Big or small companies can they afford it?

[bejamshi]

Do you think a number of employees a company has reflects on their purchasing power? Assuming the more people they have the more money they have to spend on graphic design?

[cnic]

yes and no. ???

In general, if you were contacting apple for the last of their new power mac 4000, and you have a large well established company... they will more than likely do business with you over the small one may team down at Uncle Joes graphics.

Why do you ask?

.

[bejamshi]

I am targeting companies and I have data on how many employees they have, I wanted to know if that is a reflection of how well they are established financially.

[cnic]

I suppose it could be???? Might depend on the business type though rather than just quality or longevity.

.

[rsentgerath]

There is a big difference between purchasing power and willingness/approval to purchase, especially when it relates to marketing/graphic design. For example in the company I work in we have about 1300 employees, made $113 million in profits last year and our GD budget is most likely under $1/2 mill. Other companies might have 100 employees, lose money and have multi-million GD/advertising budgets.

All that is determined by the leadership deciding how much they want to spend on graphic design/advertising and that can fluctute greatly between companies with similar number of employees and is often more driven by the industry of the company.

I would maybe try to find some stats on graphic design budgets per industry and use that first as an indicator which companies to target.

Once you find the high GD/advertising industries, then the employee account normally might be a factor, but it is not a sure bet. Smaller companies (employee wise) might actually spend more money on external graphic design that larger companies, since they might do everything inhouse.

Hope this helps some.

[bejamshi]

Thank you guys, great input.