Sales Literature That Sells
Sales literature is some of the most important content your business creates. It stands in for you when you’re not around, carrying your brand identity and reputation to the marketplace. It plays a crucial role in your business and needs to be planned out carefully.
The first place to start when creating sales literature is what you’re going to say. Keep your content focused and on point. It’s tempting to overload your documents with every capability and feature you offer, but this can overwhelm and disengage someone who is just learning about you. As they move through the sales funnel, you can introduce them to more information moves them toward converting. At this stage, however, the content should be intriguing and the call to action persuasive enough to inspire the reader to learn more.
Once you have your copy set, the next step is the design of your sales literature. You have just a fraction of a second for someone to decide whether or not they’ll pay attention to your piece. Your design must grab people by the eyeballs and refuse to let them go. Focus on a few tidbits that are important for your audience to know. Awards your business has won recently or facts that will motivate them to action (e.g. 9/10 customers rate our rug cleaning service as heavenly). If your content is the meat and potatoes, your design is the plate presentation. And as anyone on Food Network will tell you, we eat with our eyes first.
Whatever your create, be sure that it fits in with your overall marketing plan. Is the objective to drive new sales, cross-sell to existing customers, or communicate better with your stakeholders? The appropriate format (postcard, circular, product data sheet, package insert, newsletter) will naturally follow. Combinations of different elements—paper types, colors, repetition—can produce powerful subliminal effects, so it is important that you work with a professional designer. Be sure you also consider portability. An oversized piece might gain attention, but what will make someone pick up your piece and take it with them and then pass it along to others?
Even the best sales literature isn’t going to close the sale by itself. What it will do is provide outstanding sales support, reinforce your message, and stay behind as your brand messenger. So pay attention to your sales literature and give it the attention it deserves.