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Create a Sizzling Brochure

June 3, 2014 By 360GS Leave a Comment

Brochures are one of the most diverse marketing mediumsCustomized brochures are one of the best ways to bolster business, large or small. Brochures are one of the most diverse marketing mediums available since they are suited to a wide variety of situations. They serve as an interactive guide when explaining products and services, and point out key features and benefits to the customer. Since brochures are relatively inexpensive, they represent the perfect pitch when operating on a smaller budget.

3 quick and practical tips that can boost your brochure and help you promote your business more effectively:

1. Avoid stock photos  –Make your brochure personal! Stock images are recognizable with today tech savvy consumers. Use images unique to your company, that will illustrate your companies services or products. Even though we live in the era of Internet marketing and long-distance business relationships, we all value a touch of personal contact. So take a deep breath, leave that stock photo behind and go for a professional picture of yourself instead. Note: Avoid filling your brochure with staff photos. Unfortunately, valued staff members may change over time and will out-date and limited the life span of your brochure.

2. Shrink the copy –Your business brochure should provide your prospective customer or client with a quick overview of who you are and what your company can do for them – “quick” is a keyword here. You do not need to provide a complete list of your qualifications and expertise. The potential customer will not have the time to read through a whole narrative of your company – so keep it short and focused. Include key benefits and information about your company, but leave some information out to discuss when you actually meet them face-to-face.

3. Include a call-to-action – Calls-to-action are a tactful and effective way to wrap it all up, and prompt the targeted audience into the desired “action”. This will maximize the impact and effectiveness of your business brochure.

Need to create a customized brochure, or refresh and update your current advertising and marketing materials? Contact 360GS today.

 

Filed Under: Graphic News and Information, Marketing Trends, New Business Startups Tagged With: brochures, Marketing, Marketing for small businesses, Marketing Materials for small business startups, Marketing Strategies, Summer Marketing Tips

Marketing Materials Checklist for Small Business Startups

February 12, 2013 By 360GS Leave a Comment

imgCkMarkHow do you initially advertise and market your new business? With so many things that need to be accounted for when starting from scratch, it is essential that you have professional and consistent marketing materials, from a new logo or a website, to install brand awareness and reach out to your target audience. 

Logo Design and Branding

You’ll want to create a polished and unique visual image from the very beginning, to establish your new company in the marketing arena. It’s important for a business to communicate its unique message clearly. The easiest way to recognize a company and distinguish it from others is by its logo and consistent branding efforts. 

Business cards

Besides your logo, many marketing gurus say that a great business card can be your most effective marketing tool. The business card is usually the first marketing piece that a potential customer will see and often it represents your company in your absence. It needs to hold more than just contact information. Good graphics are important, but not as crucial as have a tagline – actually describing what your company does in a line or two. Maybe put the contact information on the front and list your products or services on the back.

Your business card “must be different, memorable, and prospects must want to keep it,” says Joachim de Posada, an internationally known expert on small business.

Website

You should get this up and running before you open for business. The website should be well designed and informative. It is said that 41-55% of new businesses do not have websites. Having a website makes it very easy for people to find you, read up about your company, what you do and answer any questions they have on your company. Having a website offers professionalism and legitimacy to your business. In today’s world, all businesses must have an online presences to be successful.

“Using the website as a primary ‘marketing material’ for a startup is good because you can’t tell the size of a company by their website,” notes Becky Boyd, a vice president of MediaFirst, a Roswell, Ga.-based marketing agency. 

 Brochure

A professional brochure is a powerful advertising tool, that will help persuade prospects to do business with you. A brochure does more than just explain and inform, it translates your facts and features into customer benefits and helps sell your product or services. It adds credibility to your business, reinforcing your advertising and marketing efforts. A brochure is the collection of your company’s basic information into a single source that prospects can take with them and read at their leisure.

Company Clothing

Be your own billboard! Wearing clothing with your company brand will reinforce your adverting efforts and build recognition. “People will ask you what you do,” says Ruth King, small business expert and author of the book, The Ugly Truth about Small Business. “Then you can recite your pitch and ask for the order.”

 E-mail Signature

Don’t let any e-mail escape your computer without tagging it as a marketing message. Come up with a catchy e-mail signature and include your name, business name, contact information, pithy tag line, a web address and even a one- or two-line announcement at the bottom of the signature about a new book, product, seminar or service offering you’ve announced.

 Elevator Pitch

Develop an “Elevator Pitch” – a strong, 30-second spoken spiel that could convince someone to invest in your business, in the space of an elevator ride. Keep this handy whenever the opportunity arises to promote your new business or product. You also can commit your elevator speech to paper, or modify it into a “mission statement,” and hand it out readily along with your other marketing materials.

