|
|
| Marketing |Information | Articles | Resources | Strategy | Research | Tip and Tool |
|
Take the Test: Do Your Marketing Materials Really Grab Attention?
Today's constant bombardment of marketing messages means your materials must grab your prospects attention in the first few seconds, or your efforts are wasted. How do you know if your marketing materials will prompt prospects to keep reading? Take this simple test: hold each of your marketing pieces at arm's length and answer the following questions: 1. Got white space? If your materials look crowded, add white space by increasing the sides, top or bottom margins. Try adding extra blank spaces between each section so the information is more readable. You should also add headlines to break up the text. Consider editing your copy and eliminating wasteful graphics to gain even more space. Too much white space pushes prospects away just as much as when there is too little. To make sure prospects give your piece more than a glance, add meaningful content or graphics to keep prospects reading. 2. Do the graphics really pertain to what you're selling? Include graphics with meaning and get rid of the rest. Effective graphics should either further the prospect's understanding of your products and services or provide additional information necessary to the buying decision. They should not push the prospect away from the selling process by acting as fillers without meaning. Consider adding illustrations, diagrams, or happy customer photos to keep things meaningful. 3. Are the headlines readable? Reading sales literature is just like reading the newspaper ? most readers scan the headlines to determine if they'll continue reading the rest of the article. If you cannot clearly see your piece's headlines at arm's length, you need to make the font bigger. Typically, marketing materials use at least a 14 point bold Arial or Helvetica font for headlines and an 11 or 12 point Times or Times New Roman font for the content that follows. 4. Where's your contact info? If you can't find your contact info within 1-2 seconds, prospects won't find it either. Whether you want prospects to call, email, or write you, provide your contact information on every single side of your marketing materials, and make sure it stands out from the rest of the content. Incorporate these ideas into your materials, add meaningful, benefit, sales-oriented copy, and prospects will use your materials for their true purpose ? to express interest in what you're selling. Nancy J. Wagner of Cut to the Chase Marketing is a speaker, writer, and marketing strategist who helps small businesses increase their sales with effective marketing materials and websites. Download her free 9-step marketing plan at http://www.CutToTheChaseMarketing.com
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Practice Marketing: How to Answer What Do You Do? to Increase Prospects, Publicity and Profits "What do you do?" Are You Sabotaging Your Marketing Success? What?!? Sabotage your own success? Who would do that? Well, you'd be surprised how many small business owners think they are effectively marketing their business, when in fact they are cutting their own throat. Using Business and Greeting Cards Effectively Business cards and greeting cards almost go hand in hand when being used for marketing and business purposes. With a few exceptions. One is bigger than the other, and needs a postage stamp in order to get to it's desired location, as opposed to the business card which is handed directly to a person or dropped into a fish bowl in the hopes of winning an office party. Your Company Need More Marketing? Or Just Better Marketing? Many sales problems can be solved by improved marketing. Selling harder is often not the solution. More . . . or just better . . . marketing may be what's needed. Marketing presents a special problem for any company that has not yet developed a professionally staffed marketing department. This article looks at the various marketing functions. It describes some successful approaches to determining when to add "more" marketing to your company. Digital Printing vs. Press Printing ? A Comparison Guide When it comes time to print your brand identity materials, there's one overarching question for you to consider - whether to print the resulting materials on a digital printer or traditional press. There are many differences between the two processes, some of which are outlined below. To Swag or Not to Swag: Tip to Brand Your Tchotchkes on a Shoestring It's interesting to see how resourceful people become when starting their own business. Especially when budget is tight, creative juices go into high gear. I recall my days in corporate marketing when every event, whether it be a sales conference, partner summit or tradeshow had to have tchotchkes. ("Tchotchke" is Yiddish for those corporate giveaways you see at tradeshows, usually small trinkets branded with the company's logo. If the tchotchkes are really cool, some people even call them "swag" or "schwag.") 