing testimonials that you can use to show how much your clients appreciate you? Do your staff have excellent knowledge and experience of your products or services? Have you been in business for a long time? Do you serve a particular community? Sit with a content writer to come up with marketing ideas for the next six months, and have them write a short plan for each channel (social media, website, client communication emails and so on). Work out all of your ideas for the next three/six months and come up with a content schedule and a way to link the content across all channels (website, newsletters, emails, social media, local newspapers). Here’s an example of what you could write about in a month-by-month schedule: April – products related to spring/ services people need in spring/ local events to use/ what content can we write about this? May – how much your current clients like your product/service – case studies of where you’ve helped people or added value/ testimonials from satisfied clients/ words people use to describe your service/ updating the testimonials section of your website. June – get ready for summer with our product/service/ looking for regional/national initiatives where you can piggyback your content – village festivals/local school open days/annual events. July – Bob’s your uncle! You now have a robust content plan for you business, and crafted content to use as you see fit. Before you know it, and with a small spend, you have clear reasons to communicate with clients past, present and future. Drop us a line if you’d like to have a free discussion about your marketing and content.
School prospectus design
It’s the time of year when schools, whether private or state, look towards the next academic year and begin to consider a new school prospectus. We are already dealing with an increased number of calls from heads and support staff looking for ideas and costs for their new school prospectus design. We can deliver a shiny new school prospectus to your door in under four weeks and at a cost that is less than you think. Our experience in project managing school prospectuses includes content writing, graphic design, photography, print and delivery. We can put the whole thing together for you or chip in where you need support. St Wilfrid’s in Northenden, Manchester needed a quick turnaround for their school prospectus and we were able to delivery the finished prospectus in record time. See it here. Crossacres Primary Academy in Wythenshawe also needed a prospectus and a nursery school prospectus delivering quickly, and we were able to fulfil their brief and deliver on time. See their new prospectuses here.
Shortlisted for prestigious Heist Awards 2016
Shortlisted for prestigious Heist Awards 2016! We were asked by Policy@Manchester to produce a high-quality, high-end, limited edition piece of print called ‘On Devo’ to showcase some of the University’s recent academic blogs on the Devolution issues in Manchester. 101 personalised copies were sent to senior On Devo decision makers. We worked with academic blog authors to edit their articles, and worked with Policy@Manchester to come up with a professional and slick design and a logotype for the ‘On Devo’ publication. We used top quality paper stock, with a white and orange foiling for the cover. Ensuring that we worked within the brand guidelines of the University, we produced the publication within a tight deadline and to a set budget. The publication may be downloaded from the University’s website here. For 25 years, the prestigious Heist Awards for education marketing have celebrated truly extraordinary work across the sector, from the smallest regional college to huge global brands. The Awards are the premier reward programme for marketing in higher education. With international recognition, the categories are reviewed every year to make sure they keep pace with how the sector is changing across the globe. Winners will be announced at the Roaring Twenties themed Heist Awards on Thursday 7th July 2016 at The Palace Hotel in Manchester. We’ll keep you posted!
AUA 2016 conference brochure
We’ve produced our third annual conference brochure for the AUA. It’s always nice to be asked to work on another project for a client, and we are lucky enough to have lots of clients who come back to us for their projects.
Copywriting Cheshire – we’ve gone all posh
Copywriting Cheshire We’ve worked with Jackson-Stops and Staff‘s Wilmslow, Hale and York offices for the last 12 months, and our most recent effort has resulted in a monthly editorial in glossy lifestyle mag The Cheshire Magazine. The January 2016 issue sees the first of Crispin Harris’ editorial pieces – a monthly slot that we managed to secure for Jackson-Stops & Staff. You can see more of our work for JSS on their blog, where we’ve recently written features about how to choose the right estate agent and property predictions for 2016. If you are based in Cheshire or Manchester and require some great copywriting, do get in touch.
Higher education brochure design
Well, we’ve done it again – we’ve interviewed some of the leading lights in science and engineering in order to write and design a fourth 40 page alumni magazine for The University of Manchester’s Faculty of Science and Engineering. This higher education brochure design was published earlier this month. It’s a mammoth task, but we take our time and really get into the subject matter, be it radio astronomy, tissue engineering, astro physics, nuclear science or internationalisation. We hope that our passion is evident in the writing. The design of the publication is a labour of love too, with Bridget lovingly creating another fantastic edition. We worked speedily to endure that this publication could be posted out alongside the University’s central alumni magazine.
Manchester devolution
We were asked by Policy@Manchester to produce a high-quality, high-end, limited edition piece of print called ‘On Devo‘ to showcase some of the University’s recent academic blogs on the Devolution issues in Manchester. 101 personalised copies were sent to senior On Devo decision makers. We worked with academic blog authors to edit their articles, and worked with Policy@Manchester to come up with a professional and slick design and a logotype for the ‘On Devo’ publication. We used top quality paper stock, with a white and orange foiling for the cover. Ensuring that we worked within the brand guidelines of the University, we produced the publication within a tight deadline and to a set budget. The publication may be downloaded from the University’s website here. SaveSave
Better get out our note pads…
The University of Manchester’s Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences has again asked us to project manage the production of its alumni magazine Your Manchester. It is jam packed with news and features from around the campus, focussing on its groundbreaking research and also the people behind the research.