Brochures are highly important marketing tools — especially when illustrating a technical development, explaining a step-by-step procedure, or showing a beautiful object. Yet brochures take big bucks to produce. So you had better make them as productive as possible. Consultant Darrell Zahorsky advises: Pack your brochure with emotional clout Most people — including even hardheaded executives — buy with their hearts. Then they make up logical reasons to justify their purchases

Your business brochure has many uses – the possibilities are endless. An effective brochure is strategically limited in scope. Too much information can dilute the effectiveness of the piece and hamper its impact. Use this creative brief to help solidify your thinking. What is the purpose of this business brochure? Business enterprise information Product information Corporate identity and branding Who will receive this business brochure? Current clients Prospective clients Ind

High Readership Almost everyone reads postcards. Your customers take in your message as soon as your card reaches their hands. Double-card mailings of subscription offers have beaten much costlier long-copy letter packages. Economy Postcard mailings cost little to produce and mail. A single card involves no folding or inserting charges, and can be cheaper to mail first class than at bulk third-class rates. Even when you mail to very few sales prospects and so can't receive bu

Why are postcards a good marketing choice? Your customer, prospects and suspects like to receive information from you. 98 percent of consumers bring in their mail the day it’s delivered, and of these, 72 percent bring it in as soon as possible according to the Mail Moment study, conducted on behalf of the U.S. Postal Service. Postcards are... Impactful — because your message is seen right away as the mail is being sorted. Informative — explaining how your company can help c

With money tight these days, many direct-mail advertisers are turning to inexpensive media like postcards – especially for new business lead generation. A great advantage of using a postcard is that 87% of mail recipients claim to at least scan postcards that they receive. Here are 10 pointers from Portland marketer Wilson Zehr on making postcards work: Use postcards appropriately. Nobody – despite what some postcard companies claim – expects postcard mailings to close many s

By their mid-50’s, your sales prospects will begin to experience: diminished visual acuity slowed focus loss of color sensitivity blurred perception of boundaries and edges increased difficulty with glare weakened ability to perceive contrasts increased need for light Yet many advertisers continue to produce promotional materials without adjusting their design and typography to the decreased visual abilities of their aging customers. For their advertising to reach older custo

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. But all pictures are not created equal. Depending on what you are trying to communicate, and where, graphic materials vary enormously in effectiveness: Pictures do not belong in letters Most advertisers who lard letter copy with photos or illustrations learn that the technique does not work. Graphic material is costly and distracts the reader’s attention from the letter’s all-important message. Like marginal doodles, it is simply

Americans age 45+ earn more than 50% of U.S. discretionary income That amounts to $756 billion. They make from 45% to 75% of annual purchases of new cars and trucks … non-business computers … personal-care products … food … and airline travel, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The fastest-growing U.S. demographic segment is age 50+ Every seven seconds, an American turns 50, according to the Census Bureau. Most older Americans experience vision deficits They have difficulty

Here are 9 tips from Ted Kikoler for Making Graphics Sell: Zoom in on the product Use large-as-possible photos and illustrations Crop them to cut away unnecessary material Show the product in use—by a human being, if possible Control eye flow Most readers naturally shift their attention from dark to light areas, and from large to small objects The eye focuses on things that look out of place Use copy captions and call-outs with graphic elements Use “handwritten” copy—but disc

Involve your reader Gain your recipient’s attention by making him or her a participant in your mail advertising—not just a passive set of eyeballs gazing at a TV screen. For instance, urge your reader to use involvement devices such as a sticker, with enticing instructions to scratch it off to reveal a freebie. Keep your message relevant Every potential customer silently asks, “What’s in it for me?” Your promotion had better answer that question fast and strongly. To do that,

Marketing consultant Kevin Nunley writes that long letters of up to 12 pages are increasingly popular with advertisers who want to make sales—and for good reason. Long sales letters do best when they wind up in the hands of genuinely interested prospects (hence, list selection is even more important than your offer and how you articulate it). Reason: The person most likely to be ready to buy from you wants all the information he or she can get to bolster the decision to purch

Here are 7 pointers for profitablew advertising from Joseph Sugarman: Involve Your Reader Once Sugarman ran an ad in The Wall Street Journal for an expensive spelling computer. He littered the ad with orthographic errors. He told his readers to circle the spelling mistakes, return the marked-up ad, and take $2 off the computer’s advertised price for every mistake they found. Orders poured in. Talk Turkey In an ad for a thermostat, Sugarman promoted its features and benefits,

Sell benefits, not features Your reader doesn't care how many teeth are on your machine's gears. He only cares that your machine will grind his rocks into cement. Sell, don't tell Your reader doesn't have the time to peruse the history of your company. If you feel compelled to tell your company’s story, couch it in terms of a reader benefit. Make your copy conversational A good rule of thumb is to write your copy like you'd say it, then go back and take out the cuss words. Ge

No surprise, sales prospects have grown increasingly distrustful of advertising. The big surprise is that their skepticism — in an age when one enterprising advertiser offered contest participants a free Toyota, then delivered a toy Yoda doll to the “lucky” winner — seems to astonish so many marketers. Here are 10 pointers on making your advertising credible: Never try to pull a fast one More than your reputation is at stake. Your bottom line is bound to suffer. It costs 10 t

Structure your copy Bob Stone, who wrote the classic book, “Successful Direct Marketing Methods,” says that this architecture makes for an effective letter to power up your direct mail: First Paragraph: Identify your product and present its main benefit for the reader Second Paragraph: Expand on the main product benefit Third Section: Detail the product’s features Fourth Section: Present testimonials Fifth Section: Call to action End with a P.S. that sets a time limit f

“Good copywriters are not usually the most imaginative people,” writes nationally respected marketing consultant Terry Dean. “They don’t just instantly dream up winning headlines out of thin air.”Research, he says, is the key to at least 75% of copywriting success. It makes you sound as if you know what you are talking about— which goes a long way toward neutralizing the BS-detector that most of your customers use to screen out marketing-ese. And it is easier to accomplish th

Legendary ad man Frank H. Johnson 60 years ago tested if he could boost response to his sales letters by a device known today as...

Herschell Gordon Lewis, the famous marketing sage of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the author of 27 books, once published an article in Direct magazine on legalistic qualifiers that deter response to advertising. Headlined “Up To No Good,” his article pinpointed how mealy-mouthed phrases such as “up to” damage an advertiser’s credibility, trigger complaints, and water down sales pitches. Lewis cites these 6 examples: You may have won a cash prize of up to $4,500! Maybe, and m

K*I*S*S — “Keep It Simple, Stupid” — long have been watchwords in direct mail. Now, research by Daniel M. Oppenheimer, a Princeton University psychologist, shows scientifically that texts using hifalutin language and unusual graphics actually diminish the reader’s perception of the writer’s intelligence and, by extension, the value of paying attention to his offer. Oppenheimer, then at Stanford, polled 110 undergraduates and found that a vast majority purposely used million-

Your readers—especially those most likely to buy your product—want to know what it looks like. Remember Jay Leno’s quip about the Infiniti’s arty launch campaign, which showed natural beauties, but not the automobile: “Rocks and trees are selling like hotcakes, but not cars.“