7 Great Ways to Market Yourself and Your Business to Help Increase Sales Do you own a business and need ideas on how to market your products or services to your customers? Well, the one thing that every business owner needs to know is that in order to survive, you need customers willing to spend their hard earned money for your products or services. The only way to drive customers to your business is to market yourself and your business in a way that customers believe in you and willing to spend money. There are defiantly many ideas about marketing, but I have listed 7 great ways to help you get started. These are all intended to help drive up sales and therefore help make your business successful. The Use of Bar Code SMS in Mobile Marketing, Advertising, CRM Anybody that frequents shopping malls are familiar with the bar coding systems used by retailers to ease the line at the pay points. No more long lines at the till as the operator just pulls the product past the scanner and voila ? the buyer pays and are on their way. How To Let Your Customers Search For YOU! ? Part 2 First I want to welcome you to part two of the article 'How To Let Customers Search for YOU!', where you can learn how to attract new clients at any time you want. The techniques I describe here have proofed to work for me and a lot of other people. Direct Mail Postcard Rules It's a fact that your customers are your best leads. This means that the most likely people to purchase your products and/or services are the ones who have paid for them before. It's also a fact that it costs far less money to keep a customer than it does to go out and get a new one. Positioning For Success According to military historian David Chandler the campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte consistently rose above the expected. For more than 20 years Napoleon showed genius and skill as a general on the field of battle. The First Rule of CRM for Financial Services Things have to change. Cross selling is not going to happen simply by installing new CRM technology. A corresponding movement from a transaction mentality to the underlying CRM principle of focusing on the long-term relationship is required. What does this mean for financial services? Stop pushing products and start building relationships. Mark Twain?s Great Marketing Idea To tell you the truth (and about 53% of this article is true), I don't know where I heard this story about Mark Twain. But I've heard it enough times to verify that it's either (a) at least half true, or (b) a credible lie. Tradeshow Booth Cures - Knick-Knack Knockouts Okay, we were kidding about the smoke, but not about the mirrors. Mirrors are exceptionally useful Feng Shui devices, especially in regards to manipulating the flow of energy. In addition to their reflective qualities which help brighten up your booth, they are capable of deflecting negative energy. Strategically positioned mirrors can also be used to reflect your product, and this is an effective way of "increasing" your display space. If you do opt to use mirrors, try to find ones that are slightly convex. This will distort the reflected image a bit, but it will disperse any negative energy in it's path. Writing Sales Letters That Sell The most important part of any marketing you do is direct marketing. This includes letters, postcards, brochures, newspaper or magazine coupons, telemarketing, TV or radio direct response commercials, e-mails, and the copy on your web site. Fundraising: How To Avoid Three Common Mistakes I'm a board member of a local nonprofit and we are about to launch our annual campaign. Like other nonprofits in our community, we are facing a very competitive funding environment. There are more agencies seeking more money from more sophisticated donors. Ready, Fire, Aim! You probably read my headline and thought, wait a minute, isn't that backwards? Isn't it supposed to be "Ready, Aim, Fire?" Features and Benefits Brainstorming This is it what I use BEFORE I begin to write any marketing copy or launch any new product or service. You can complete this with the by-hand method listed here or use the form that I've created (available in the FORMS section of our web site, http://www.abundancecenter.com/forms/main.htm). Off the Shelf Small Business Mapping Software All small businesses can benefit from inexpensive off the shelf CD Rom mapping software. If you own a business you need to where your customers are coming from, where you would like to expand your sphere of influence to, where your competitors are located and how to route your delivery vehicles. We recommend the following companies and CD ROM mapping software: Trade Show Videos Need to be Planned A few months ago, we attended the recent Austech 2005 Expo. It was a large trade show that showcased over 500 manufacturers selling machines, equipment and systems.
|
|
|
| Home | Site Map | Salesmanship Ebook | Motivational Ebook | Job and Resume Posting| Affiliate program | |
|
| 2006 All Rights Reserved. by Mp.sg Term of use and service for the articles and information |
