Because your competitors are generating marketing assets to promote their brands, you need to constantly examine how to create more impact AND drive more sales with your materials. Below are six key tips to keep in mind throughout the marketing collateral creation process.
TIP #1: Show Your Point of Differentiation
Chances are whatever you’re marketing, there’s someone out there who’s marketing the same thing (or, at the very least, something similar). Your marketing collateral needs to highlight what makes you different and unique. That includes explaining why your customers should do business with you instead of the competition.
Your marketing collateral should embody what sets you apart from the competition. Do you have a different, cutting-edge style? Make sure you embrace that style in your marketing collateral design. Do you have a patented technology your competitors have yet to leverage? Make sure you showcase that technology front and center. Whatever it is that sets you apart, make sure it comes across in your marketing material.
TIP #2: Make Sure You Stay On-Brand
Marketing collateral offers an opportunity to strengthen your brand recognition with your customers. Therefore, making sure all your marketing collateral is on-brand is an absolute must.
When you’re creating your marketing collateral, make sure that each element is aligned with your overall branding. Use your brand color palette, fonts, and voice. Include your logo and other key branding assets. When a customer looks at your marketing collateral, they should be able to immediately recognize it’s from your brand, even before they dig into the content.
TIP #3: See What Your Competitors Are Doing
You never want to steal an idea from a competitor, but you can certainly look to your competitors for inspiration and to discover what they are doing differently from you. What types of marketing collateral (both physical and digital) are they creating? How are they presenting their products or services? By taking a deeper dive into examining
what your competition is doing, you’ll be able to better develop those points of differentiation that will allow your brand to stand apart from the rest.
Remember, some of your prospects may be comparing you to your competitors, so you want to make sure that your marketing materials are distinctive and tell a better story.
TIP #4: Use the Right Marketing Materials for the Right Customer
Not all marketing materials are created equal. And the marketing collateral that closes the deal with one customer might fall completely flat with another. That’s why it’s so important to use the right type of collateral for each customer segment.
For example, if you’re a B2B company targeting clients in the manufacturing space, technical product sheets or white papers can be effective marketing collateral. But if you’re a social media start-up targeting Gen Z consumers, online content marketing or videos would probably be more effective. The point is, it’s important to know your business, know your industry and know your target audience(s) and then create the appropriate types of marketing collateral.
TIP #5: Get to the Point
Sure, you believe in what you’re selling, and so you might be tempted to include anything and everything to get your customers to believe it, too. But you must fight that temptation! You don’t want your marketing collateral to read like a novel and you surely don’t want to overwhelm prospects with every kind of marketing material under the sun.
If you want your marketing collateral to be successful and drive sales, take a “less is more” approach and get to the point as quickly and efficiently as possible.
TIP #6: Be Sure to Follow Up
Properly designed marketing collateral helps educate your customers and get them excited about your products or services. And, in some cases, that might be just enough to get them to engage with your business. But often, many customers won’t be ready to decide after being exposed to just a single marketing material, and that’s why following up is so important.
Make sure you’re continually marketing to your customers. That way, you have multiple opportunities to connect with them and therefore multiple chances to close the sale.
What’s Next?
Whether it’s a print brochure, a series of emails/landing pages or sales presentations for each target audience, marketing collateral that focuses on delivering your unique sales message is a must if you want to take your business to the next level.
Looking for a way to start?
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