| We already have a graphic designer, but we're not happy with what they've done. Can you help? | Yes, we can help in two ways. Either by taking over the job completely or by acting as external design consultants.
As an example, we recently helped a school who was exactly in this position. Sadly, the school decided to choose another designer because they used competitive tendering to work on their sixth form prospectus and he was cheaper than Mustard.
They wanted it to look a bit different from the whole school prospectus - as it was aimed at potential sixth formers rather than their parents.
Unfortunately the designer just didn't "get it" and the school shelved the first draft as the design wasn’t what they wanted. They then called us in for a professional second opinion. We held a creative conference with our own designers and then dictated our comments into a digital audio file and sent it to the school.
Having heard our view, their chosen designer was then able to redesign the document over the summer holidays - and he produced a much better job.
You can ask us to act as an external consultant on artwork produced by your own designers - whether they be in-house or external. | |
| What kind of graphic design services do you provide? | | Our graphic design services are varied and comprehensive. We provide logo design, brochure design, illustrations, website design, direct mail, marketing, stationery – including business card, letterhead, envelope, mailing labels, – exhibitions, and presentation folder design, and any other printing your business may require. | |
| I don't know where to start. Can you help me? | | Call us on 01722 744033. We'll listen to your needs, ask lots of questions to get you thinking, and tell you what your options are. A job may seem overwhelming until you have the right experts helping you out. We can put things in perspective and offer solutions that you may not have even considered. | |
| Where do we start and how do you involve your clients in the design process? | | We always start by thoroughly discussing the details of the project with you. A clear and full brief is normally taken during a meeting. We encourage you to contribute ideas and samples of items and colours you like. When we are satisfied we have enough information to work with, we will begin the project by researching ideas, considering concepts and then providing design visuals, these will be forwarded to you for feedback. This can be in the form of a print-out in the post, a PDF by email, or via our website Client Area. Your feedback is crucial, and we’ll make any necessary changes to the layouts and offer advice. | |
| What is the client's involvement in the design process? | | We thoroughly discuss the creative project with you from the beginning. We encourage you to bring in any samples, colour combinations/swatches, and ideas you may have. During the design process, you will be asked to check and approve versions as we go along. It's up to you how much you feel you want to be involved. We're very accommodating. | |
| When we have our new logo, can you produce a style/brand guidelines document for us to follow in future? | | Yes, we recommend producing a brand guidelines document. This illustrates to other designers and graphic professionals the importance of maintaining a consistent brand image for your company through careful use of the logo, typefaces, colours and placement of elements on a page. It demonstrates a level of professionalism within your company; that marketing and brand image are an important asset. | |
| Will I own exclusive rights to the graphic design work I order from The Mustard Agency? | | Exclusive rights will be yours after final payment is made to The Mustard Agency. If you ask for the artwork digitally at that time, we will be happy to provide it to you. If some time has passed then there is a nominal charge for un-archiving work and supplying it. We retain the right to use the artwork in our portfolio. | |
| Where is The Mustard Agency? | | We have offices based in Wilton, Salisbury, UK. See our contact page for mapping. Here follows a description of how to get here: | |
| DIRECTIONS | | At the main roundabout on the A36 (near the Church, Tennis Courts and Bowls Club), take the A36 westwards towards Warminster. After 100 metres, you will pass the entrance to the Wilton Shopping Village, on the left, continue on the main road as it curves to the right past the water meadows. After 400 metres you will come to the first of two railway bridges passing over the main A36. Immediately after the first railway bridge, turn right into Kingsway (sign posted "Park & Ride") and drive 100 metres up the hill. Just before you get to Highfield Garage, you will have the choice of turning right onto opposite Wilton Business Centre or left onto Kingsway Industrial Estate. You should turn right onto Wilton Business Centre (it is marked with a sign at the entrance), it is a relatively new (2005) business park in the grounds of the old railway station yard. Our office is number 4A. We are next to Cara Glass. | |
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| The most common question: How much does a website cost? | There really is no stock answer for that. At least not from us. We need to know what you want it to do, how many pages, whether you need to update it regularly, amongst many other things.
The Mustard Agency can deliver a high level of professional website design on a tight budget. And if your needs are more complex and technical we can deliver a website that communicates your products and services more effectively to your audience.
