How you tell your business story can be the difference between turning a lead into a new customer or just a lost opportunity.
Eye catching and compelling business collateral plays an important role in buying decisions. According to Eccolo Media’s “2010 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report,” 83% of B2B technology purchasers say they had used brochures within the previous six months to evaluate a prospective purchase, 76% referred to white papers, followed by 67% who used case studies.
And great collateral isn’t just for big business, heavy investment in marketing collateral is also a key 2011 trend for Small Business as well.
So how do you create business collateral that stands out and gets your audience engaged?
1. Tell A Story. Stories intrigue, keep our interest and help us convey information in an engaging way. Conveying your brand promise or promoting your new product or service as a narrative helps your audience understand the possibility and gives them a call to action to learn more. Chris Brogan, president of Human Business Works, offers some great insight into storytelling for business.
2. Bring Your Story To Life. A story is more than words. You can use pictures, graphs, tables, screen shots, pull quotes from customers etc. − anything that will help visually convey your story, and underscore your viewpoint and competitive advantage. There is a plethora of free tools to make creating charts and diagrams super easy. If you want to push your story to a new visual level consider designing and incorporating infographics. Infographics have been heavily used by B2C and B2B companies in the past few years to help convey complex information and trends. Check out the Cool Infographics Blog, Weloveinfographics or Datavis for some infographic inspiration.
3. Invest in Design. You don’t have to break your business piggy bank to design great looking collateral. There are lots of desktop publishing applications that make brochure, newsletter, program and catalog design easy. Depending on your skill level and budget there is a spectrum of solutions including Microsoft Publisher, QuarkXPress, Apple Pages and Adobe InDesign. Most of these programs also include templates or you can check out some of MagCloud’s free business templates as well.
4. Ask for Help. If you are having trouble getting started there are lots of tutorials and resources to put you on the right path. Microsoft for example offers a suite of tutorials for Publisher, there are forums for Adobe InDesign or head on over to Lynda.com for an array of business and software online courses. Or you can always consider outsourcing your business collateral design to a third-party or agency such as MagCloud partners HP Logoworks or Madison Ave. Collective.
5. Leverage the Web. Printing and updating your business collateral no longer needs to be complex, time-consuming and expensive. Thanks to new print on demand services like MagCloud you can upload a PDF of your collateral and have it printed and delivered to your customers without ever leaving your desk. Need to change a product spec in your brochure or add a new offering to your catalog? No problem, simply upload a new version of your PDF. The web also offers you the flexibility to take the same PDF you use for print and make it available digitally for reading on a PC or mobile device giving your audience choice. Once you have your printed or digital publication ready, it’s easy to build an online marketing plan around it. Make your content readily accessible and easy to share not only via your website but wherever your audience would be most receptive to your message–social networks, forums, blogs etc. You spent all that time and effort creating it so don’t forget to make it easy to find.
We’ve had the pleasure of seeing some great looking brochures, newsletters, event programs and catalogs published on MagCloud, so we thought we would share a few of our favorites to help inspire you.
Share any great resources or tips you’ve found useful in creating your business collateral in the comments section below.
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