Recently someone asked how our best practices team at SAS approaches storytelling and my short answer was, "It takes a village." But that's only part of the story. It's a process we've developed within our team that drives rapid design of assets we use and reuse on multiple channels and within various campaigns.
To help show the process, I worked with our rich media producer to create an infographic that tells our story.
Ideation
This is where we start. The most unique thing we do is engage the design team upfront - for most this happens much later in the process. Taking this approach not only increases creative mindshare, it helps the designers plan. By default, this shortens a project's timeline (often significantly shorter).
Media
Once we've determined the audience and intended use, we select the media format. Something to consider is that a project may incorporate multiple media outputs. This post is a great example of that - I've written a blog post and worked with our rich media producer to create a supportive infographic to tell our story.
Design
This is where the creative team takes over. The format determines the skillsets required and which designer to involve on the project. There are times when multiple designers will be required. As you can see in the infographic we have a few media formats that require specialized skills - we work within our wheelhouse which streamlines productivity and again shortens the timeline. If you don't have the skillset, partner with people within the organization who do.
Review
Review is vital to the process and communicating with the SME(s) during design is important. It may take multiple rounds of review, but it's worth the time and effort in order to tell the right story.
Editing
When you've been working on something for a long period of time, it's nice to have that second set of eyes - they catch the little things. It's also a good idea to have someone available to confirm that you've met corporate guidelines and standards.
Polish
This is where we incorporate tweaks based on editorial and final SME review - we call it the final polish. Once the designer has incorporated the tweaks, it's ready for distribution.
Delivery
Our team has two distribution channels, direct to vendor or SAS marketing for use within a campaign. During ideation we've determined which channel to use.
Reporting
Not everything we design is incorporated into a campaign, but that doesn't mean we won't bake metrics into the project design. It just means the metrics will be limited. Be prepared to measure results, areas to tweak and what topics resonate for future campaigns.