How to Get More Results Out of Your Online Marketing

Advertising and promotion isn’t simply about using one advertising medium. There is no magic promotional vehicle; there is no one-shot-does-it-all advertising medium out there. Because people are busier than ever and their attention span is about 30 seconds, they are generally overwhelmed with advertising so you need to promote as broadly as possible using several different, but targeted forms of advertising.

A lot of businesses are using the Internet to market today. The Internet should be an important part of your marketing, but it should be used it in conjunction with other tactical marketing tools.

Postcards and direct mail are effective marketing tools for small business, but what tools do you have in your marketing arsenal to help you close the prospects when they call or come see you? How can you close people who do not buy right then and there, you know the “be-backs”? Probably one of the most overlooked marketing tools is a brochure. When I say brochure I mean a nice full color brochure that is well designed in which the prospect can touch, read and take with them.

Looking for Brochure Pricing? Click Here.

You need printed full color sales literature for two reasons:

1. Credibility Factor: People expect a “real” company to have printed sales literature. You see potential customers that are extremely cautious about buying an item from an unknown online vendor. They worry about poor quality, getting ripped off down, and even are concerned about identity theft.

It is easy to think about spending $60 of business cards, letterhead, etc., and you can call yourself a corporation. But a reputable business is a business that has a full color brochure of some sort. That is one of the reasons why, in order to succeed, EVERY company whether an online company or a brick and mortar business must have full color brochures and other forms of printed sales literature to hand out to customers and prospects. It is OK to have a PDF of a brochure to send a prospect via email, but most of the time people skim and don’t really read electronic emailed brochures. The first rule of marketing is to get noticed and make and impression. When your prospects are holding in their hands your full color-marketing brochure, I think it is safe to assume you are noticed.

2. Timesaving Factor. People want printed material to take home and read at their leisure. Four color printing these days is very affordable and there is no reason not to have a brochure with full color graphics. Yes, you can direct them to your website, but a brochure adds a personal touch, tells your prospect what the product or service can do for them and why they should buy from you. Brochures can be designed to also support other advertising, direct mail, and online promotions and can be used as a sales tool by you. In short, a good brochure sells.

Here are 12 tips on designing a full color brochure that will support your online marketing efforts, and increase your sales:

• Know Your Market. When you write the copy foryour brochure or leaflet, do so from the reader’s point of view. Begin by analyzing what your reader wants to know; what problem does your product or service solve for your customer; what questions do your prospects ask about you’re your product or service? Now present the answers to this so that it is easy to understand. Your brochure should answer their questions in a logical sequence, following the reader’s train of thought.

• Design so That Your Brochure Looks Nice and Is Easy to Read. Entice your reader to look inside. The first page your reader will see is the front cover. Get it wrong and that sale is long gone.

• Make Your Brochure Easy to Understand. A common mistake is presenting your services using technical jargon. If a prospect does not understand it or your use of jargon confuses him, you have lost a customer and a sale.

 Check Out Our Brochure Samples!

The ten rules of effective postcard design definitely apply here: headline, benefits, eye trail and call-to-action should be used to motivate the reader to pick up the brochure and open it. The reader should be able to tell in an instant that there is something inside your business’s brochure that will interest them. Don’t be tempted to simply put only your company logo or product name on the front. It won’t work.

• Contents Page – What’s in It and Why Do They Want It? Brochures of twelve pages or more, a list of contents is useful. Make yourcontents list in bold and separate it from the rest of your text. Use the contents to sell the brochure. Don’t bore your reader to death by using mind-numbing words like “Introduction” or “Model No A848DHGT”. Pick out your most important sales point and use that as a headline on your contents list.
• Describe Your Product. To help you describe your product, draw up a list of product features and next to the features begin to list the benefit of that feature. A benefit always answers the question – “so what?” or “what’s in it for me?”
• Mix in Appropriate Photos with the Text: Photos break up the text. Use photos and other graphics to help sell the content. Photos make the brochure easier to read.
• Make your Brochure a Keeper. Putting useful information in your brochure to encourage your reader to keep it, refer to it often, or pass it on to other people. For example, if you’re selling paint you can provide hints on color schemes, painting how-to information, tips from the pros etc.
• Alter the Shape. Who says a brochure has to be an 8.5 x 11, trifold? Are you selling sandwiches? You can design a brochure in the shape of a sandwich. Season tickets to soccer matches? Design it in the shape of a soccer ball. By using your imagination when designing your brochure you can produce better than average results.
• Make Your Full Color Brochure Personal. An experienced speaker talking to a large audience will pick out a face in the crowd, and talk to that face. This connection with one person allows the speaker to make his talk more personal than if he were merely addressing a mass of faces. In a similar fashion, the words in your brochure should use this technique and zero in on one imaginary single person. Why? Your brochure will be read by one person, even if you print 10,000 brochures, each brochure will be read by one person. Writing your copy for the brochure in a direct “I’m-talking-only-to-you” style will increase your results.
• Have Fun with Your Business’s Brochure. Tell me exactly where it says a brochure has to be boring? Boring brochures do not get read. Let your reader share your feelings. There’s no reason why a brochure about a wood burning stove has to go into the ins and outs of how the stove works. Tell your reader about rain swept winter evenings and snow-bound afternoons. Let your words show them how warm and snug they’ll be when they purchase one of your stoves. This also goes to selling the benefits of the product.
• Get Selling…Fast. Remember, not everyone wants to be educated on every aspect of your product or service. Nor does everyone want to know the manufacturing details of your product; in fact most people don’t care what goes into manufacturing a product.

All people want to know is what will it do for them, will you back it up after they buy it and how can they buy it? Don’t waste their time telling them about things that do not convey benefits to them of owning it.

• Talk About your Reader’s Needs. Don’t get carried away with your own interests. Talk about your reader, not yourself.

Here are the first words in a brochure from an auto repair company: Jim Jones Automotive has been around for 75 years. Our technicians work hard to fix your car using state-of-the-art analysis and quality auto parts. Jim Jones Automotive’s reputation is unsurpassed in the industry…” BORING! The reader is yawning and directing the brochure to the trash.

Better, “Jim Jones will give you an estimate before doing the work so you will know exactly what needs repaired. Jim Jones shuttle service will drop you off and pick you up so you have the least disruption to your day.”

• Don’t Forget the Call-to-Action. Regardless of how you organize your brochure, there is only one way to end it—ask for the order. If you want your reader to respond include an 800 number, reply card, or some form of response mechanism. In fact, to increase your brochure’s selling power you should include a call to action and a response mechanism on every page.

Designing full color brochure for small businesses is one of our specialties. Wilson Printing USA will make getting a brochure for your business easy. We save you time and money, while creating a brochure that generates customers and sales for your business.

©2005-2014 Mark Hale, All Rights Reserved