When you go to trade shows you probably pick up brochures.

What do you do with them?

In the majority of cases I’m willing to bet you either leave them
to fester in the lovingly designed show carrier bag or you scan
some of them and then throw them away.

Do you read any of the brochures you get through the post or left
by sales people?

If you don’t read brochures why do you think your prospects will?

If your brochure is all about you and very little about your
customer it wont get read. If it’s not read it can’t sell
anything. That means you’ve just lost another prospect because
your brochure didn’t do its job right.

What A Brochure Isn’t

Designing a brochure is not simply the managing director,
marketing director or Mr Average Copywriter simply dumping
everything they can think of about your company and its products
into a four page 4 colour brochure.

Explaining how your business has grown from strength to strength
over the last 5 years, or how the new widget is now also
available in puce and lemon is boring.

In fact most brochures are deeply boring. Maybe not to you as the
business owner - but to the most important people you know.

Your customers and prospects.

Neither are brochures an art gallery for your in-house or
external graphic design team to show off their brilliance with
well produced photos, line art and consistent house style.

After all winning awards for your brochure is not as important as winning sales. Is it?

Have you found salespeople who are unwilling to give customers
your brochures? That’s because good sale staff instinctively know
whether your brochure helps or hinders sales.

So What Is A Brochure?

It’s purely and simply just another sales tool. It’s part of your
marketing tool set. Please treat it that way.

Use Sizzling Copy To Hit People Between The Eyes.

Don’t take up the space on the front, or back, covers with your
logo, managing directors head shot or a stock photo of a forklift
truck or someone attractive sat gazing transfixed at a computer
screen.

Smash Through Buyer Inertia With A Captivating Headline

Instead use a great headline to encourage people to open and
investigate what you’ve got to say.

You could use any of the following headlines:

If you’re in the car hire business you could say “7 Reasons Why
Car Hire Is Costing You Too Much”. Then explain why in your copy
inside and further explain how you can make sure the prospect
avoids those costs.

Perhaps you’re in IT or software services? Your headline could be
“How To Sell More to Your Old Customers”. Then you explain how
implementing a customer relationship management system gives the
ability to follow-up properly.

But whatever company you’re in tell your customer something you
know they want to know.

Write Copy That Tells And Sells

When you’re writing the copy inside your brochure make it
interesting, arresting and intriguing.

Give your prospects some interesting facts they don’t know.

Stir in some great customer testimonials. If you don’t have
testimonials start talking to your customer to get some.

You’re writing the copy to sell your product or service. So the
writing is vitally important. Next you need to make sure that
you’ve got necessary line art, photos or other graphics at
appropriate points in the brochure. Whatever you do remember
graphics are there purely to support the copy.

Any graphics you’ve got make sure that you have a caption so that
people don’t get distracted and keep wondering what it’s about.

Make sure that your brochure has all the ways your customer can
get hold of you and order. That includes having an order or
enquiry form they can fax to you.

Finally, one of the most important elements in the brochure: The
Offer and action.

You need to offer your customer something for doing business with
you.

You could offer any of:

- free bonus reports
- audio CDs
- DVDs
- Different payment options
- Strong guarantees
- Bundled with other products or services

Whatever you do make sure you’ve a call to action with a deadline
for your offer. Your brochure needs to make clear the next step
for your customer.

How Do You use Your Brochure?

Don’t leave it lying around like yesterdays newspaper. You’ve
paid good money to produce it. Treat your brochures with respect
and give them or send them to people you want to do business
with.

At trade shows a good approach is to suggest that you’ll send a
brochure to your prospect. That way you can keep following them
up with further offers.

Jay Abraham is the world’s highest paid marketing guru at $5,000
per hour. He notes that sending a brochure to a prospect without
a well-written and interesting covering letter reduces response.

Stapling an envelope with an interesting headline, such as “5
Ways To Slash The Cash That Drains From Your Web Site” gets
people interested.

They’re going to read that letter.

The letter needs to spell out what the major benefits are and
where they are in your brochure.

Proof of effectiveness of adding a letter is given by Troy White,
writing in Duct tape Marketing, he says:

“…Info USA who sells direct mail database lists started testing
this (sales letter,Ed) with their catalogs and saw an immediate
300% improvement in orders. All with a simple letter attached to
it!”

Similarly use direct mail and send them out to the companies
you’d love to do business with. Make sure you’ve a personalised
selling letter with every brochure you put out there.

Write and design your brochure as if you were standing in your
customers and prospects shoes.

Do it right and you’ll deliver a brochure that gets read from
cover to cover and prospects find informative and buy from.

Remember if you’re not willing to invest up front in producing a
brochure that sells you can’t expect anyone to take action from
it and you’ve completely wasted the money to produce it.

Get more free tips from the Marketing Magician’s Blog go straight to http://www.acornservice.blogspot.com and sign up for a regular email feed. (The blog currently has over 12 months of solid postings so you’re going to find a gem you can use.

Get a free copy of Jim’s book for SME’s called “How To Leap Ahead Of Your Competitors by emailing him at web@acornservice.com with “ezine” in the subject line.

Check out Acornservice’s site to opt in to Jim’s free and no obligation seminar series on profit-driven business growth.

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For decades, most people bought caskets from funeral parlors, but there has been a huge increase in the number of casket stores in recent years. The advent of the Internet has enabled many casket stores to sell caskets online. Purchasing a casket online is a good way to get a great deal and to bypass buying a casket from a funeral home.

Many people buy caskets from funeral homes because it is easier than going somewhere else to buy the casket. They figure that since the funeral home is taking care of all of the other arrangements, they can take care of the casket as well. What they don’t realize is that funeral parlors usually sell caskets for much higher prices than casket stores. Casket stores provide good deals on the same caskets sold by funeral homes. Casket stores often sell nothing but caskets and do not have to raise prices to compensate for other area of business that may be under performing.

