6 Ways To Take Your Sales Pieces From Weak To Wow
A sales piece is typically the first introduction a customer has to your new product or service and, as we’ve all heard, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. So if your sales piece looks terrible your potential customer will assume your product is too. Ouch, the truth hurts!
Regardless of the size of your business, there are several low-cost steps you can take to move your sales materials from weak to wow, or more importantly, to a sale.
#1. Be consistent
Just because you’re creating a new sales piece it doesn’t (and shouldn’t!) mean you have to start from scratch. It’s important that the design of your sales pieces are in line with your branding and are consistent with your other printed and digital materials. Consistency helps to build brand recognition and instantly makes your business more professional.
It is well worth the money to hire a graphic designer to develop a template for each type of piece your sales team will require. Using the template, they can easily create a fresh, consistent sales piece each time you have a new product or service to promote.
#2. Remember your audience
When developing a sales piece, different parts of your organization may have input on what to include. Your Engineering team may suggest technical details, while your order desk may want to promote specific part numbers. With these internal demands, it can be easy to lose track of what the sales piece is designed to do: sell your product or service to your customers!
Remember to look at your sales pieces from the eyes of your customers and target the features and benefits specifically to them. If the key feature of your product is fast and easy installation for contractors, then don’t fill your marketing piece with details only an engineer would understand.
Most companies have a product or service that are ideal for one or more customer group. Depending on the size of these groups, it may make sense to make more than one sales piece targeted specifically for the different audiences.
#3. Brevity is key
This point goes hand-in-hand with our suggestion above. Once you’ve fine tuned your message, make sure to communicate it in a clear and concise manner. Bullet points and headings work really well to organize your content and allow for a quick skim by readers. Be ruthless in your editing to ensure that only the most persuasive content is included.
If you have more to say about your product or service (we’re betting that you do!), be sure to include a link to your website where you can include technical drawings, installation manuals, videos and more.
#4. Be professional
Repeat after me: I will hire a professional photographer to take high quality pictures of my products or service. I promise, this is an investment that you won’t regret as high quality images can be used everywhere from your printed pieces to your website to your press releases. On a printed piece, a high resolution, well lit product image will make you look professional and built instant credibility with your customers.
#5. Ask for input
There definitely is one group of people that you will want to talk to before updating or creating a new marketing piece: the sales team! They are the ones speaking directly with your customer and will have the best insight on what each marketing piece needs and doesn’t.
Your sales team may suggest a diagram to better explain a complex feature or focus on a price that highlights incredible value. It’s easy to quickly gather input from your sales team through email or a Google form.
What’s next?
Take a critical look at your existing sales pieces and ask yourself, “what are these saying about my business”? If they don’t look cohesive, are cluttered with content and don’t speak directly to your customers, they are likely due for a refresh.
We have over 20 years of experience in the pluming and mechanical industry and are experts when it comes to creating a cohesive library of sales materials. Our print-runs would often be over 100,000 copies at a time, which would distributed throughout a North American sales network. Put your trust in industry experts and let us take your sales pieces to the next level.