Feb 09 2010
Savvy business owners will often hire a marketing professional to help with their various marketing endeavors. Sometimes those endeavors include redesigning websites, brochures, identities, etc. Whatever it is, too often the marketing pro won't bring a designer in to the conversation until their client has already started working on the site on their own in some way (usually through content creation or determining look and feel by way of visiting other sites). If they do talk to a designer prior to all that it's more often about vague specs to provide a rough estimate. Worse, it's rare that the designer will even get a chance to speak with the client directly, especially in the scoping stages. This is a terrible mistake and major disservice to the client's branding and pocket.
Now it may seem that I'm sort of bashing marketing professionals here, but that's just not the case. I've collaborated with a few good ones (and a couple bad apples) on various web projects. So let me be clear: I have a healthy respect for marketers. Onward...
Lost in translation
When it comes to discussing a business' website redesign or building a new one for a start up, many marketers will keep the loop closed. They'll speak with their client and not the people who will actually be building the site. Info from the client is received by the marketer and then it's relayed back to the web design team. While this may seem fine and acceptable, no matter how you spin it, things do get lost in translation and time is wasted by all the go-between and back-and-forth.
Part of our job as designers is to really listen. To hear more than just the words that a client is saying. If we have a "gatekeeper" between the client and us, communication quickly breaks down leading to results that may be off target and likely a lot of frustration. If we don't have the opportunity to do this in the early stages of planning for a website (or any major design/marketing project) we have to move it back to square one and ask the questions we normally would. This not only means a step backward in the process, it could potentially mean higher costs if features and specifics about the project come to light that otherwise would have popped up during development.
While a marketer's job is to learn everything about a client's business and their industry, the fact remains that no one will know the business better than the owners and managers. Because of this it's crucial for designers to be able to speak to clients directly on projects. This allows us to ask all the important questions that are 100% critical for a successful outcome.
Marketers need to trust and let go
Part of this overarching problem is due to so many marketers being over-protective of their clients. Yet, the way I see it, there's no reason to be. Aside from the pie being big enough for pretty much everybody, marketers aren't designers and designers are marketers.
Alright, so that's a bit black and white but the thing is, when a client hires a marketer its generally because they want help with an entire marketing strategy encompassing various media and outlets (think beyond web and print, like tv, radio, etc.). Most design agencies can't provide this. We can't - we focus on identities, web development and online marketing. So really, the client is hiring the marketer for her specialities and the design team for theirs. So the fear that seems to lie there (that somehow the clients will be poached) is almost laughable.
And that's not even touching the subject of ethics. If someone's trying to poach clients from another professional they work with or potentially could work with, they have bigger issues to deal with.
Can't we all just get along?
In the end it really becomes an issue of doing what's best for the client. While I'm sure most marketing pros have no real issues with designers and vice versa, there does need to be a bit more communication and transparency. Marketers market. Designers design. Sometimes the two intertwine. Either way, the client wins by having it all laid out on the table early.