Will Crowdsourcing your Logo with a Competition Save you Money? Yes, BUT ...

.... but it might cost you Time and Headaches in the process.

You’ve probably seen their banner ads competing for your attention on Facebook: Create a logo for $99!

Websites like Crowdspring and 99Designs have become popular in the last few years, offering logos, banner ads, and other digital marketing assets via a crowdsourced platform. You create a ‘competition,’ and hundreds (or even thousands) of designers compete for your project – and your attention. You don’t pay until you select the winner. Prices start as low as $99 for some of these sites.

The idea of crowdsourced logos and design seems like a huge relief. The large logo design, branding firms, and digital agencies for decades have commanded huge premiums from companies, for even the slightest change in corporate logos. Over the years, we have seen logos change for such giants as Microsoft, Yahoo, Pepsi, Starbucks, Wendy’s and Reebok, among others – though often the changes are so slight we wonder why it took so long to make the change. (As you can imagine, these companies – and their Wall Street investment banks – consider their brands to hold billions of dollars in value, but I digress.)

But what about for today’s entrepreneur, trying to eke out an existence on a shoestring? The Internet has allowed small business to create a global presence. Why shouldn’t a company appear as professional – and large – as possible?

Easy and cost-effective, right?
It actually takes a lot more work than you think. Remember, you are not meeting with these designers face to face, and so you will need to be as specific as possible in your digital communications. The more specific you are, the less disappointed you will be.

Here are some things to start working on long before you initiate a logo competition. The good news is that your careful consideration about these marketing ideas will be useful as exercises for other marketing tasks, projects, and campaigns that you launch for your business. And thinking about your business and its identity is always a good thing!

Track your competition. Collect the logos, taglines, color schemes, and messaging for your competition. Think about what you like and don’t like about their positioning, and why. This information will help communicate your preferences during your logo campaign – and will also help you set yourself apart.

Start collecting logos of other companies that you like. You may like logos of companies that are outside of your industry, market, or geographical area – and that’s fine. Explain what you like about these logos, and determine if some of the features can be used appropriately for your logo.

Think about your corporate story. Do you have an interesting history, or client success story? Was there a path to discovery for your products or services? Believe it or not, this is relevant for the development of your logo.

Colors, fonts, and other marketing-speak. If you like particular colors, patterns, shapes, or messaging in general, even if these are not connected to a logo, keep track of these, for they will help the designer understand more of what you like and avoid presenting you with logos that you will not like.


Dealing with disappointment
What happens when you none of the entries meet your approval? What are your options? The crowdsourcing platforms want to make a sale of course – and want to pay their designers – so they want you to be pleased with the results.

If you do not like any of the initial designs presented, you can ask for an extension to the competition, or can select a few and ask the designers to modify them for you.

Caveat emptor
There are still issues with this approach. Because the designers are working on drastically reduced budgets, it has become common knowledge that a lot of the designers have a ready-made ‘stash’ of generic logos for particular industries – restaurants, education, transportation, and home improvement, among others – to which they make small modifications and then simply enter them into the competition.

After all, if their logo isn’t picked, they lose money – their time building a logo for a company that doesn’t end up paying them in the end. As such, they ‘protect’ themselves by creating logo templates.

Hence, there is a strong likelihood that the logo you paid for – even at $99 – is sitting somewhere else in the world or the Web for another business.

Aware of this, some entrepreneurs are shunning these competitions and taking their creative brief – their favorite colors, corporate story, competition, etc. – and hiring a local designer in efforts to control more of the process.

You worked hard to launch your business, and your brand is the most important asset you own.

Final Thoughts
Knowing that there are cost-effective resources on the Web to handle traditionally very costly marketing tasks should embolden and invigorate entrepreneurs to consider their marketing messages and assets. A little bit of cost-effective design can help any business.


ChangeU: For your independent independent study….

A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing: Advice From Leading Experts http://amzn.to/1ycy5N5
A look at how crowdsourcing is changing business.

Welcome to the Era of Design  http://onforb.es/ZDtNly
A review of the importance of design and its connection to customer experience and sales.

How To Market Your Business as an Entrepreneur without Spending a Fortune http://bit.ly/1ziqOzF
Ways to promote a business on a shoestring.

CATEGORIES:

# digitalexe

References

3 Content Marketing Trends That Will Rule 2018

2015 TechTarget Media Consumption Report: Guided by content – How IT buying teams navigate through the research and purchasing process