Most small businesses and startups crowdsource their design needs in order to maximize their creative options and to better manage marketing budgets. But aside from these obvious benefits, did you know there is a whole lot more you can get from crowdsourcing in terms of learning about your brand and business?
Here are some of the things you may well discover about your business when crowdsourcing your creative work through DesignCrowd:
Think more about your brand
When launching your project, you will be required to write a brief about the design. This is a short task description that will serve as a guideline or a blueprint that the designers need to meet.
Writing a brief will make you think long and hard about your project and your business as a whole. It will make you ask all sorts of questions, like “why do you need to get this project done?” “What are you hoping to get out of it?” “What are the short and long-term goals you have set for your business?”
The answers you get from these questions will allow you to see where you are in your business right now. Here’s an example of a brief from one of the contests on DesignCrowd.
Analyze your budget
You will need to allocate a portion of your business budget to pay for the winning design.
This will force you to look at you books and and put your budgeting skills are put to the test. You will learn how to match your expenses to your profits so you will know if you are generating income, or if you are barely breaking even. And if you do find out you need to cut on costs, crowdsourcing design contests work as a low-cost solution for your graphic design needs.
Audit existing designs
You will also need to re-assess the current design assets you already have when deciding what needs to be done. Doing so allows you to review all of the logos, photos, and icons in your database to see if there’s anything still of value that can be used or re-purposed.
This gives you the opportunity to track the development of your creative assets and remember certain aspects about where you have built the business from.
Compare your business to others
You get to see other contests and what other businesses within your niche are doing. You will have an idea what their marketing strategy is, and can use that as inspiration (which is different from copying) to form your own.
Understand brand perceptions
Designers from around the world will present you with lot of choices, which will also give you an idea how they perceive your brand. You will know the designers’ perception of your brand based on their final output. If the designs do not match what you have in your mind, or they do not align with how you want your customers to perceive your brand, then you need to make some changes in your branding strategies.
Brand perception is key to the success of your business, and in order to make yours work, the public’s perception of your brand (actual) and how you want the public to perceive it (ideal) need to match.
Crowdsourcing is more than just outsourcing your design needs to a group of people – it allows you to get to know your business better. Ready to give it a try and see what you learn about your brand and business? Launch your design project on DesignCrowd.
Want More?
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Written by Jessica Walrack on Monday, November 14, 2016
Jessica Walrack is a professional freelance writer with a background in sales and marketing. After 7 years in the corporate world, she stepped into the online sphere and has now been freelancing for 4 years. She specializes in helping businesses to create a stellar online experience for their audience in order to build industry authority and increase profitability. In her spare time, Jessica enjoys traveling all over the world with her family.