Marketing collateral is anything you can use to communicate your brand’s message to customers and potential customers. Marketing collateral is the media that’s used to promote a company’s services or products, from flyers and posters to email newsletters.
Every piece of marketing collateral needs to be effective. Marketing teams will include working with creative print services as part of their marketing strategy to get their company’s message to potential clients, investors, and more.
Having marketing collateral does not automatically mean that your message will be received. Your message needs to be carefully crafted and executed in order to be received by your intended audience.
Here are 7 tips to help make your marketing collateral more effective.
Be honest and obvious.
We live in a busy world. That means, more often than not, customers have but a moment to decide whether or not they are interested in what you are selling. It’s important to make sure every piece of your marketing material clearly states who you are and what your business is offering.
Include all the ways customers can reach you.
Surely, you want customers to be able to contact you. When you update your business cards, your email newsletters, or brochures for your business, list all the ways a potential customer can reach out to you. This includes your social media, your email, phone number, and, if you have a physical location, your address.
Be creative and unique.
If you want to set yourself apart from your competitors, you need to stand out. Work with creative print services to come up with custom designs that are on brand, unique, and will help get your message across.
Avoid using big words and industry jargon that could confuse your customers.
We know you’re intelligent. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this blog. But to cut down on confusion, you want to use clear and simple terminology when crafting your brand messaging. Industry jargon or technical terms means you may have to explain what something is or does. And, as mentioned earlier, some customers are too busy for that. Keep it simple.
Craft your marketing materials with your audience in mind.
The golden rule of marketing is to know your audience. Not every piece of marketing material will appeal to everyone. You need to know who each piece of marketing material is supposed to speak to. Work with brochure print services on colors, styles, and design elements that your certain audience members would like. And if you’re working with a local creative print service, include cultural references where applicable—certain streets or local foods.
Keep your designs simple.
You want your marketing materials to stand out. But you don’t want to overdo it with difficult to read fonts, colors, and styles. Your creative print service should be able to guide you on images and simple design styles that inspire, not overpower.
Make sure to use a call to action.
What do you want your customers to do? Give them specific steps to guide them by giving them a clear call to action at the end of all your marketing pieces.