Whether you are launching a new business, product or service, or rebranding an existing one, establishing the steps and methodology before you delve into the project can be the difference between success and failure, especially if you’re on a tight budget.

With nearly 20 years experience, we have developed seven steps to creative heaven to help make every project a success. Breaking down the process into more manageable tasks is an organisational imperative and will help you discover your business challenges and define the solution.

We want to use our experience to help you succeed too!

1. Discuss

Listen, understand and ideate.

The first step is to discuss your requirements. List everything: what makes you tick, what the challenges are and how you see success. Go into as much detail as you can, because seeing things clearly at this stage can make all the difference later down the line.

Try to include information on any sub-brands you might have, the characteristics of your desired audience, who your competitors are, what your competitive edge, your company’s values and anything else you can think of that will be relevant for the brand that you’re creating. There will be lots to go through if you have been thinking about this for a while or have been in business for some time, but don't worry, this is a very normal part of the process.

2. Diagnose

Review, challenge and discover.

Next, you need to gather the information together in a creative brief and use research to understand what will work well and where the gaps are. Try to dig deeper and capture the nuances of your current situation and the goal you want to achieve. Challenge yourself with asking "why?" 5 times for anything you're unsure of...that gets to the heart of the issues and help you start to see the right path to take.

Try to foresee your most prominent challenges, be it a small budget, a very saturated and competitive market, potential difficulties in gaining visibility or reaching the right audience, or anything else you might encounter on your project journey e.g. tricky team mates.

3. Define

Investigate, explore and plan.

Once you’ve gathered all the necessary data, it’s time to start nailing down the specific tasks that lay ahead. This is where you start to plan the next steps for the project including the resources, team, skill set and KPIs to meet.

While you can never be sure what unexpected circumstances can throw a wrench in your process, your project plan should be comprehensive enough to include details on things like your baseline measures, key roles within the team, as well as the scope and timeline for your project.

4. Design

Create, formulate and solve

With solid foundations in place, you’re ready to let the creative team loose on your project whether that be a brand, mobile app, animation or website. If you’ve provided them with enough information on the vibe and image you want to project, your visuals should fit the project well.

This is normally where most people think the design process starts, but without all the ground work, it's not as straight-forward and the results are not as good.

The visual aspects of your brand are likely to be the things that stick with your audience, and make up the majority of what they will associate when they think of your project, so it’s important to be aware that this aspect is a crucial part of making a good first impression.

5. Develop

Build, code and construct

Whether it be a new brand, animation, app or website, coding attractive and user focused designs is at the center of how your product will be perceived. Putting the focus on user experience is crucial to the entire launch and testing process and can make a huge difference in the long run.

If you’re building a website or an app, make sure that the navigation is easy and logical and that you have a mechanism for collecting all the analytics data that would allow you to provide the best experience to your customers later down the line. Of course, for this course the brand must come first.

6. Deliver

Test, launch and amaze

So often forgotten, this part of the process is almost the most important. Once you’re at this stage, be sure to set aside time to review and improve every project so you can find success!

Soft launches privately to your close networks and trust customers can help test ideas and outcomes before they go to the big quide world. It's common place for big business as they don't want to make costly mistakes, but it's equally important for startups who live week to week in terms of finance.

Testing and tweaking your product or service before the launch can vastly impact the user experience, better define the first impressions you make, and ensure that your audience is amazed by what you are offering.

7. Debrief

Measure, learn and improve

Once the dust has settled and the project is out in the big wide world, make sure to make the time for a debrief to evaluate the output and make improvements for next time.

While it might feel like the party is over, it’s really important that you don’t sleep on your product or think your job is done. Make sure you make constant improvement a priority, as this is the only way you can stay ahead of the game. Brands should be ever evolving.