I’m often asked- are brochures still a thing to do? Or are they passé?
My answer to my marketing clients is this:
Customers are on a journey. Your marketing needs to provide signposts along the way, steering prospects down the path to your products and solutions. Collateral, like brochures, is the beginning step in telling a story about your product or service. In marketing collateral like brochures you don’t just want to tell your feature/benefit story, you want show the value that your product or service will bring to your customers.
Types of Marketing Collateral
Marketing collateral should be your platform to tell your story. This platform can come in many different forms:
- Brochures
- White Papers
- Case Studies
- Sell Sheets
- FAQs (which are very helpful for a disruptive technology)
- Tailored pieces for a specific application- letting customers know you know what their challenges are.
See Your Collateral through Your Customers’ Eyes
We are often so focused on our newest feature or benefit we forget to look at collateral from our customers’ point of view. Try looking at your latest brochure with these questions in mind.
- Have you left enough white space so their eye gets a rest?
- Did you deliver the “What Is In It For Me” in the first paragraph?
- Did you forget to use great graphics that enable them to understand what you’re explaining?
- Are you telling them why they want to look at your product/ service?
- Have you mentioned what your product or service will add to their daily routine or how will it make their job/ task easier?
- Did you tell them what the net return will be for their company?
How to Use Marketing Collateral
The next question I hear a lot is: “How do I use these tools?” Here are some ideas:
- As follow-up to conferences/tradeshows or sales calls – use not just a piece of literature but a white paper and or case study as well.
- Use public relations to let the press and community know that you have a unique application note or white paper.
- Use eMarketing to develop a longer conversation with customers through a lead nurturing program.
- Use your collateral assets in both print and digital advertising
- Use it to update your website.
- Incorporate it into your social media
Collateral should always be used as part of an integrated approach. We often tend to get siloed on a specific task and we forget to integrate into our overall marketing what we develop for that task. Using marketing materials will help your customers understand what your value is. They’ll see it in different formats that fit your brand and remind them why they should consider your product or service. And they’ll be reminded what value you bring to them.
Do you have questions about what marketing collateral you need and how to use it? Visit us here and learn more about how we can help you.
Brandwidth Solutions serves the healthcare, life sciences, technology, and contract pharma industries. We work with companies that want to make the most of their marketing – who want their marketing empowered to help drive leads – and ultimately sales. If you want to move your product or service forward in a smart way, we want to work with you. Call us at 215.997.8575.
