Less is more

When you start to create marketing material the temptation to fill the available space is strong.  You often feel that you need to ensure the reader has ALL the information they could possibly need to make a buying decision.

But, when the tables are turned, do you want to read gobs of information in someone’s marketing flyer?

Unfortunately, the answer is ‘probably not’!

What makes marketing flyers connect with potential customers?

A good headline:  One that gets their attention and touches a hot topic for them.  While there is a belief that headlines need to be as long as necessary to make their point, be careful.  The longer the headline, the fewer people will read it.  If you can keep it short and snappy, it will work better.

Benefits:  What’s in it for me?  Pick out the feature on your service or product that really make a difference to your customers and talk about those differences.  One short sentence each – and no more than five points, three would be even better.
Reason to take action:  This can be scarcity (only 10 left), immediacy (offer ends on 30th), exclusivity (availability for just two new clients).

CTA:  The famous call to action, often mentioned and frequently forgotten!  When people have read your marketing flyer what do you want them to do?  Email, visit your website, register for something, pick up the phone?  Make sure you present them with the information they need to take action.

Some people say ‘call us now’ and then provide a web address.  Why should your customer make the effort to visit your website to find your phone number?  Don’t make it hard to take action.

A note about web addresses

If your website address is long and you’re putting on hard copy marketing material you might consider buying a shorter domain name and pointing it at your main site.  People don’t like typing in long URLs and the potential for typing errors increases with every letter!

The best way to present your message

So many people decide to put their flyer on A4 – because they can create it and print it off themselves.  Unfortunately, unless you’re a graphic designer, it’s probably going to be evident that you’re going ‘cheap and cheerful’.  That may not be the underlying message you want people to get.

A5 paper flyers are also popular, often 2-sided.  There are three challenges here.

1. Paper flyers often don’t get turned over, despite the pressure to save the planet, most of us instinctively read the front and forget to look at the other side of printed paper documents.
2. Unless you print on fairly heavy paper, double-sided print can often be seen through the paper.
3. A5 size doesn’t fit into pockets, bags and gets scrunched up in the bottom of briefcases.

Trifolds (often A4 folded into three) work quite well – as long as you know how people read them and ensure your messages are in the right places.  They are not an opportunity to cram loads of material in though!

Personally, I like card rather than paper.  It’s less easy to screw up and throw away.  I find a DL size works well for handouts – and, for some strange reason, people are more inclined to flip a card over and read the reverse.  It also fits easily into pockets and bags.

One of my clients has produced A5 cards along with attractive coloured envelopes and sent them out by post.  They look great, even though the message is brief.

If you’re aiming at the top end of the market a glossy gatefold in a less common size – maybe square and bigger than usual – could work well.

Whatever you choose, good quality stationery always makes an impression.

Remember that a marketing flyer needs to work hard so ensure you match a strong message with great presentation.

LinkedIn – corporate or personal?

LinkedIn is considered to be a business network, rather than a more personal network (like Facebook), so does that mean that your focus should be on your personal profile or your company?

Networking is about people.  You meet, you get to know each other and when you have established a relationship you may work together.

People do business with people they like – and you can’t have a conversation with an organisation – only with an individual.

Yes, of course, there are times when someone is desperate for your kind of expertise, and you just happen to make contact at the perfect point in time.  However, that’s quite unusual.

Let’s be honest, most business owners already have established relationships with providers of the wide range of services and products they require to conduct business.  Large organisations have suppliers in place, although they may have acquired the account through a tender process or ‘beauty parade’.  There are very, very few ‘blank canvasses’.

Businesses do change suppliers – for a whole variety of reasons.  Surprisingly often that’s as a result of a relationship that the purchaser has established with someone.

Create a personal personal profile

No, that’s not an error – your personal profile needs to give anyone reading it a flavour of who you are and what you have to offer.  It’s the equivalent of meeting someone at a networking event and introducing yourself and your business.

When you meet someone at a networking event you use conversational English (or whatever your native language happens to be).  You don’t refer to yourself in the third person and you don’t use formal business-speak – so why would you write your opening ‘nice to meet you’ on LinkedIn that way?

There is a fine line between professional personal and intimate personal.  While Facebook members are more than happy to talk about their families, their hobbies and their friends – LinkedIn is more business-focused.  So adding your hobbies, how many kids you have or indicating whether you are single or not is unnecessary.

