Marketing For Power Packed Business Growth

Brochures...

Yet more proof that brochures can go badly wrong from a fellow copywriter.

The trouble is that people are so enthused about their product or service and what it does they forget someone.

The most important person in the whole equation. Of course the customer or prospect.

Does the customer really need to know that you're the 3rd best company for widgets in the whole of Texas or London?

After all what is the intention of the brochure? It's to sell after the salesman has gone, or before they arrive.

If it's not helping the sale why are you even wasting money on it?

Look at Alisa Gilhooley's piece on brochures too at http://crmguru.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/crmguru.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1561.

She notes the following:

"Today, unfortunately, the disconnect remains the norm. The American Marketing Association's CMM Forum has found that:

As much as 90 percent of the materials marketing creates for sales goes unused in the field.

More than 97 percent of these materials are irrelevant to the customers they were intended to attract."

Do you think that the USA's approach to brochures is any different to any other country's?

The answer to that has to be, "not really".

That means that the majority of companies aren't using brochures effectively.

You need to talk to your prospects. Ask them, "what would be most useful to them, and in what format?". Similarly to your current customers ask them, "what did you find useful about our brochure, what wasn't?"

Believe me the reason I talk about brochures so much it is that I'm always amazed that so much is spent on brochures without a thought to what sort of marketing would work best with the target market or what tactics would work the best.

I once lost a client because I was a bit forthright about the fact that they'd wasted their money on a brochure. Normally I don't get annoyed but they'd wasted their company money on a brochure that firstly didn't sell but secondly no one I asked knew what on earth it meant!