We Need Better Marketing Materials

First impressions come around only once.

When you meet a potential new customer, what impression does your marketing materials (brochures, business cards, letterhead, flyers etc.) give to a potential customer? Do they scream, small business with limited resources? Are they out of date and suggest that your company doesn’t keep up with a changing world?

All of us watch our spending carefully (or should) and many business leaders make the mistake of cutting costs when it comes to marketing materials. But producing high quality marketing materials doesn’t have to break the bank.

Map out your sales process as well as all points of normal contact your company has with customers. At each point of contact, what information is being shared? How do you share that information now? Is communication of the information easy at this point or difficult? Could you communicate better if you had visual materials to support? If so, spend the time and money to improve each point of communication.

Golden Rule of Marketing & Sales: A person can’t buy from you if they don’t know what you sell.

Don’t assume that your customers or potential customers know about all of your products/services. This is a common mistake. The second mistake is to assume that if you told a customer or prospective customer once about all of your products/services that they will retain that information forever. They won’t. In fact, studies show that as time expires the retention declines. A good rule of thumb is that a person won’t retain non-essential information for more than six weeks. You need to make sure that your customers and prospective customers are repeatedly informed on all of your products/services.

The question is how to do this without offending your customers/prospective customers by “overselling”. The answer is to be subtle. Redesign your marketing communication materials to support cross selling. For example, do you list major classes of products/services on your fax cover pages, at the bottom of e-mail communications, on your letterhead and business cards, or on individual product/service sales or support materials?

How do your marketing and sales materials or customer support materials compare to your competition? Who looks like a more successful business? Are they doing a better job of communicating? Do their materials to a better job of outlining the benefits of their products/services? If you are behind, you need to redesign your materials.

In Step One we asked you to map out every point of contact with customers and prospective customers. In today’s electronic world, many of these impressions are coming in electronic forms such as e-mail, electronic newsletters, web sites, online directories, Internet social networking, and Adobe pdf file transfers. Are you maximizing the positive impressions you make in these formats? Are you cross selling in these formats? If not, consider developing e-mail stationary and eNewsletter templates, enhancing your web site, and other visual improvement to these electronic communication vehicles.

What do we mean by personalized materials? With the advancement of computers, the Internet and digital printing, it is now possible to print one brochure or marketing material at a time. Even better, you can now print the materials with the name of the customer right on the material. No more generic one size fits all materials. Let’s take a look at a real life example that illustrates the point.

A local car dealership wanted to get former customers to buy their next car at their dealership. They had a database of customer names and addresses, the car they bought, when they bought it, and the salesman’s name. They took this information and produced a direct mail postcard campaign utilizing this customization process.

On the front of each individual postcard was the name of the customer (“e.g. Hi Cindy) and two photographs –one of the exact model of car they purchased before (in the color they purchased) and a second showing what the newest model of that car in that color looked like.

On the back of the postcard there was a nice short note from the salesperson that served them suggesting that it has been several years since they purchased their old car and now might be a good time to look at the new models.

The response rate was 23%. Normal response rates for non-customized direct mail ranges between 1-3%. You can do the math on whether the added cost for customization was beneficial.

The impression you make on customers and potential customers has a direct affect on your revenues.

Various Types of Marketing and Sales Materials:

Annual reports Booklets Brochures Tri-fold brochures Case history Catalogs Circulars Data sheets Fliers Invoice stuffers

Newsletters Posters Postcards Letterhead Business cards Fax cover sheets E-mail stationary Electronic newsletters Electronic announcements Presentations (paper and electronic)

1. Provide product/service information to customers
2. Educate new prospective customers on your company and products/services
3. Build corporate image
4. Establish credibility of your company or products/services
5. Sell the product/service directly through the mail or e-mail
6. Help salespeople get appointments
7. Help salespeople make presentations
8. Help close the sale
9. Support dealers, distributors, agents, and sales reps
10. Add value to the product
11. Enhance the effectiveness of direct mail promotions
12. Leave behind with customers as a reminder
13. Respond to inquiries
14. Hand out at trade shows, fairs, conventions and public events
15. Display at point of purchase
16. Serve as reference material for employees, vendors, the press, or investors
17. Disseminate news
18. Announce new products/services or improvements
19. Highlight new applications for existing products/services
20. Train and educate new employees, vendors, agents, distributors, or dealers
21. Recruit new employees, agents, vendors, distributors, or dealers
22. Provide useful information to the public
23. Answer common questions of prospective customers
24. Generate new business leads
25. Qualify your company to be on a prospective customer’s approval vendor list

The following list of resources is by no means all inclusive of what you need but do represent resources that have helped our firm get to the Next Level.

• The 25 Most Common Brochure Mistakes
• 12 Powerful Ideas for Improving Your Sales Brochures

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Take you marketing efforts to the Next Level!
Having the right printed marketing material can make a huge impact on how your company is perceived. The right look and feel of your company's brochure, business cards, letterhead, envelopes, and direct mail pieces communicates the overall quality of your company and helps your collateral stand out amongst your competitions.

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