Desk Top Publishing tools are terrific. But the skilled people needed to use them well are just not available in the average business. And there's the rub. People with no real experience in graphic design and advertising are posing, or being forced to pose, as advertising experts. Under the watchful eye of the boss, they are busily grinding out brochures, catalogues and even ads in the interest of saving company time or money. In the real world where customers and competitors live,this approach is often a big mistake.

Occasionally the material put out by some of these people is quite good, but most of it is appalling. In the interests of saving a few pennies some companies, both big and small are screaming three things to the world: "We are cheap,cheap and cheap." Is this how you want your company to look?

Advertising vs DTP

Should you or your company be doing any Desk Top Publishing internally? Yes. Sometimes. Price lists, business forms, standard form letters, and other types of routine clerical materials which do not require a creative bent or skilled copy writing and design work are candidates for in-house DTP.

Rule of Thumb

If the job is straightforward and simple; if it does not require any marketing or advertising skills, it could well be a candidate for in-house DTP.

Consider the hidden costs Only you can decide whether the cost of taking any employee off his/her regular work to do a price list or catalogue is more economical or efficient than hiring a professional Desk Top Publisher. You get what you pay for . . . and you often pay a heck of a price for what you don't get.

Take a hard look at your DTP requirements. A great deal of in-house material seldom really needs to be printed on paper anyway.

Remember Alvin Toffler's comment in Future Shock? He noted, quite correctly, that while people send and receive information on paper, they really do not want the paper. They only need the information which is printed on the paper.

Today, any basic desktop office or home computer can quite easily allow you to skip the "printing on paper" stage altogether and send only the information itself directly to another fax or computer via fax modem or e-mail.

Electrons can be transmitted much faster and more cheaply than shipping paper somewhere. This type of material can often be created in-house using your own equipment and staff.

Why Print In the First Place?

If your material really doesn't need to be printed on paper and is primarily for internal consumption, it is probably safe to do it in-house. It is very easy, and gets easier everyday, for even the smallest company to do all its clerical work and business forms on the in-house computer. There are many fine computer programs available which will let most anyone design effective and professional looking simple forms and routine paper work.

Consider something like Delrina's PerForm. Even a computer beginner can create every imaginable business form any company could ever want with PerForm. That ability, coupled with a good fax program and a fax modem, eliminates the need to print the information out onto even one piece of paper... most of the time.

A decent forms program lets you simply create and store all your basic form designs. When needed, retrieve the form, type in the information you wish to transmit and fax the electronic forms, be they price lists, invoices or purchase orders, directly to your customer's computer or fax.

As some wag noted,"Why should you pay the post office to store your mail when a very good fax modem costs only about two hundred and fifty stamps?"

This is the type of Desk Top Publishing that can be carried on in-house on an ongoing basis. It is largely clerical in nature. However as insurance you may still want to have a competent creative person do the initial design and layout work. First have someone in your office take a shot at it if you wish and see what you get. If it is something you feel is good enough to represent your company to prospects, customers and suppliers, go ahead and use it.

If you have any doubts at all, call in a professional to look at the situation for you. Either way, once the basic formats for your repetitive material are done, your in-house staff can then just update the content as needed. Simple, fast and efficient.

No Job For Amateurs

Advertising and sales promotion materials are not jobs for the office amateurs. Unless you have an in-house advertising expert, you should not be doing anything that could be called advertising, or producing sales promotional material or public relations in-house. You should not be doing brochures, catalogues, your own ads and any other material which reflects on the image of your company or is designed to sell your products or company.

There are always exceptions. Alex Tilley of Tilley Endurables is a well-known example. He does his own ads and catalogues and they are consistently among the best produced in Canada. But there are very few Alex Tilleys around.

Your Martha in Accounting is not a copy writer. She is not able to write good copy or do good graphic design work Nor does she have the knowledge to create, design and layout a brochure which will professionally sell your company and your products. If she is a copy writer, why are you wasting her in accounting?

Marketing, advertising, copy writing and design are skills which take years to develop and polish. You did not hire Charlie the Shipper to do a logo for you, nor are any of your sales staff DTP experts. Do not expect them to become creative giants just because they have a computer.

While your staff are playing Desk Top Publisher, who is doing their real jobs? Why would you take your best sales rep off the road to do a brochure? That can be penny wise.

Bosses Can't Write Either

And sorry Boss, but with all due respect, I have not met very many company senior executives or managers who could write two lines of good copy in a row. Dave Nichol did not write his material, nor should you. You have other things to do.

Where do you go to get good advertising skills to produce your print ads and brochures? I thought you would never ask. Contact us today for a free discussion and proposal. No obligation. Telephone us at (519) 439-6116, Fax us at (519) 439-9491or EMAIL us right now. End of this commercial.;-)

Ad Agencies Waste Money

You could go to an "Advertising Agency" if you have a huge budget and can afford to pay through the nose for your material. There are a couple hundred listed in the Toronto yellow pages under advertising agencies. Will you get good work? That depends.

Bad Boy Means Bad Ads

Think about all those "wonderfully entertaining and informative" TV commercials that drive you crazy every night. You see them over and over and over and over again. Is that what you need? Do you really need to have some idiot screaming about your business or product at your potential customers? Look at Bad Boy for an example of offensive advertising. That's what large advertising agencies do best.

Do you have the budget for that type of advertising? Then stop reading this article right now. You don't need it.

Ad Agencies usually do not do good work on brochures or similar printed material. There just isn't enough money in it for them. Many of the creative directors I have met think this work is beneath them. I would never use a major advertising agency for anything but major advertising. If you have the budget of a Molsons or Procter and Gamble, by all means go to a large agency.

Deal With the Organ Grinder

If you are a small or medium business, pick a small creative operation or free-lancer, where you will deal directly with the person who does the writing, design work and handles the creative. Avoid any outfit which wants to run your affairs through an account executive or any other form of a middleman. Deal with the organ grinder. Forget the monkeys.

For obvious reasons, avoid using print shops to design or write your material. Printers print. They do not usually write or design good material.

If you see something you really like in someone else's ad or brochure, call up the company President, praise his brilliance effusively and then ask him where he gets his creative done.

The rule of thumb is simple. If it stays in-house, you can probably do it in-house. If it goes outside, you should probably do it outside.

If you want something produced which will be used to impress, persuade, sell or obtain new customers or sell up existing customers, go outside for your creative material. If they are just internal forms for clerical work or simple price lists, you can probably do that safely in-house. If you're still in doubt, contact us today for a free discussion and proposal. No obligation. Telephone us at (519) 439-6116, Fax us at (519) 439-9491or EMAIL us right now.