Want more customers?

by Tom McKay

Improve your company’s marketing materials. They’re your #1 sales tool.

From business cards to brochures, sales letters to newsletters, your marketing materials represent your business to prospects, customers and the general public — long before they ever meet you.

To attract and retain clients and customers, your marketing materials must demonstrate your professionalism and reflect your personality (or "brand"), while carefully articulating your benefits- laden selling message. 

Tricky, yes. Impossible? Not at all -- and fixing them is very, very worthwhile. After all, more customers (or clients) = higher revenues = bigger profits.

The big question you have to answer is:

Your marketing materials (we call them "collateral") contain the essence of your marketing message. They answer the burning question, Why should the prospect do business with you? How you answer that question will determine whether your materials hit a home run, or strike out with a loud (and expensive) thud.

Professional marketers have developed many powerful techniques for organizing, wording and presenting your message to make it most effective. Appealing to your prospect's emotions, for example, will pique their interest and actively engage them in learning more about your services and products. An emotional appeal is just as essential as the logical arguments that will (later) justify their purchase.

In addition, the look and feel of your sales materials (both printed and online) send powerful subliminal messages about your company, about the quality of your goods and services, about your professionalism.

Step back and take an honest, objective look at your current web site, brochures, sales letters, ads, newsletter and the rest of your marketing materials. Pretend they belong to some company you never heard of. What kind of first impression do they make? 

Critique them as if you'd never seen them before. Be ruthless. Ask yourself, How am I  presenting myself and my company to potential clients and customers? If I didn't know anything about this company, what opinions would I form by looking at each piece?

Then review the "copy," i.e., the text. Is the message clear? Compelling? Persuasive? Or does it leave the prospect thinking, "So what?"  

Here are a few more specific questions to ask yourself:

• Does each piece focus on your client, and what you can do for them? Or is it all about you and your company? To paraphrase the old saying, Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you're going to do for them.

• Do they clearly show how your company is different than others offering similar products or services?

• Do they showcase the value you add? Or is that message lost amid all the razzle-dazzle?

• Are your brochures, sales materials and Web site attractive and professional, like your company?

• Do they inspire confidence? Do they make you look like you're already successful?

• Do they present a consistent look and feel?

• Do they work together?

• Does each do its job in moving your prospects to the next step in your sales cycle?