Online casket stores are another great option. Online sellers often have a wide variety of caskets made from all different materials, ranging from oak to bronze. Since the online casket selling market is so big, sellers often offer their caskets at huge discounts in order to remain competitive. Since it vital that the casket arrive in time for the funeral service, many online casket dealers offer free same day or next day casket delivery to insure that it arrives on time.

Casket stores provide a great alternative to purchasing caskets from funeral parlors. Casket stores offer a wide selection of caskets made from many different materials at a fraction of the cost that many funeral homes charge. People who don’t want to go to a casket store or buy from a funeral home have the option of purchasing one online.

Caskets Info provides detailed information about discount, hardwood, bronze, golden, and glass caskets, as well as casket stores, and more. Caskets Info is affiliated with Original Content.

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Research would indicate that consumers don’t know what they’re thinking. According to an article written by Jack Shimell (2002) for Quirk’s Marketing Research Review, Consumers make their decisions and react to advertising based more on unconscious emotional processes than on conscious rational processes.

There appears to be an interplay between the conscious and the unconscious with the unconscious being the driving force, when it comes to reactions to advertising and purchase decision making.

There is also a distinct personality / temperament factor involved in consumer thinking and behavior. People with moderate extrovert traits tend to react more positively to advertising, while introverts and people with few extrovert traits would appear to be very difficult to affect through advertising.

Part of this may reside in the fact that introverts tend to be energized by solitary activities that are less affected by outside factors while extroverts tend to be energized by outside influences such as social status, social engagement, peer relations, and social value of products or services.

The introvert tends to be more affected by internal factors that can be analyzed and processed at their leisure. They operate based on facts, information, and internal beliefs and attitudes.

The above discussion is why you must develop a demographic profile of your ideal customer. From this profile you can develop advertising and a marketing campaign that feeds the unconscious of the consumer.

Based on the research presented in Shimell’s (2002) article, marketers and advertisers would be smart to incorporate elements that target both the conscious and unconscious processing of targeted consumers.

Unconscious elements would be music (the research in the article indicated that music was an very important factor in positive reaction to advertising), color, graphics, and movement. Conscious elements would be text, voice-over, overt product offers, and interactive elements such as redeemable coupons.

Different segments, audiences, and occupations tend toward predictable personality and temperament qualities which can guide targeted marketing and advertising. Take the time to know and understand your ideal customer and adapt your advertising to their personalities and unconscious processes. In your marketing campaign it’s smart to have a combination of conscious and unconscious elements that tie into different media channels and your consumer’s personalities.

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Darrin F. Coe, MA holds a master’s degree in psychology and operates “The Center For Understanding Consumer Thinking” at http://www.consumer-thinking.com

Contact him for consulting at darrinfcoe@consumer-thinking.com or 719-275-5907 after 5:00 PM MST
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Did you know if you shop online, you could be saving hundreds of dollars compared to going directly to the nearest retailer? There are many advantages to shopping online: you don’t have to pay taxes, you can comparison shop, check out reviews and use coupon codes to save you a lot of money. Aside from the fact that you cannot feel and handle the product and that it takes longer to get the product, possibly the only disadvantage, if you are an avid shopper you can obtain significant savings by shopping online.

The first advantage is saving money on taxes. If the merchant you are purchasing from does not have a local presence in your state you do not have to pay taxes. For example, Amazon charges sales tax for orders shipped to the states of Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, & Washington. If you don’t live in those states you can buy a product from Amazon and save your money on sales taxes. When you decide to buy a product from an online merchant, make sure you read the fine print about where they have a local presence.

If two merchants, retailer A and retailer B, offer the same product for the same price and retailer A is the only retailer out of the two that has a local presence, then you should definitely choose merchant B as your shopping target since you could save on sales taxes.

Of course, saving money on taxes is not just the only benefit. Before you shop online I recommend comparison shopping. There are many sites that can can help you comparison shop: epinions, mysimon, bizrate, froogle. All these comparison sites may have different merchants on their list so it’s good to try them all if you know exactly what you are looking for. Not only do they offer different price comparisons on products, some of these sites also provide excellent reviews on products. If you cannot find good reviews on the product you want, I recommend Amazon. Amazon is one of the biggest online retailers and, because of this, they have the most product reviews on every item that you can think of. There have been many times where I’ve changed my mind about a product after reading product reviews on Amazon.

Perhaps the most exciting way about saving money online is finding a good deal and/or using coupon codes. What are coupon codes? They are text entries that you can input on a merchant’s shopping cart when checking out to receive a discount for your purchases. Almost all merchants have a input box for entering coupon codes as the user wants to check out. Now a lot of times you need to search for these coupon codes on the web since they don’t make it so obvious for the user to find. Why do these merchants provide coupon codes? Sometimes they want to boost their sales by telling other websites (affiliates) to promote their coupon codes. When a user visits the affiliate site they will see that they can save an additional percentage by using the coupon code and therefore the consumer is more likely to make a purchase since they can save additional money. Some of these coupon codes are for a limited time only and must be used quickly. For example, Dell once used to have a promotional coupon code for $750 off their laptops. It had a user limit and it expired within hours since the demand was extremely high.

I hope I have provided you with the right weapons for your next shopping spree. Now let your online shopping journey begin! By golly, you are likely to save more than a few bucks and bring a smile to your face!

Brian Kim is the webmaster of Cheap-buys.com, which has deals and coupons for many merchants. Another online coupon code site, http://www.webcouponcodes.com, is also popular and can save you a few bucks.

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