Frequently asked questions
Founded in 2019, Octagon Projects©™ (OPC) are a digital-orientated marketing communications (marcom) agency, who also offer traditional artwork-to-print services. Our focus is both creative and aimed at providing the maximum Return On Investment (ROI) for our collaborators.
Octagon Projects©™ are your dynamic, no nonsense partner with the skills to meet today’s agile consulting, writing services, graphic design, web design, document automation products, and animation needs. Our plain English project methods are tailored to your needs, ensuring successful project completion.
By engaging with our collaborators, and using well known project management techniques, we strive to get them what they need, when they need it.
Projects are undertaken on-site, remotely or as a combination of both depending on the collaborator (and security) needs. Additionally, you're kept up to date with the project expenditure so you won't find any black holes. We apply the competitive pricing models (based on effort required, delivery time, and quality level)
A good, if somewhat rhetorical, question.
Entrepreneurs tend to avoid anything that has a negative effect on the bottom line be it admin costs, marketing communications costs or some other below the line cost.
However, the perception created by your marketing communications output has a greater effect on your bottom line than what you actually sell. Brand recognition generates sales. It's that simple.
It is a question of perception. In business markets, perception is everything. For some brands, this axiom is truer than for others. Taking Apple as an example. Yes, they make great products but they sell huge numbers of them because they are perceived as speaking directly to the customer, not pushing a product.
Why should you use us? You want your products and services to stand out from the crowd, be recognizable, trusted and memorable.
We have the tools, vision, drive and expertise to help you meet your goals so let's go achieve BIG THINGS together!
People often discount, devalue or down-play that which they do not really understand. This is very common for service industries such as writing, layout and graphic design.
"Writing - no problem, everyone can write; drawing - we'll use CAD; layout - let's use word and get someone to do a quick tidy it up; and let's put it out as pdf. See it's easy and doesn't cost much!"
— Anonymous manager
Anyone can do that right? Hmmm, no that is a very serious misconception, especially the cost estimate.
If it wasn't, then why do the likes of IBM, Microsoft, HP and many thousands of large concerns have professional writing departments, with authors, editors, illustrators and defined standards (not the Google Style guide).
Those that do not have internal departments, often outsource to trusted suppliers with access this infrastructure.
As an example of how the content of a range of documents are kept uniform:
Professional writers are trained to adapt their style to the needs of a target audience (often using a style guide). Various "knowledgeable" sites recommend “branded” style guides from the Chicago Tribune, Google, Microsoft and so on. Style guides are living documents but using a marketing-orientated branded style guide will make it a little too alive because it is aimed more to the changing marketing needs of the company, not the needs of the target audience.
A language standard that is often referred to as a style guide is
ASD-STE100 - the aviation/defense industry standard for Simplified Technical English (STE). But it is not a style guide. It is a standard for the type of language that the steering committee find acceptable. Use it in addition to a style guide, not in place of one.
Everyone who must write needs a style guide to ensure their text and documents are readable and uniform. The best style guides I have found and use regularly for reference come from the petrochemical industry. Why the petrochemical industry and not a software company’s style guide? In a word, maturity.
Most software companies invest heavily in producing a product, and documentation comes a very low second. In the petrochemical industry, people die if the documentation is not good. This means the style guides are very mature.
Collaboration means to us that we have the integrity to point out where we think you would be better taking a different approach — even if it’s not what you sometimes want to hear.
What does that make us?
An excellent collaborator because we won’t just take the money and run. You guide us on specifics, and in return, we offer guidance in our specialties. The perfect match.
We approach challenges with a "let's get it done" attitude because Octagon Projects are a vital, self-renewing organization with ethical behavior framework.
Our ethical values guide our day-to-day behavior, how we act, the decisions we make, how we work with each other, all our stakeholders, our clients and suppliers. Our values are expressed in terms of Integrity, Respect, Passion, Energy and Excellence but service and quality always come first.
Enthusiasm drives our work coupled to our entrepreneurial spirit to ensure we strive to provide the best quality, value and human experience to and for our collaborators.
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