Tailoring Your Marketing Materials to Your Target Client

When you market your business, there are a number of goals you are trying to accomplish: building name recognition, branding, acquiring more customers, and developing goodwill.  However, in order to be successful in these endeavors, you need to think about your customers before you prepare your marketing materials.

Know Your Client or Customer

Who is your client or customer?  Are they conservative, wealthy, and classy?  Or do you cater to people who are outgoing with a sense of humor?  Your customer will dictate the theme for your marketing materials.  You wouldn’t want to turn away the discerning customer with fluffy and cheesy brochures.  Rather, choose colors and wording that appeal to their sense of class and style.

Printed Literature

What do you want to say to your customers?  How do you sell your business to them?  As in the example above, your target customer will dictate the color, tone and theme of your literature.  The size of your printed marketing materials may be determined by your customer.  If you sell complicated services, a booklet may be a better choice than a one-page brochure.  Always make sure your printed marketing materials are tailored to your customer base.

Promotional Gifts

A great way to brand and promote your business name is by giving promotional gifts as marketing materials.  Pens, coffee cups, T-shirts, all these and other ideas make great promotional gifts.  However, consider to whom you give them.  A colorful rainbow pen may be great to promote a kids play arena, but not for a serious attorney.  The attorney may consider, however, giving an executive desk accessory to clients, or an environmental firm may design and give away eco-friendly items, such as recycled paper notepads or recycled plastic travel mugs.

Do Not Offend

When you design your marketing materials for your target customer, be sure to avoid anything that could offend them.  For instance, even 30 years ago, most businesses could get away with giving away matchbooks with their name and logo.  However, in the 21^st century, smoking has become quite taboo for a majority of Americans.  Be sure to think twice about marketing materials with controversial subjects.

Promotional and marketing materials are important for businesses to get name recognition and advertising.  However, don’t let your personal tastes and ideas get in the way of designing marketing materials targeted specifically for your customers.

Making Your Promotional Materials Stand Out

It doesn’t take a genius to put together a set of marketing materials. However, it does take a genius to create a campaign that is so memorable and breathtaking that it not only interests customers, but captivates them.

Anyone can start a business, but it takes a great mind to truly become a brand. Companies like Apple and Coca-Cola didn’t simply dream up their billion dollar marketing strategies passively; rather, they truly analyzed the best and simplest way to convey their company’s overall message.

A successful marketing strategy is a tricky thing to dream up. However, if you’re savvy enough to attempt it, it can be the best asset you will ever provide your company. Here are some tips on how to make your promotional materials really stand out from the rest.

• So What? In any text that you create, there is always one big question surrounding it: so what? It is important to always keep this question in mind when putting together your promotional materials. You can make a thousand big, vast statements about why your company is superior to all others. But ultimately, the biggest question is why? Why is your business the best? What does it really provide? Anyone can think up a few cheesy ad slogans. It takes a special mind to come up with dialogue that not only promotes your company, but really captures the essence of why it is a great institution. Answer the “so what” question in your marketing materials, and you capture your customers’ attention.

• Flash is Great, But… Great logos, emblems, and designs are great. This is an absolute truth – advertising materials are worthless if they aren’t eye catching. However, be sure not to fall into the trap of compensating for a lack of rich and informative copy with flashy graphics. Make sure that there is worthwhile dialogue to back up your graphics.

• Capture Your Own Enthusiasm – Speak from the heart when it comes to crafting your marketing materials. You entered into your business for a reason, and use this passion to write your copy. Try jotting down some things that you love about the product you sell, and some reasons why you sell it. Afterwards, review the ideas you listed. You may see some great ideas to put in your marketing materials. You have the greatest passion of all for your product; try and capture your own enthusiasm and it will translate to the customer.

Above all else, have fun and be creative! Regardless of the industry, customers appreciate witty, honest, and fun messages.