The Brochure Blog

Create a strategic alliance with a similar business and watch your business grow.

By Al Lautenslager  | Entrepreneur.com

When I walked into the dry cleaners the other day to drop off my shirts, I found a $5-off coupon on the counter for the pizza shop two doors down. I decided I wanted pizza, so I walked down to the pizza shop, redeemed my coupon, and found a coupon on their counter for $5 off at the dry-cleaning place I was just at. These two establishments were sending traffic to each other; they had formed a strategic business alliance. In the world of Guerrilla Marketing, this is known as fusion marketing. As entrepreneurs, we always think we have to do things alone, but its amazing the synergy available from collaborating or aligning with others. Fusion marketing can take your business to levels you never thought possible before now. Those that are likely collaborators or fusion marketing alliances are power partners. A “power partner” is a business that has a similar target market as yours but doesn’t really compete with you. Examples of this are an estate planning attorney and a life insurance salesperson; a graphic designer and a printer; a real estate professional and a mortgage broker; a wedding photographer and a caterer or disc jockey. I think when you look at these examples you start to get the idea. The number of power partners or fusion marketing partners is only limited by your imagination. Fusion arrangements can come in many forms in addition to the coupon example above–you can join your mailing list with your partners and do a joint mailing; you can make joint sales calls; you can offer an incentive from your alliance partner for each purchase of your product and vice-versa for your partner.

I know a printer who offers a free pizza coupon or free ice cream coupon on the back page of their notepads. The pizza place and ice cream store get the benefit of the distribution of the notepads to the printing company’s prospects, and the printing company gets the benefit of offering their prospects something for free.

Easy Steps to Setting Up Your Own Fusion Marketing Arrangement
Here are easy steps you can take to set up your own fusion marketing arrangements:

• Step 1: Define your power partners. A power partner is someone who has similar prospects as you and who could benefit from the same type of prospects, but isn’t in the same business. Examples: landscaper/builder, realtor/mortgage broker, network marketer/entrepreneur, massage therapist/chiropractor.
• Step 2: Figure out with your power partner what your offer will be. Maybe the printer gives a two-for-one offer while the designer offers to design a logo along with the design piece of a direct-mail piece. Maybe the attorney offers a free consultation on wills while the insurance salesperson offers a tips list on avoiding probate tax. Maybe the massage therapist offers a free midday office visit for a massage break while the chiropractor offers a back adjustment. Figure out what joint offer makes sense.
• Step 3: Write up a general letter of agreement. This doesn’t have to be a major-league legal document, but the one thing that hinders an alliance is lack of communication. This assures who does what and gets what. It can be a simple e-mail exchange.
• Step 4: Package it up. Write all the verbiage: the marketing copy, sales letter, press releases (if appropriate), e-mail letters, etc. Either have both businesses write it up and compare notes or have one write it and let the other approve. Be creative here. Be benefit-oriented. What’s in it for the prospect?
• Step 5: Combine mailing lists and communicate to both sets. Don’t worry about who has more or less–just combine them. When I put my list together with your list we both have a list much bigger than if we did it alone. You can do this with direct mail or e-mail; obviously e-mail is cheaper.
• Step 6: Be responsive to any responses. Fulfill offers; make it easy to sign up, to buy, to take the next step and keep track. Follow up and attention will convert prospects into paying customers. Share leads and conversions for future follow-up and future marketing.
• Step 7: Follow up. Both businesses should continue marketing to each of the converted people as follow-up marketing.

That’s all there really is to it. It’s a straight set of deliberate, planned-out steps, with a high degree of communication and execution. That’s what all marketing is, and the more it’s spelled out and planned out, the higher probability someone will act upon in. That’s what all the marketing I get involved in does–this is the key to marketing. It’s not going to happen overnight but with steps, plans and accountability, you’ll increase your revenue. I prove it to myself every day, and I prove it to my clients.

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.
–Andrew Carnegie

Resist the temptation to make these bad business decisions during the downturn. 

By Jennifer Wang | Entrepreneur.com

In a sluggish economy, running leaner is a must, but not every money-saving measure is a good one. These experts discuss the moves you shouldn’t make during tough times, even if they seem like easy ways to cut costs.

