How to make your business stand out from the crowd

Marketing literature can be a cheap and effective way of getting your companies name and offerings into the public eye. With a wide variety of online companies offering competitive rates for a range of different literature, such as leaflets, flyers and posters, it’s never been easier to get your brand in front of potential customers. There are however some things that you need to do and some pitfalls to avoid, which we’re going to take a good look at.

Keep it simple

Whether you are either paying someone to come up with your branding or doing so yourself, you should endeavour to stay away from overly fussy, complicated designs. Too much going on in one place can cause the readers eye to wander, potentially diluting the message that you are trying to send. A simple bold logo or title is much more effective at catching a person eye and also tends to be more memorable.

Colour choice

The same goes for colour choice, once you or your designer has picked a palette, stick with it and use it in all your marketing literature. Think about your colour choice carefully, as the colours that you choose will go a long way into giving potential customers an impression of your brand. Colour will give people a strong impression of your business, so it pays to take careful consideration over your colour choice. Cool colours, greens, blues and purples are generally seen as calming, relaxed and professional colours, whereas warm colours are generally seen as happy, positive and playful colours.

Typeface

Typeface choice, like colour choice, can work effectively in putting across to your customer the impression you want them to have of your business. One of the first choices you will have to make is whether to choose a serif or sans serif typeface. Traditionally serif typefaces are associated with themes such as classic, established and formal as opposed to sans serif typefaces which can range from clean and friendly to modern. The most important thing when choosing a typeface shouldn’t really need saying, but there are many poor examples around, make it legible. There is next to no point in having a beautiful looking typeface if it’s illegible to most readers.

Consistency is key with typeface choice. Whilst most websites and printed material make use of more than one type of typeface, the different types of typeface are used in the same manner across the text. For example, a common practice is to have all headers and titles in the same serif typeface, whilst the main body of the text is the same type of sans serif, quotes if used are normally in the same typeface as the main body of text but italicised.  

Information

Here is where a bit of clever thinking can make you stand out from your competitors. It may not be applicable for every business, so think carefully if you decide to go down this route. If your business is offering a service or product that is self explanatory why spend time, effort and money on advertising what your potential customer is already going to know? As an example, if you run an electrical business working in people’s homes, unless there is one particular product that you can offer that no one else can, there is no need to have a list of the work you can do for them listed out.

You’re an electrician, people know what you do. Instead, list what it is that people want from a business that they are considering engaging. For example, use words such as punctual, professional, polite that set you apart from other businesses offering the same services. If there are professional bodies that you or your company may be a member of and you want to advertise the fact, by all means use their logo but don’t let it overpower your own.     

Offers

It’s worth including offers on your marketing literature, if you include something along the lines of ‘10% off with this flyer’, your potential customer is more likely to keep hold of it. Think about targeting your offers as well, if you are trying to sell to a particular type of demographic, make your offer exclusive to them.

Unfolded, Folded or Booklet?

You’ll have to make a choice of how you want your information presented. There are three main methods used for marketing literature, Folded (Leaflet), Unfolded (Flyer), Booklet (Brochure). Each has their own particular pros and cons and each is best suited for a particular role.

Unfolded (Flyer)

The simplest of three main types, flyers are best used to put over a comparatively small amount of information as clearly as possible. Use these to promote your brand and refrain from including lists of specific goods or services on them.

Folded (Leaflet)

A compromise between flyers and brochures, they are useful for promoting brand awareness as well as having space to include specific goods and services.

Booklet (Brochure)

Brochures are capable of containing the most information out of the three common choices. They are best used for listing a range of goods and services as the extra space in them allows you show in more detail what it is that you as a business are offering.

Whether you choose just one or a combination of the three, the one thing you should ensure is that good quality paper or card is used, giving your literature a premium look and feel.