Put Your Best Face Forward

Review your marketing materials.

If everything is stale, you really need to invest the time, energy and money needed to make it new again.  If your competitors are moving ahead can you afford not to?

The decision to update sales materials can be a tough one.  People are busy, budgets are stressed, and the economy is sluggish so you might be tempted to think that old package of sales materials has been “good enough” for a long time and probably will be good enough for another year or two.  “I’ll get to it later,” you might say.  You might even mean it.  But, then, think back to how often you’ve said exactly that in the past. 

Later is always, by definition, later.

Equipment In Action Is Always More Interesting

The problem is, the world you do business in, no matter what business sector you operate in, has seen huge change over the past ten years.  If you’re not keeping up with the times it’s likely your sales won’t either, especially if your competitors are keeping up.

One important note:  If you think your web site or other electronic efforts mean you don’t need to keep up with the times regarding your physical sales materials you should seriously reconsider.  The computer revolution has brought significant change to the art of promotion but, computers have not changed everything.  A well considered package including physical sales tools produced in conjunction with your electronic approaches can blow away a competing sales effort depending only on web sites, Facebook pages and other electronic media; as many still do not use Facebook, blog sites or other opportunities available as the result of the computer revolution.

Does your sales presentation need an update?

Take a look at your sales materials as though you are a potential customer for your own products and ask yourself a few questions:

·        When you give your materials to a customer can that customer, at a glance, “get” your major selling point?  Why should the customer consider your products.  If you haven’t told your best story it is time to revise your products.

·        Do your photos, and other illustrative materials, wherever possible, show action or are they static and uninteresting?

·        Do printed materials comport with the approaches you’ve taken on-line?  Inconsistency means a weakened marketing approach.

·        Have you kept up with the needs of the market and are those needs reflected in your sales presentations?  Even a 50 year old product can be presented as being “state-of-the-art” if it truly is; but you need to tell your customer about it.

·        All things considered, are you proactively telling your customer they have to consider you or risk falling behind in their own business approaches?  If not, you should be.  Leave nothing to the customer’s imagination; it’s up to you, not the customer, to do the work of convincing that customer they haven’t done their due-diligence if they haven’t contacted you before making purchasing decisions.

There is good news for the business looking to upgrade sales presentations.  Trade World Communications has been helping customers with the kinds of things discussed above for more than 30 years.  During that time we have seen:

·        The costs of developing new materials drop by 70 – 80% or more.  Graphics used to consume a huge part of the budget.  Computers have changed all that;

·        The range of options for approaching the marketplace increase by hundreds of percent.  Have you thought, for example, about doing a book featuring your business history and experiences in the trade?  Only ten years ago the costs would have been prohibitive for most;

·        Print costs have dropped exponentially over the costs to be expected even five years ago while print quality has seen enhancements nearly in equal measure.  Today you can print an entire book for two or three dollars a copy and, you can change it at almost any time at almost no cost.

The printed word is still central to a modern marketing effort.  Now is the time to determine whether or not your own materials are up to snuff.

Business Newsletters Are Not Out Of Style

If Your Company Does Not Have A Newsletter You May Be Missing Out

 Here's what the professionals have to say about business newsletters:

Perdue University Cooperative Extension: 

“Newsletters can serve a number of purposes.  They can create or increase awareness, provide basic information, or create a sense of stability and commitment for a project.”

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University:

“Twelve focus groups were held with 94 producers in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia to discuss their preferred learning methods and what that means for Cooperative Extension program development and delivery….Fifty-two percent of the producers preferred newsletters as a learning method.”

Mississippi State University researchers regarding the owners of family forests:

“Top methods for informing landowners were consistent across the four state region and included:  newsletters (49%), pamphlets/brochures (44%), and letters (31%).”

In A World Of Large Corporations Newsletters Allow Smaller Firms To Be Competitive

Newsletters allow you to stay in contact with your best potential customer, the customer who’s appreciated you in the past.  They can also function as a friendly, non-threatening “brochure” when sent to customers or clients you may not have dealt with in the past but, would like to open up a relationship with.

Blogs and other forms of social media are important to the modern approach to advertisings but sometimes, "everything old is new again."