Ideal Marketing Company Blog

You won’t see many large companies letting their branding decline during tougher ecconomic times.  But smaller companies often cut their marketing spend at just the time that they should be expanding.

Pleased to say that the IOD Institute of Directors Magazine has recently published and article I wrote on how to market your business even during period of ecconomic decline.  Hope you find it of interest

http://www.director.co.uk/ONLINE/marketing_11_06.html

Thanks to everybody who was able to attend the Marketing Seminar at Hothorpe Hall in Thursday night.  I got a great deal of positive feedback from the evening and more questions that normal about enroling on the Marketing Mentor programme.

Hope that everybody left with lots of positive ideas.

Colours CAN be eye catching 

Any promotional material should be professionally printed. For many people, the first impression that they have of your company is your brochure. You may have put a great deal of thought into its content. However if it is obviously printed up on a home printer, it creates a very poor first impression of what they can expect from your company. This does not mean that you need to produce a full colour extravaganza on thick matt paper. Far from it. Often a simpler approach will work better with your target market. In fact, if you are following an earlier point and are considering producing several more targeted brochures, the slight extra cost in this can be offset by printing a more thoughtful 2 colour brochure for example, rather than always going for the expensive option. If your printer always advises that full colour is best, beware. It may be best for their profits, but not always for you. Think about your target reader and what will suit them best.

Headlines & subheads. Use a different typeface for subheads such as Ariel or Gills Sans. For the short subheads that break-up paragraphs, headlines at the start of a section or for contact phone numbers at the bottom of your page, these typefaces work well. They also create variety and add a change of visual pace to your document. These are both important factors in encouraging your reader to keep on reading.

The body copy

In most cases, a simple easy to read typeface such as Times, Times New Roman or Garamond is best. These are what most newspapers are set in and most books so our eyes are used to their look. 

It is also easier to remember the text: studies show that we understand 9 times as well in such typefaces as many others. We can also read 4 times as quickly. If you don’t believe me, try this simple test. Next time somebody has sent you an e-mail that you are struggling to understand, convert it into Garamond. Instantly it will appear clearer and you will be able to read it far quicker. You will understand the sentences that before you found incomprehensible.

Rememeber your layout an all aspects about it are there to make people understand and remember the points you want to make – not to win design awards.  

Before you pass your material on to be printed, try to get as many people to proof read it as possible. Not just for punctuation, but to see whether your ideas have come through and make sense to different types of readers from outside your company. You may have overlooked some very simple points that will put the whole of your brochure in context.

Try to follow a logical structure in your argument: Do you have this problem? Have you tried this, but found that it didn’t work? You may also have had this experience. Here’s what you can do about it today.

Don’t use excessive industry or technical jargon. It’s not going to impress anybody and it won’t sell your product.

Use the word ‘you’ far more often than ‘I’ or ‘we’. People are much more interested in themselves and their problems than your company.

Keep sentences short. Shorter sentences are easier to read. Reduce the size of paragraphs. Blocks of too much text appear daunting to the reader. Use sub headings between paragraphs.