Marketing Brochures and Collateral
Does your company have a brochure? Do you have lots of brochures? Who created them? How are they utilized? Why do you need them? These are the questions you should be asking about your company brochures. A good brochure should help to sell your product of service, but it should also build desire. Nobody buys from a brochure. If they did, brochures would include order forms, but then they would be catalogs, not brochures.
Brochures have three main purposes. First, they lend credibility to your organization. It provides evidence that your company really is in the business of whatever the brochure's content is related to. Second, a brochure can provide details, technical data, color choices, and photography that can tell a story, showcase a product or a facility and build desire. The third thing a brochure does well is gives a sales person a visual aid when selling. It can be done in person or over the phone when both you and the person on the other end of the line both have a copy of the brochure in front of you.
A brochure as a sales tool
Your brochure can be a great sales tool when it is developed with your sales process in mind. Too many marketing department develop brochures without ever consulting the sales team. A brochure should be tactical and walk the reader through the same story that a live sales person would. An advantage to the brochure is that is includes visual aids such as illustrations, charts and photographs. Some items require a brochure to be sold. A lot of machinery and heavy equipment requires a brochure to show the details. In many cases the brochure pictures are the only way for a prospect to see a visual of what they are buying.
Follow the sales talk
Next time you are going to develop a brochure, go through the motions of the sales pitch for the product or service that the brochure will be featuring and make sure to follow the same points and progression of that sales process in the brochure. It will be a more effective brochure and it will improve sales as a result.
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