Month: October 2023

The Building of the Bullseye Banner; a Corporate Newsletter

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On October 31, 2023

In PR Design, Public Relations

Newsletters are a great way to reach stakeholders and internal audiences. Newsletters showcase events, news, promotions, and tidbits about the organization all throughout. Newsletters are valuable because they allow you to communicate directly with your stakeholders and add promotional aspects.

How Newsletters are an Important Tool in PR

Newsletters like I said prior are a fantastic way to connect with stakeholders while utilizing promotional aspects. Having all information and media assets in one place allows for efficient communication.

There are so many different types of newsletters that can work for you and your organization. Some of the various types are:

  • promotional newsletter
  • reporting newsletter
  • company newsletter
  • consumer newsletter
  • blog
  • curated newsletter
  • practical newsletter

A great example of newsletters is the ones that come in our mailboxes from an organization we interact with often, typically around holidays or big times for said organization.

How to Factor in Your Audiences

Choosing the appropriate newsletter is based on who your audience needs to be. For example, if we want to spread internal news throughout a company, we will utilize a company newsletter and distribute it among employees.

If we want to reach our customers to engage with our company or organization we may send out a promotional newsletter.

For stakeholders already involved with an organization, it is a goal to keep them informed and entertained by our organization, “You want your customers to feel part of your family. A newsletter can help existing customers feel respected and stay in the loop, while also bringing in new prospects,” said GreenFish Marketing. Therefore utilizing a consumer newsletter would be ideal to stay in contact with these target audiences.

Key Elements of a Successful Newsletter

Finding the right elements to incorporate into your newsletter is another important part for maximum effect.

Great platforms like Canva produce templates to help you find inspiration, I believe that InDesign has much more customizability than Canva and can provide a much cleaner layout.

One thing that I’ve learned over the course of my time practicing PR is that consistency is key to building rapport and reputation among your organization and audiences. Use familiar fonts associated with the brand, and factoring these all throughout your newsletter.

Next, it is important to find pictures and graphic elements that are associated with the brand.

For my newsletter, my client was the company: Target. Target’s main elements are bullseye logos, their mascot the dog; Bullseye, and the color palette of red and cream. I incorporated these elements all throughout my newsletter to stay authentic to the brand’s image.

My Corporate Newsletter for Target:

Another prominent element is that the layout of the newsletter has to be appealing to the reader’s eye. It is important to:

keep them engaged!

Engaging layouts are ones that have the copy or text, broken up throughout with pictures, design, and structure. We want to limit long, “boring”, stretches of copy that could make the reader lose interest.

The same goes for the color, images, and patterns. We want these factors to be harmonious and allow the reader to find the publication visually attractive.

Give the reader a reason to keep reading! Wether this be with interesting layouts, designs, quotes or colors.

Newsletter Layouts for Inspo!

Studying Social Media

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On October 17, 2023

In PR Design, Public Relations

Throughout my professional and academic career, I recognized how critical social media is in public relations. From news to entertainment, social media is a massive part of our lives now. PR professionals must use this tool to connect with audiences and promote our organization!

Having Social Media as a Tool in your PR Kit

You can use social media as a tool rather than just a platform in several ways. Many social media platforms have built-in analytic monitoring services, allowing organizations to track their engagement and impressions. This can be helpful to gauge how specific promotions and campaigns are working with your audience.

Social media also offers a two-way communication channel with your stakeholders and target audiences. Allowing for post feedback lets your audience feel connected to the brand or organization, keeping that relationship.

Creativity is a big part of social media that traditional news, press releases, and other forms of media do not offer. With social media, there are creative ways to connect to your audience. You can do this via polls, comments, taking on social media trends, and commenting on influencers’ posts.

Creating a Social Media Campaign for Mejuri

To polish my social media skills, I created a social media campaign for the brand I have worked with for the past couple of weeks, Mejuri. ( Check out my previous posts on Mejuri brand collateral for context!) For this campaign, I relied on consistency and adjusting the post to the platform. For example, this campaign was centered around the Mejuri anniversary sale and was an Instagram and Facebook post exclusive as that’s where our major audiences are.