Filed Under: Graphic News and Information, New Business Startups Tagged With: brochures, business cards, Logo and Branding, Marketing Materials for small business startups, new business marketing materials, website

Design Firm or Studio vs Advertising Agency

April 28, 2012 By 360GS 2 Comments

Gears IconWhat is the difference between a design firm/studio and an advertising agency? All perform similar tasks and provide professional services. They all will propose the best creative tactics to convey your marketing and promotional messages and achieve campaign objectives. Although the terms are often interchangeable, it usually depends on the image that the company wants to portray. The distinction is often blurred, but primarily comes down to organizational size and costs. 

 The type of provider you will require will depend upon the scale of your planned advertising and the skills of your internal teams, as well as your planned communications activities. Communications service providers may include designers, photographers, advertising agencies, copywriters, media planning/buying agencies, public relations, event management and digital agencies.

 

The Role of an advertising agency

An advertising agency is often thought of as being a huge marketing machine, that encompasses public relations, marketing activities and graphic art services. The agency usually supports a large staff of professional and creative personnel. Larger advertising companies offer a “one stop shop” providing many or all of the above types of services, whilst other companies will specialize in one or only a few of these services, and out-source on a project need basis. The agency is normally broken into three working groups: Public Relations, Marketing and Research and Creative Services. The agency normally has a substantial internal sales force to support the agency itself, seeking and securing clients and projects. In most cases, the sale’s executive represents the client within the agency and is the sole contact that the agency has with the client. His interpretation of the client’s preferences and goals plays an important role to the success of the advertising and marketing materials are are produced. 

Public Relations: Public relations professionals work with the media to build public awareness and promote a favorable image for a company or client within stories and articles found in relevant media outlets. They closely monitor numerous media channels for public comment about a company and its products and manage crises that threaten company or product image. Their efforts creates goodwill among an organization’s target market through community, philanthropic and special programs and events.

Marketing and Research: The marketing department will handle product development, marketing research, demographics, and perform product surveys. The marketing efforts define the clients’ target market or audience and help position the product or services. With the collaboration of the art director and to some extent the sales person, the marketing team develops an advertising campaign for the client. 

Creative Services: The agency will recommend the advertising concepts and a variety of advertising options, e.g. events or presentations, handouts, website, collateral (posters, stickers, brochures) to best meet the client’s marketing goals. Once the approach of the ad campaign has been agreed upon, the advertising agency responsibilities would typically involve all aspects of the production of the advertising materials and despatch of materials to the media. The agency will employ creative art directors, graphic designers, copywriters production artists and media buyers. If the agency has a consistent need for a specialist, they may also have in-house illustrators, photographers, event managers and digital service providers.  Advertising agencies typically charge head hour costs plus any third party production or other services they commission. Client commit to the agency on an annual contract basis for all of their marketing and advertising needs; client often pay monthly retainer fees to the agency.

The design firm is often thought of as the larger of the two, although not as large and varied as the advertising agency. It usually employs more employees on staff, whereas the studio may be a sole proprietorship consisting of only the designer/owner or a small company of two or three partners. Both offer a full range of professional services, usually specializing in a given niche market or talent. Established firms or studios are robust in networking with other independent contractors that provide specialty or complementary services with the need arises. They also offer public relations, marketing services, media buying and internet or digital services. Studio can also refer to the workplace of a self-employed artist, who usually shares office space or works from their home. The client would hire and work directly with designer themselves and creating a more personal working relationship.

Smaller companies are often intimidated by the larger advertising agencies, and feel that the agency has pressured them into spending more than their advertising budget can afford. Within today’s economy, most companies are handling their own advertising and marketing internally. By hiring a smaller design firm or studio, they are actually acquiring an extension to their own company and have someone on-call as needed. The company can contract with the provider on a project to project basis, which overall is usually less costly than the annual contract commitment required by the agency. Also design firms or studios will often accept smaller individual projects, whereas an advertising agency will not. The design firms or studios usually don’t have a large cash flow, and rely on deposits to off-set the initial costs of the project, as well as to substantiate the project agreement between the client and artist.

 A simple campaign which requires the production of simpler print materials might require the services of a graphic design firm or studio, rather than an advertising agency. In these cases, you may consider directly engaging the specialist services that you require. 

Filed Under: Graphic News and Information, Uncategorized Tagged With: branding, brochures, catalogs, design firm, design studio, flyers, logo, newsletters, web design

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