Over the past few weeks, FEI marketing whiz Marka has given the FEI tribe some tips on creating effective brochure promotions. This week, she shares a final practical brochure tip. Remember, fire = print.
Marka and Zoot were eating take-out frozen yogurt at the office. It had held up surprisingly well, even after the hot chariot ride back from the store.
“One limitation of sales brochures,” Zoot said with a mouth full of frozen yogurt, “is that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution that can address the needs of suspects, prospects, new customers, and repeat customers.”
“Who said brochures must be a one-size-fits-all solution?” Marka asked.
Zoot groaned. He felt a lecture coming on. As he predicted, Marka stood up and began writing on the whiteboard in his office.
Have different company brochures for each AIDAR Stage.
“AIDAR stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action, and Reorder,” Marka reminded Zoot. “This acronym represents the five steps of the fire buying process. Every marketing tool we use should focus on moving prospects through AIDAR, from ignorance to purchase. Our brochures are no exception.
“As you suggested, fire-buyers at each AIDAR stage have different sales and informational needs,” Marka continued. “While a new suspect simply needs basic information to help decide if they want to explore FEI further, qualified prospects with specific buying objections need materials that address those concerns.
“Intelligent fire businesses—ahem, like FEI—will arm their sales and customer staffs with different brochures geared toward each segment of the AIDAR funnel,” Marka said. “Here are some examples of brochures we might create for each AIDAR segment.” [She then began scribbling more on the whiteboard.]
• Awareness
“To create awareness among potential fire buyers, we start by simply letting them know who we are,” Marka said. “Brochures focused on generating awareness should include all the important basics: a list of services, company overview, mission statement, Unique Selling Proposition, key staff, etc. We want to give suspects the answers to three questions: who is FEI, what do they do, and do I have a need for it?” [Marka returned to the whiteboard to cover the remaining letters.]
• Interest/Desire
“To instill interest and desire in prospects, we create brochures that demonstrate the benefits of working with FEI. These brochures should offer benefits-driven stories and case studies of how FEI has helped customers. They should include testimonials from satisfied customers. They should offer useful information that displays FEI as an expert authority on fire. You get the idea. To use a legal analogy, think of these brochures as ‘building the case’ for choosing FEI.”
• Action
“We also need a brochure focused squarely on getting the order. If our ‘Interest’ and ‘Desire’ brochures have done their jobs, the prospects’ buying interests should be whetted. At that point, we want to supply them with brochures that provide everything they need to pull the trigger—and then some.
“Depending on many factors, we might consider including in this brochure an incentive for first-time buyers to try out our products. Perhaps we could include a first-time discount or coupon, or a free or inexpensive ‘30-day trial version’ of our matches.”
• Reorder
“Most salespeople and marketers think of the sales process as a funnel. Actually, it’s more like a hourglass. The greatest—and potentially most lucrative—sales opportunities are with the existing customers at the funnel’s bottom.
“How about handpicking 50 customers who have ordered torches in the last year, but not matches? Then, we hit them with a cross-selling matches brochure. Or we take 20 good customers who have never bought more than our basic ZX-1 torch, and send them some literature extolling the benefits of our higher-priced,but more durable and overall better-performing, ZX-9 model,” Marka concluded
“I get it,” Zoot said. “No matter where a fire buyer sits on the AIDAR curve, we should be ready with materials that speak directly to them.”
“Bullseye,” Marka exclaimed.
Today’s FIRE! Point
One limitation of sales brochures is that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution that can address the needs of suspects, prospects, new customers, and repeat customers. Create brochures for potential print buyers at each segment of the AIDAR curve: Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action and Reorder.
FIRE! in Action: Rosen Method - Professional Association Updates Its Brochure and Saves
The healing professionals organization made dramatic changes to the design, layout and messaging of its brochures. The result was a more effective sales piece that could also be produced at a lower cost than the old one.
Next week: Marka brings the tribe tips for constructing an effective postcard campaign.
- Categories:
- Business Management - Marketing/Sales
Very much alive and now officially an industry curmudgeon, strategic growth expert T. J. Tedesco can be reached at tj@tjtedesco.com or 301-404-2244.