Mejuri Anniversary Campaign: Instagram Post
Anniversary Sale: Facebook Post
Utilizing consistency in the Mejuri logo allows for brand recognition. Repeated promotion of “Shop our anniversary sale.”

I wanted to utilize these posts to be the main element of promotion. I followed through with Mejuris’ editorial picture feel and blended this into the anniversary campaign. Using high-contrast images and them becoming the catching eye point of the posts.

Facebook Cover
Twitter Header

I wanted a consistent header/cover for the Facebook and Twitter headers that would stay on these platforms for multiple campaigns and seasons. One element of Mejrui is their catchphrase, “fine jewelry for being your damn self.” I utilized light gray, cream and dark exposure images that match Mejuri’s clean and crisp tone.

When Creating Social Media Content, Keep in Mind…

Brand voice, culture and tone are key to staying connected with your pre-established audiences.

For Mejuri, aligning with their classy, editorial, and clean vibe was important. They have consistently used product images focusing on the “people” aspect. It is important to keep these elements. That way there is greater brand recognition, so it feels genuine to the audience.

Platforms for Social Media Campaigns

Platforms like Canva are user-friendly, free and expansive. Canva has several elements that you can add to your posts. Canva also offers templates that can provide a jumping-off point for your creations. Templates are great when you need to see examples and ideas to generate your own creativity and ideas.

There is also a new feature that can help in idea generation. Canva has an AI helper called “Magic Tool,” which allows you to input ideas and design elements.

Canva is a great accessible platform for social media creation and is easier than its predecessors, InDesign and Photoshop.

Canva offers many tutorials, and you can even utilize the AI helper to guide you through your designs.

Here are several more articles and resources on how social media can be one of the best tools in your PR Toolkit.

Shopping the Features on Adobe Photoshop

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On October 3, 2023

In PR Design

Designing Direct-Mail with Photoshop

My client, the University of Oklahoma Recruitment and Admission Offices, needs to reach several target audiences. A classic way to reach out to stakeholders is through direct mail-ins. My first step in designing these mail-ins was brushing up on my Photoshop skills.

My Experience with Photoshop

Photoshop had a learning curve for me. I found the platform pretty difficult to use at first compared to Adobe Indesign. Especially in terms of creating a design and layout, I had to watch many YouTube tutorials explaining the basics to help me get started. A great one I watched explained the platform in under 20 minutes.

After reviewing these tutorials, I learned the basics and shortcuts to improve my Photoshop experience.

One piece of advice I have is do not give up! I closed my laptop several times in frustration, but after practice and understanding that “Ctrl + Z” made anything go back, I was flying!

The Importance of Knowing Your Audience and Stakeholders

For this assignment, I really needed to research my stakeholders and make our mail-in stick out more than other competing colleges. As noted in my last post, I am working with two main stakeholders: transfer students and Promising high school seniors.

As we discussed before, it was important for my promising high school senior stakeholder to focus on the unique education the University of Oklahoma offers. I wanted to advertise this on the mail-in and focus on academia.

I chose to go with an angle that would resonate well with parents as well, considering this high-school senior still lives with her parent.

Paige Turner: High School Senior with above-average grades.

The back of the mail-in:

The front of the mail-in:

Justin Case: Contemplating Transfer Student

For the transfer student, this stakeholder wants a sense of community and networking in his new university. As privy to my research, it is important for transfer students to feel interconnected with their new university and feel that the benefits outweigh the risk of transferring.

I wanted to showcase OU’s wonderful community, school spirit, and overall vibe. I used empowering language, urging this stakeholder to apply to OU.

The back of the mail-in:

The front of the mail in:

Fluidity of the Design Process

My design for these mail-ins is my final draft. As I experimented with Photoshop, I knew these would change as I gained skills and a vision for these designs.

Designs are bound to change based on your comfort level with the platform and as your idea for the project becomes more concise.

I first started with something overly basic, as I felt none of my designs could mesh. After utilizing the layers feature and becoming more comfortable- I felt a shift in how I approached them.

I tried new things, incorporated ideas I liked, and washed ones I didn’t.

I also utilized feedback to be able to round out my ideas and make sure they translate well for a mail-in.

A design needs to remain fluid to improve each time you work on it!

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