So the answer is come and talk to us. No obligation. No hard sell. Request a call-back here | |
| Where do I start? | | Either a chat over the phone or a cup of coffee at your office or ours. We at The Mustard Agency will listen to your needs, whether it's a re-jig of your existing website, or you need something completely new and exciting. Our website briefing document can be a useful starting point as it asks a number of important questions. It's much more productive and cost-effective to consider as many of the options as possible - from the start - than to try to add and modify the basic structure later. Do you need each page to be editable by your staff? Or will it rarely need updating? Is Search Engine Optimisation important to you? Would a database be the best way to present your products or services? And many more such questions... The best thing to do is to call us on 01722 744033 and we'll help you work out your website needs. Request a call-back here. Then we'll put together a proposal that you can consider. | |
| What happens next? | | If you like the look of our proposal, let us know! We will then use this as the basis of our specification document. This document is where we go into a bit more detail. We both need to be absolutely clear what it is that you have asked us to do, how you expect it to work, and when you expect it to be completed. It outlines what we will deliver and explains what you need to supply to us so we can do the job. | |
| Do you do content management systems? | | Yes The Mustard Agency creates bespoke content management systems (CMS) for its clients. None of them is an off-the-shelf solution. At the Agency we emphasise the importance of design and we try to ensure that once we hand the site over to you it continues to look professional. So we'll find out which sections you need to update regularly, and which you need to update yearly. NEWS pages are common pages that need regular input, for example. We write the code into your site so that you can access a secure page on your site and simply fill in a form to add and edit news yourself. We restrict the style and formatting so that it fits in with the whole look. Call us to discuss your needs on 01722 744033. | |
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| How do I find the information on all the courses available? | | You will find all details of courses and the course schedule here on the training section of our website. | |
| What do I get out of the course? | Our course notes are FULL and second to none, with over 10 years of additions and development.
All our course lectures are conducted through Power Point Presentations thereby providing an effective and interactive audio-visual medium of learning.
You will be supplied with a course handout. We offer tea and coffee, lunch, and afternoon tea and coffee. | |
| Who do I contact for more information on the courses? | | Our course advisors are more than happy to discuss the courses with you. Please do not hesitate to contact our office on 01722 744033. Or Request a call-back here. | |
| Do you offer any discounts? | | Yes, for many courses if more than one person from your school wishes to attend we offer a £50 discount for the second delegate. | |
| How do I pay for the course? | You can pay for the course via Paypal, as instructed when booking via this website, or you can opt to receive an invoice and pay via BACs, or cheque.
For cheques please send to:
The Mustard Agency
4a Wilton Business Centre
Kingsway
Wilton
Wiltshire SP2 0AH
Our BACs details are:
Sort Code: 09-06-66
Account Number: 40473911
There will be no refund of course fees after the commencement of the course. | |
| What does your company offer schools? | | Our graphic design services for education are varied and comprehensive. We provide logo design, prospectus design, illustrations, design of web sites, stationery – including letterhead, newsletters, presentation folder design, and any other printing your school may require. Just pick up the phone, or email us and we will be happy to discuss your requirements. Request a call-back here | |
| What happens if I need a refund? | | Please refer to our terms and conditions. | |
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| I've heard about companies using Twitter to promote themselves, should I? | Have you heard of Twitter? I’m guessing you have. Twitter receives 55,000,000 visitors a month, with 6 million of those being unique visitors (i.e. non-repeat visits)
Have you set up a Twitter account? Possibly? There are a massive amount of people who have opened Twitter accounts in the last few months alone.
Have you posted more than 10 updates and regularly returned to the site? Ah, now that’s where the number drops off slightly. Twitter has just a 40% retention rate, i.e. 60% of the people who visit Twitter think, “This isn’t for me,” and never return.
I hope is that those people, and those who have never been to the site, return for a second look. Twitter really does have its uses like no other provider can offer. And best of all, it’s free, quick and simple! | |
| Why was there a need for a site like Twitter? | In 2005, a guy by the name of Jack Dorsey joined a blogging site called LiveJournal.
Despite being “Live”, Jack felt that the posts weren’t updated frequently enough for him to get a good idea of people’s daily lives and the entries were often so long that he really couldn’t be bothered reading through them.
Jack saw the need for a quick, short, more frequent update and so Twitter was born. | |
| How can Twitter be used? | Generally, the people that use Twitter are part of a new wave of information sharers. They value information from others and so freely give it when asked.
As any other social media tool, the Twitter community loves network building and also loves to show their support for a particular cause. There are millions of users out there and many of those users will happily connect with an organisation that shares a common interest in supporting a particular cause. For this reason, non-profits should find it fairly easy to build their network.
An example of a possible use: Once a network of supporters has been established, a non-profit could ask its followers if they would prefer to see their money spent on one thing or another simply by asking the community. Responses would be echoed throughout the community and so, by default, would encourage more attention, more awareness and more of a following. | |
| Who uses Twitter? | Twitter is becoming the next big thing. It’s trendy AND geeky, which is the new cool! It’s used by lots of celebrities and politicians, but most commonly it’s used by mature business professionals.
