Designing Winning Collateral
Your Product Collateral is What They See When You Leave
After your sales team leaves, what is left behind is your product collateral. Many startups make the mistake of thinking that they can save money by creating collateral in house - this creates the impression that the company doesn't have enough money to do it right!
If you do have the skills in Illustrator and Photoshop in house to create professional looking collateral, then by all means, go ahead and do it. Be sure to keep the following fundamentals in mind:
Make Sure That Your Product's Value Proposition Is Obvious at a Glance
A potential customer should be able to see immediately why your product is the best and right idea for them, now. Make sure that this is the focal point of the piece, and illustrate it graphically if at all possible. If you have a chip that creates a much smaller architecture than the competition, then place a circuit board with your chip on it next to something of recognizable size - like a dime or an pen. If you can only convey it in text, put it in a product tag line with a contrasting font or color.
Target it to Your Largest Customer Base, or Make Separate Collateral Pieces Per Segment
The enterprise software folks have this one down to a science - with separate white papers and data sheets for the Financial, Retail, Pharmaceutical and Manufacturing verticals. This should be done by all marketing teams in all industries - customers from one segment will use a totally different vernicular than others and want to see a piece of collateral that speaks their language.
Remember the KISS Principle
Make your point, and sell your product in as few words as possible. This saves money on printing, and guarantees that all of your brochure or data sheet will be read. Specifications lists can be placed on the back side in bullet form. Features and benefits can be bulletized on the front. Long, wordy explanations are best included in a white paper rather than in a product brief, flyer, or data sheet.
Make it Readable
Small, featherlike fonts may help you get more verbage in per page, but will also mean that your customers have to work harder to read your material. This is a good way to cause them to lose interest, quickly.
Make Good Use of Color
Color adds graphical interest to your work and makes it more exciting to read. Just don't overdo it. There's a school of thought that believes color is best balanced by lots of clean lines and white space. Contrast is also very important for getting your key ideas across. Pieces that are too busy get confusing really quickly.
Use Good Paper Stock and a Reputable Printer
Remember, brochures that come off your PC LOOK like they came off your PC.
Make Sure They Know How to Use Your Product
Even if your product is a simple vacuum cleaner, make sure that the product brochure demonstrates how easy it is to use. People are basically lazy creatures, and will often make a buying decision based on ease of use.
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