Marketing materials emphasize your brand and pre-sell your prospects. If you have a limited budget for your marketing, or just want to get the biggest bang for your marketing buck, there are four pieces of marketing collateral that you should focus on. These choices are low-cost and high-impact. They’ll create a memorable mark and brand your business without breaking the bank.
Business cards
This should be Number One on your list of marketing materials. Business cards are helpful in numerous situations and can be one of the first encounters clients have with your business brand. There’s no excuse not to have business cards. You can order inexpensive but professional looking cards from VistaPrint, or Overnight Prints.
Flyers
Flyers are essential for offline marketing and are very inexpensive to produce. Most people have everything they need to create an effective flyer on their computer right now, including templates. Using your logo, some interesting graphics and effective copy in a Microsoft Word file should be enough to create a great flyer that will attract attention. Be sure to focus on the benefits to your market and express how your product or service will help them, rather than just what you have to offer.
Email is part of every modern business and it provides a great, inexpensive way to market your business. You can set up an email marketing list and collect addresses from people who may be interested in your services. Sending out periodic email newsletters and marketing messages will help you stay in touch with potential customers. Boomerang offers affordable email marketing solutions for small businesses. In addition, you can also use email as a marketing tool by including a brief marketing message in your signature file. The signature file will be included on every email that you or your employees send out. Check ‘options’ or ‘preferences’ in your email client software.
Postcards
Postcards are often overlooked in this digital age, but they can be very cost effective. The return on investment for postcards can be as much as four percent. They are relatively inexpensive to produce and can be sent several times a year.
Courtney Ramirez
Research Analyst, Pacific Business Centers (rebranded as Pacific Workplaces)
Courtney’s research for Pacific Business Centers focuses on tracking emerging business trends and best practices – with an emphasis on how they affect business operations, technology, and the future of work trends.