6 Reasons Why Businesses Use Marketing Collateral
By Mike Fredericks
In short, yes. It is essential to growth, companies of all sizes need marketing materials to maintain and bring in new businesses. For professional, local, and retail services – even in this age of digital media – physical marketing collateral is very much still essential to the business and marketing model. It is an unfailing and trust-building piece of content that shows your company on a level more than a website or digital advertisements can actually achieve (although, both are absolutely optimal). You may be having a difficult time convincing would-be buyers of this reality, but it ultimately isn’t a reality that can be changed. We have answers for this common dilemma. Here are the top six reasons why collateral matters to any companies’ bottom lines.
- Consumers see: High End Materials = High Value Products.
If you’re going to sell top-notch products and services – you need to deliver convincing evidence of your value to the potential end-user. In almost any business, the quality of your marketing strategies will determine the value of your services in the eyes of the buyer. In fact, if there’s a large gap between the values of services between competitors – the difference will be made apparent to the consumer in the presentation, even if the product is the same. Ask them to honestly assess whether their marketing materials are up to the challenge, or if they serve as a liability.
- Powerful Sales and Presentation Effectiveness
Sales teams are going to need tools to be effective. Having brochures and flyers will elevate any sales team. Giving a quality brochure to a prospective lead is equally as important as engaging them in one-on-one conversation. The collateral materials become more exponentially effective when in engaged in sales meetings. They also provide a means to create appointments, follow up, and provide extra confidence to your sales team. You can also provide information that will allow your sales team to teach clients in-depth about the service or product.
- Creating strong collateral carries the brand.
Distributing high-quality collateral connects buyers and sellers, clients and professionals, etc. The quality of your collateral can speak worlds about your services and products. Not every client will obsess over the wording and format you’re presenting, but, the top of the chain has seen everything. If you’re created something great to give away – it’s immediately a strong asset to securing long-term business.
Make sure you provide value in your marketing collateral, in this case, useful information or infographics will tend to catch the most attention from consumers. It makes an impact, as many people are visual learners. If your company or your product introduces knowledge to the consumer that they remember, they will also remember your company, and see you as an authoritative source of knowledge in that field. If a customer sees nothing they can gain from reading your pamphlet, they will discard it mentally and physically.
- It Tells a Believable, Visual Story Better Than Most Representatives Can
If your brand is even mildly successful, client reviews and testimonials of your business are some of the strongest tools for your disposal. Businesses often make the mistake of not using their own stories as part of their marketing strategy. A sales representative cannot tell a testimonial but with a piece of marketing material or brochure – he can bring the best testimonials and reviews with him (just be sure to cite them properly if they go searching for them).
A story moves people emotionally, and if you’re in marketing, you will know that people make buying decisions based on emotion as opposed to strict logic. As much as people will try to deny that reality, it still motivates them every day to take the actions they do for their own emotional wellbeing.
- Creating excitement for your staff and team.
If your team is starting to feel stagnant at work – an easy way to revitalize excitement is to re-brand your marketing strategy and provide new marketing materials to work with. Creating a buzz around the new brand can contribute to team building. New marketing materials will give sales reps new angles to work and strategies to apply. An investment in of itself is important for team building and morale – the impact can be readily felt if your marketing strategy is superb.
Using office posters or calendars or branded material around your office instills a sense of purpose and unity in workers, to feel empowered and taken care of by their company. From something as simple as coasters, to something more powerful such as a backdrop behind a front desk, the investment you make on reminding people they’re proud of where they work is a powerful tool that will allow your teams to push for success internally, which is clearly the most powerful form of motivation.
- Marketing collateral is just necessary.
If you’re planning for any sort of growth: you just absolutely need to have a variety of forms with marketing collateral. Whether you’re planning for: a trade show, a B2C or B2B marketing campaign, mailing campaign, or just something to give away to leads – leave a lasting impression and give them print materials (brochures, flyer, or a business card). Traditional print marketing collateral just provides the next level of reassurance to your potential audience.
In short, you invest in your company, with pride, and it will reflect in your employees hearts and your market’s mind. Something simple such as quality marketing collateral with an investment in design strategy will go a long way so long as you don’t try for the cheapest option, which will have the frequent consequence of backfiring and making yourself just look cheap and maybe even worse, gimmicky. Invest in something you yourself want to stand behind!
