Your
company's written words - your website, brochures,
letters, ads, etc. - represent your firm. What
message is presented? What image is projected?
Can your marketing materials stand on their
own? After all, when Joe Customer is surfing
your website or reading your brochure, you're
not there to augment your written words with
a personalized sales pitch!
5 Key
Elements of Effective Marketing Materials
Effective marketing
materials are. . .
1. Focused on the Reader's Needs
- Tell the reader how your product or service
will solve their problems, meet their needs
or improve their life.
2. Benefit-Oriented
- Fill your marketing materials with benefit-oriented
headlines, subheads and text.
3. Easy
to Scan - If your materials look daunting
to read, chances are no one will bother to do
so. Break things up into short paragraphs, use
bullet points and put important points in bold
type.
4. Well-Designed
- Be sure that the colors, fonts, images and
layout of your piece enhance the readability
of your message, are pleasing to the eye and
appropriate for the image you want to portray.
5. Error-Free
- Errors reflect very poorly on your company
and cast doubt upon the quality of your products
or services. Your materials should be well-written
and free of typos, grammatical mistakes and
punctuation errors.
Remember, if your marketing
materials are not effectively selling the reader
on the benefits of your products or services
- and if they're not motivating the reader to
take action - you're missing out on a lot of
potential sales.
