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Every marketer or digital team needs a swipe file. This is how you find inspiration faster and model things that worked — then put your own creative spin on it. But most swipe files are static folders stored locally, making it hard to share and collaborate on.
A swipe file is a collection of marketing ideas, copywriting examples, landing pages, sales pages, designs or screenshots that you’ve come across over the years. Typically this repository would be kept in a hard drive folder, random emails to yourself, or maybe a series of messages in a Slack channel. These references are often hard to dig up and refer back to, or may get lost in a meeting.
Now, you can create a much more shareable and commentable swipe file in Punchlist with just a few clicks. You and your teammates can point to different parts of the creative that you like, and have a conversation. This conversation gets stored in an evergreen place, rather than getting lost.
In this walkthrough, I’m going to show you how Punchlisters are using the app to create their own interactive swipe files, and how we’ve started using it ourselves in-house to gather & discuss ideas that the team loves.
1. Login to your Punchlist Dashboard.
2. Click the button New Project.
3. Name your Project (you can always rename and reorganize later).
4. Load your files or website URLs. Depending on whether your swipes are website pages or images / screenshots, toggle that screen to gather your assets.
5. Click the Create Project button.
6. Once the project loads, on the next screen click Continue to Project. This is also where you can invite collaborators and set your project permissions (who can view & comment), if you’d like to do that now. Otherwise go ahead and navigate to the project.
7. On the top right of your project navigation, click the Pages button. This popup will allow you to:
8. You’ll see a button that says + Add Page. Use this to put additional URLs, images or screenshots in your swipe file. Then organize them as you see fit.
Voila! Now you’ve got an interactive swipe file that can be shared with your team, commented on, and built upon with new pages and references. Share the project with your collaborators so they can comment directly on what they like and don’t like.
Bonus Tip: You can even take it a step further and organize your swipes into Folders within your Punchlist Dashboard. Maybe you’ve got one for live landing pages, and another for screenshots of app features & UX design components. It’s up to you!
Now we’re not saying to copy the work of others. But staring at the daunting blank page just isn’t as effective as having a jumping-off point full of inspiration.
Maintaining a healthy swipe file is a marketer’s secret weapon. It lets you move faster in generating ideas, and model successful work (with your own creative twist) to iterate and get results sooner.
Plus, with the convenience and shareability of Punchlist’s web app, you can swipe things quickly as you browse the internet, and gather ideas from your coworkers as well — without the switching costs of going to your desktop and sending a bunch of heavy files.
The best part? It becomes a conversation piece. And this collaboration leads to better work.
Give it a try and let us know on Twitter @Punchlist what kind of swipe file you’ve built.
Go forth and create!
