#18: Promoting Your Message Using Collateral
Advertising and marketing “collateral” are the printed brochures, sales sheets, flyers and business cards, etc., that are used by sales and production employees to inform and “convince” prospects to use your services, to become customers and eventually clients. If you are part of a franchise system, you have a supply of collateral materials to select from. However, there are certainly times when you could use a customized brochure or sales sheet that is unique to your business and the prospect target you are wooing. Non-franchise companies don’t have these constraints, you're free to design and print your own materials. With “Word” on most computers and quality color print shops downtown, it is not a daunting task to create any quantity of marketing materials you might need. Sometimes, ten copies of a sales sheet designed to target a local manufacturer, or maybe five hundred copies of a flyer to distribute during a local disaster event?
A theme phrase I share often in marketing and sales conversations is, "clients for life". I do that because "clients" are a unique entity, certainly different than customers. A client is someone who pays for and uses professional service providers such as an attorney, architect and others. They are not just casual shoppers like customers at a grocery store buying cucumbers. As a mitigation and restoration contractor, with licensing, advanced certifications and a demanding skillset, you protect personal health and minimize property damage. You are a professional. Once people use you, they will use you again. They will become your "clients for life." This is a subtle part of the messaging that needs to be conveyed by your branding and in all of your promotional campaigns, especially on any of the print pieces (collateral) you might design and produce for your own use. Show them how you are a professional.
Take a moment to reflect about todays’ advertising. Most media advertising (TV, outdoor advertising, etc.) are presented using bold, fast paced messaging, with headlines of eight words or less. Grab them, sell them and let them move on to something else. That’s not just a Computer Era thing. Not just a Millennium thing. It has been this way since the mass introduction of television in the 1950’s. There is no shortage of companies that emulate this media style when they produce print collateral featuring: Huge, bold type headlines and concise word messaging and putting an emphasis on their logos. That’s nice and that concept works. However, if you "hook people" with a provocative question, present an idea and get them thinking, you will be surprised about how much copy they will read and how much information they will absorb and how much they will trust you. You become the expert they trust.
I believe that some of the collateral materials should be designed and targeted to specific industries; and print pieces should be produced to support sales people as they say their scripted messaging during sales presentations. Why not equip your sales people with brochures and sales sheets that they can use like a chalkboard or a PowerPoint presentation? In others words, a printed piece they can put on the desktop, point to and talk about its' message. A brochure can become a tool to help a salesperson stay on topic and to steer a prospects’ thinking along a certain path. Then, the collateral piece is left behind for the prospect to read and hopefully hire your company. Most companies make customized price lists and presentation materials for closing a sale, why not make customized door opener collateral?
Clayton A. Barry - Barry Associates Coaching
