In marketing time is money and opportunity. Launching your campaign at the right moment to catch influxes and trends that highlight your company’s specific niche can be delayed if ill equipped or unorganized. How easily could you hand over all of the needed graphics to your design team? Where is your Facebook cover from two months ago which drew the most likes? The following in an effective system for organizing graphics files for you company. Your company may have its own way of doing things, however if you’re completely lost, start here.
Clutter
Having an unorganized series of graphics or incorrect file formats can set a project back days. While you take the time to round up files that seem to have slipped into the ever increasing web of documents in your ‘business media files’ folder, your competitor has gotten a decent head start thanks to your unorganized files.
A common theme among small business owners who are aggressively following up on sales leads, meeting clients out of the office, and filling receipts is that there is never enough time to cover all of your marketing bases. Though having files organized may seem like second nature to some, taking time to measure and maintain your marketing files is important in all instances.
Organizing That Makes Sense
The best way to simplify your marketing graphics is to have a dedicated root folder somewhere in your business folder that says ‘Graphics.’ Simple. Within this folder you will have the following folders. ‘ 0_Corporate,’ ‘1_Social Media,’ 2_Print Graphics,’ ‘3_Photos,’ 4_Downloaded,’ ‘5_Proofs.’
0_Corporate: This will be the smallest folder used within your marketing graphics folder. The only items here will be your final / approved business logo. All file types should be placed here for instant access. Additionally, a brand manual may be placed for cohesive purposes.
1_Social Media: This folder will contain files which belong to all of your social media campaigns as well as relevant photos which you intend to upload later to a social media outlets.
2_ Print Graphics: Here you will place every finalized and print ready file for print production in the future, or as a reference to the past. Business Cards, Flyers, Newspaper Advertisements, Billboard Graphics
3_Photos: Going on a business trip? Place all of your photos here for the moment, or until they move to social media. It’s a great idea to go over this every so often and groom out the ones which you will undoubtedly never use. This folder also contains high quality business related photos. Product photos may additionally be placed here in any number of sub folders.
4_Downloaded: The internet is a vast resource of information and photography. For your particular business a downloaded photo, PDF or infographic can be just as important as a textbook of notes. As a rule of thumb – if it wasn’t yours when you downloaded it off of the internet, regardless of it being photos, or fliers, place them here. Accidentally using downloaded photos or graphics in printed material or social media campaigns may cost you in copyright issues down the road. This will prevent you from mixing unowned documents and graphics.
5_Proofs: In every interaction with an agency or with your graphics department, all files – before and after markup need to be placed here. This will work as a ‘working on’ folder to let you track progress, without overriding files. If you’re not ready to use it, keep it here.
If you own, or manage your website, having an additional file folder for this should be used elsewhere, as website graphics are more importantly located in their respective website folder.
Have your own method of file organization? Share it with us in the comments.
