Six ways to create effective marketing materials

Marketing materials offer you a different and more exciting way to promote your company's products or services to potential clients and investors alike. If you get them right, that is. Read on to discover six simple tricks to help you knock your next brochure, e-magazine or white paper out of the park.

1. Ensure its legible

Keep your text as visible as possible. In other words, choose a legible font type, size and colour, and never overlay light text over a busy photograph because it will get lost. Also, by limiting the number of fonts, colours and styles you use, key elements such as images will stand out more.

2. Stay on brand

Resist the urge to throw everything but the kitchen sink at your marketing collateral and remain on brand. For example, if you run a nightlife events company, neon or metallic font colours on a dark background would work well. But if you sell antiques, you might benefit from using a more muted palette and vintage fonts.

3. Consider visual hierarchy

Let’s face it. Not everybody is going to read all the information in your company brochure. Make it clear who you are and what you're offering as quickly as possible. You should start by sharing the most important information and then move onto the more fluffy stuff.

4. Avoid industry jargon

It can be tempting to show off, but it's more important to ensure that even your least savvy customer can understand what you’re selling. Avoid using industry jargon and big words where possible, and explain the meaning of any technical words or phrases you do include.

5. Include contact details

Whether you're creating a business card or company brochure, make sure you include all the ways that potential clients or investors can reach you. This means including your email address and telephone number(s) as well as any other channels you can be contacted on, such as Twitter, LinkedIn or Behance.

6. Don't forget that CTA

You've knocked somebody's socks off with a beautifully written and designed brochure. Go you! Now what? People won't know what to do after reading your marketing collateral unless you actually tell them. Improve your chances of converting people into clients by adding a clear call to action at the end of your marketing piece.

If you need a little bit of helping introducing new collateral into your marketing mix this year, holla at me.