Twitter experiences the highest social network growth of over 1,300% in the last 6 months leading up to February this year, and it’s most popular with the over 30’s age groups. | |
| 10 Best Practices: with Twitter | 1. Create your Twitter account with either your own name or the name of your organisation (if you need authority to do this, be sure to obtain it from the relevant parties).
2. Post 3 or 4 messages. Something along the lines of “ is now on Twitter!” and a couple more posts about your cause, and perhaps something you have been involved with recently. This means you have something “pre-entered” on your account so anyone checking you out will see a little of what you are about before they decide to follow you. If they see a blank screen, they may move on without following you.
3. Find some people to follow. If you are logged into Twitter, you will see a “follow” button next to their name. Click this to add them to your network and begin recieving their updates.
4. Take a look at the people following the accounts in step 3 (by clicking on followers). Find people who may be interested in your cause, i.e. people who are in UK and perhaps in your home city, or people who are already following other similar causes and click “follow” next to their name. Their updates will now show each time you log on to Twitter.
5. Observe! Before posting too much, be sure to observe what others are doing and get a feel for the updates that get the best response.
6. Use material that may already be available to you. If your site has a blog, or an online newsletter, write the heading in your Twitter update and add a link to the article on your site (use www.tinyurl.com if you want to make your links shorter to fit in the box).
7. Participate. Once you have an understanding of the basics, get communicating! Add relevant updates about your cause and you’ll find your network growing. You can also communicate directly with your followers by adding an “@” sign in front of their name before your message, or by clicking on the small arrow next to their post. Note that these “replies” are public. To communicate privately, click click the envelope icon.
8. Use the search tool. Find out if conversations are already taking place about your cause or your organisation. See who are posting the comments and join them to add value to the conversation.
9. Give it time. Many people are put off by Twitter in the first few attempts at using it. Put some time into seeing how people interact with other and the extra tools that are available to ensure you get the most from Twitter. If you use Twitter in the right way, your network will grow itself.
10. Enjoy it! But realise it’s not for everyone. If you find you are really not getting into it, find someone in your organisation who is a champion for your cause and will enjoy interacting with your supporters through Twitter and then set them up with an account!
Further information, please come and talk to us on 01722 744033 | |
| Services Marketing: How do we promote a product if can’t see it or feel it? | If your product is a service - whether it’s drain cleaning, interior design or strategic business advice - the marketing considerations are more varied than for those selling products like PCs, vegetables or jewellery.
You want your clients to see the value and quality of your service. How do you do this? The key to this is an integrated approach, it’s not just about advertising.
1. Your staff are your most important assets. Their knowledge, skills, qualifications and experience deliver the service. Invest time and money in training. Make sure they represent you in the best way.
2. Communicate your successes. Does your website answer your potential customers’ questions? Write a regular newsletter reminding clients of the benefits of your service. Always quote solutions that you have delivered for your clients.
3. Stay in contact with your clients. Find out what they thought of the service they received. Then USE this information to review your processes. Could you improve?
The very first and the very last impression of your business stays with your clients. Do they like dealing with you? Do they come back again and again?
Talk to us about how we can help you review the way you market your service. Request a call-back here. | |
| Do I need a marketing plan? | | Producing a marketing plan is a process that many organisations find useful. It's a way of examining how you do what you do and where you want to go. The Mustard Agency can work with you whether you have a plan or not. If you have a clear idea about your audience, your products or services and what you want want to say, we can help you communicate that message. See our marketing section for more information. | |
| Can you help us write a marketing plan? | Yes. The Mustard Agency has solid experience in writing marketing plans for many types of organisations. We'll ask for your input of course, and this is crucial as it's your organisation and you know the most about it. We'll ask you lots of questions that will help clarify where you are in relation to:
- product or service
- your target audience
- your competitors
- your pricing
- your systems
- your location
- your promotional activities
This forms the basis of the analysis. Then it's a case of finding out where you want to go and putting in place some aims and setting some targets. | |
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| What is PR? | | The industry’s professional body, The Institute of Public Relations’ definition is "Public Relations is about reputation: the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. It’s the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics". | |
| What are the benefits? | Successful public relations campaign professionally implemented over a period of time will:
- Improve a company’s reputation
- Stamp your company’s authority on the market place
- Profile the company's brand, services and/or products amongst target audiences
- Create new business opportunities
- Improve staff morale
- Lead to increased sales | |
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using a Credit Card.