Marketing materials can have a big effect on your business. They can include any print materials such as brochures, postcards, stickers, and leaflets. They’re a great way to get your brand out into the world, whether you are getting your brand out there for the first time, launching a new product, or just wanting to boost sales.
Below we’ve created the ultimate guide to creating a cohesive set of marketing materials to wow your customers and give you a professional finish:
1. Stick to a Mission Statement
Keep your materials directed, consistent and simple. You want your audience to understand who you are by having a clear message. Basically, what are you trying to achieve with your marketing push?
There may be many reasons for your promotions. Your goal may be to build brand awareness, advertise an event, or just drive more sales.
Make sure that your content and design align with the message you are putting out to your customers. Everything should relate to this central theme.
2. Refer to Past Materials
If this is your first-time creating marketing materials, you can skip this step.
However, if you or your company have created marketing products before, build from them and make improvements! Spend some time looking over your old marketing materials and decide what worked well, what didn’t, what you liked, what could have been improved.
Look at imagery, layout, wording, and the physical materials you selected. Then consider your brand identity, and whether your objectives have changed.
3. Put Yourself in your Customers shoes
You know how amazing your business is cause you put in all the hard yards to make it that way. But prospective customers don’t know what makes your products different from your competitors. These days audiences are bombarded with information and it is hard to retain their attention for very long.
To keep them interested, you need to put yourself in their shoes. What is the single best thing that would draw you to your product? What would make you convert from something else? Who would best benefit from knowing about you and your products/services?
There is lots of data you can use from social media and digital marketing to help you figure out who your audience is. You could even check out CRM data and social media tools to identify what your customers find important.
4. Use Testimonials
Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool! In a recent survey, an incredible 93% of people will look at reviews or testimonials of a local business to determine whether they will use them. People will trust other customers who have an unbiased experience of your company.
When these experiences are positive, testimonials can do amazing things for your business! This is why they are perfect to include in your marketing materials!
Encourage your customers to review you online or via email/social media. This will boost your online presence and you can reuse them in your physical print marketing. Don’t forget to include the person’s name and a source of the testimonial so people know it is authentic.
5. Be Consistent
No matter what it is you are printing, your customer should be able to easily identify your brand. Whether posters, business cards, stickers, or brochures, having solid branding emphasizes your identity, values, and products. It also makes you memorable to old, new, and prospective customers.
Before you start designing, we recommend creating a brand guideline document. This should include:
- Colour pallet
- Font family
- Heading
- Slogan
- Logo and iconography
- Illustration
- Design style
- Paper stock and stationary
Once you have your brand guidelines make sure you stick to them throughout your products. However, if you don’t have any of this or a graphic designer handy, don’t panic. Check out Canva, it’s a great tool for beginners to establish your brand.
6. Include a Call To Action (CTA)
You’ve given them your unique selling points. Now what?
A call to action should prompt the customer to take the next step. Some easy call to action examples are:
- Call us now on 12 3456 789
- Find us on Instagram
- Visit us at yourcompany.com
Keep your call to action concise. By all means, add all your contact information on your materials, but only designate one to the call to action and make it the most obvious in terms of design.
7. Don’t over-crowd your prints
Less is more.
If you cram every piece of information into a small brochure, the reader will see there is too much text and odds are it won’t be read. Instead, base your content around your mission statement and keep it concise.
Bullet points are a great way to format your main points. Try not to add too many images either as your information can get lost among them. 2 – 3 should be good depending on what materials you will be printing.
8. Add a Sense of Urgency
Adding a timeframe to your deals and promotions is a great incentive to make your customers take action.
Statements like “Limited offer” with the deal’s information following are a good example of how to create urgency.
If you provide a code or anything else that you can track, you can also take advantage of seeing how many people bought a product thanks to your marketing materials’ success. This helps gauge the return on investment and allows you to set any future budgets.
9. Use Premium Materials
There is more to your marketing materials than just design and text. Good quality paper and card are essential to communicate quality and professionalism to your audience.
High-quality materials affect not just weight and texture, but also intense colour, and crisp imagery.
Marketing materials that exude quality are pleasurable to look at and touch and promote positive associations with your brand. However, flimsy paper and cheap printing will reflect low quality and customers will expect the same from your products.
10. Try our Templates.
Your small business might not have the resources available to design marketing materials from scratch. Luckily, at Waikato Printing Company, we have templates available for quality and professional marketing material designs. Whether business cards, flyers, posters, brochures, stickers, or postcards, save on time and expense by using our customisable templates.
Using templates from the same provider can help create consistency across your marketing materials. Our templates are customisable, easy to use, and will create high-quality products. Our team of in-house designers can also help create your own bespoke designs that will be optimised for print.
If you get stuck at any point you can always call our friendly team at 0800 437 016 or email us at [email protected].