If you do volunteer work or are working on a research project or something that isn’t directly to do with your business, but impacts on the community or business world, that’s different.  It adds a layer of information about the kind of person you are.

The Company page

It’s good to have a company page – it allows you to pull the logo into your personal profile when you enter your current position.  It also gives you a place to refer people for further information.

If you have specific products or services, adding Showcase pages for each of these also offers an opportunity to add information.

This not only provides information that you can link to directly on LinkedIn, but also adds information to feed the search engines.  LinkedIn ranks very, very high due to the massive amount of activity on the site.  Your business information on LinkedIn may rank even higher than your company website – for that reason alone.

So the answer to the question Corporate or Personal is personal first, corporate second – but both are important.

Who’s it for?

When you put pen to paper (or more likely, fingers to keyboard) to write the copy for your website what’s going on in your head?

If you’re writing for your own company you’re probably focused on presenting your professionalism, skills and knowledge to impress the reader.  Your website is all about you, after all - or at least about your company – isn’t it?

And that’s where the first problem raises its head.  Your website is to present your services or products to interested people, but it’s not going to work if all you talk about is you and your products.

People are not interested in what you do – they’re interested in what they get.  And there’s a subtle difference in how you get your message across.

It’s not me, it’s you

Actually, that would read more accurately ‘it’s not WE, it’s YOU’.

When people read ‘you’ they immediately relate to it.  This has been written for them.  Their connection to the message is much stronger than reading about what ‘we’ do,

This isn’t conscious, it’s instinctive.

When you read:

“We have high quality products that have undergone rigorous testing’

It’s reassuring, but not very exciting.

When you read:

“You can experience the very best products in the world, confident that you’ve made an excellent choice”

You start seeing yourself doing exactly what is described.  It creates emotions and positive images of yourself in conjunction with the products mentioned.

Which words will generate a stronger pull to make a purchase?

Would you like me to cut your hair?

I can operate a pair of scissors, but I have had absolutely no training as a hairdresser.  So, would you let me loose on your hair with a pair of scissors?

No? I thought not.

What has that got to do with the copy on your website?

Well, you’re literate, you can write – but are you the best qualified to write the copy to influence customers to take action?

It’s a science and an art – and one that requires training.  If you really want your website, your marketing material and other written material to work hard for you – consider undergoing training – or employ an expert to give you top quality results.

Read all about it!

Let’s be honest, nobody signs up to a newsletter these days.  We’re all busy and our inboxes are bulging without adding any additional email.

That doesn’t mean you won’t get any newsletters.  You get on people’s lists because you’ve signed up to get their free information document and now you’re on their list and newsletters turn up, willy nilly.

Firstly, if the newsletter doesn’t deliver useful information, use the unsubscribe link and get off the list.

Secondly, if the newsletter is all about the sender, unsubscribe.

You’ve almost certainly had more boring newsletters than interesting ones.  What does that tell you?

Right!  To engage the people you send your newsletters to you need to give them information they’ll find useful or interesting.

So your content needs to include:

• Sharing your skills to make their lives easier in some way
• Hot off the press information that impacts their business
• Statistics or the results of a survey that give them useful information
• Opinion or commentary around a subject or in response to a recent relevant news story
• Something new, different or unusual that will interest them

And as a secondary item an offer, promotion or other item that is just for newsletter readers, so they feel privileged to get something others don’t.

It doesn’t have to be an uphill struggle, especially if you write regular blogs.   You can use the most useful blog you’ve written recently and use it as your lead item.  Most of your newsletter list won’t have read it on your website yet, and even if they have, they’ll probably just think ‘Oh yes, that was a good article’.

The most important thing is to focus on your audience and deliver what they want – not what you think is important.

• A new mission statement isn’t exciting for readers – unless you can explain how this benefits them.  
• A new member of staff isn’t going to thrill them – unless you can explain how this person will make their life better in some way.
• A new product isn’t going to amaze them – unless it solves a problem they’ve been struggling with for ages.
• A change of address isn’t a big deal – unless you’re inviting them to a launch or they need to visit you to do business (like a retail outlet).

You get the idea?

Think like a reader and your newsletter will improve with every issue.