Finances
Having started his own business during the 2001 economic recession, Virgin Money USA CEO Asheesh Advani knows how to trim expenditures to keep a company afloat through a downturn.

“The natural thing for business owners to ask is, ‘Do you cut marketing, overhead or staff?’ I think the right answer is to do a little bit of all three, but to be very careful on cutting what actually protects you on the downside,” he says, noting that cost savings should never come at the expense of the ability to execute a long-term vision.

As for startup financing, don’t bother with venture capital. “It’s not the right market to attempt this,” Advani says. “Rely instead on family, friends and angel investors as your main sources of capital, and go to many people for smaller amounts of money. It’s very much about finding investors who are patient and supportive, and usually people who have invested a small amount rather than a large amount will be willing to wait longer for repayment.”

Human Resources
Penny Morey, founder of human resources consulting firm RemarkAbleHR, believes that the biggest errors in judgment relate to poor communication on management’s part.

“Instead of [employees] focusing on what they’re supposed to be doing and helping the company to succeed . . . they tend to be looking for jobs, panicking and spending their time talking to each other about the bad news in the economy,” she says.

Morey suggests regular meetings with employees–weekly if possible. And certainly if the work force has been reduced, management should sit down with those left behind and acknowledge the changes.

“It’s not easy, but you can still boost morale,” Morey says. “To me, people can be on your side or feel excluded, and most people want to be part of the solution if given the chance.”

Forthright communication is also the best method of damage control. If salary and benefits are being decreased, Morey advises putting together a strategy to convey the decision-making process.

“If management is taking a salary cut along with everyone else, communicate it. People just want to know they’re being treated fairly.”

Putting together a benefits statement is another way to emphasize positive thinking. “Include a summary of vacation, paid time off, insurance–show what the company is still doing to take the focus off what’s being taken away.”

It’s important to think long-term, Morey says. Performance evaluations, even if no longer tied to monetary incentives, still need to be done.

“You need to make sure people are still setting goals and working toward them, and employees will want to know how they’re doing and what’s expected of them going forward.”

Technology
Business owners with websites shouldn’t cut corners on things that relate to quality of service, says Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO of the Computing Technology Industry Association.

“Don’t downgrade from T1 to DSL,” he says. “Make sure you’re maintaining the security of customers’ data, and keep your infrastructure in place. Don’t hold off on buying a better piece of equipment.”

A better strategy is to actually examine service offerings that will help small-business owners eliminate the need to invest in their own IT tools. “Companies can offload obligation to maintain equipment and software through managed services and bring stability to their bottom lines,” he says.

According to Thibodeux, it’s also an opportunity for businesses to reposition themselves for the anticipated green technology revolution.

“It’s a good time to see how you can increase energy efficiency and look for better sustainable technology.”

Marketing
“Mistake No. 1 is thinking that marketing is the best place to cut when businesses are looking to tighten their belts,” says Ann Hadley, chief content officer at MarketProfs. “But it’s not the time to jettison marketing. If business is slow and you’re reining in your plan to get your name out there, it means fewer leads, less business and, ultimately, less income.”

In fact, increasing the frequency of communications with customers can boost revenue and stimulate demand for your offerings, especially if competitors are busy slashing prices instead of promoting the quality of their services. Marketing can also encourage customers to make purchases.

“If you sell washing machines, for example, and people don’t want to buy new models, you can stress how much they’ll save on maintenance and electricity with a more energy-efficient model,” she says.

In addition, Hadley cautions business owners against taking on marketing responsibilities themselves.

“For an entrepreneur, what you contribute first and foremost is your vision and leadership, and if you get mired in taking over someone else’s job, you’ll probably be less effective as a leader.”

To Hadley, the most important thing is to think past the immediate pain and position for the post-recession period. “The economy will go up and down, but now is a good time to be an industry leader, just like it is in every kind of environment.”

“One of the things that may get in the way of people being lifelong learners is that they’re not in touch with their passion. If you’re passionate about what it is you do, then you’re going to be looking for everything you can to get better at it.” — Jack Canfield

As a small business owner, you know the importance of your company’s image. You also know the importance of spending your time running your company and letting the experts do what they do best. Unless you or your staff are graphic designers, designing your own company brochure is likely to be a misuse of your energy and resources. And it will likely result in a poorly designed, amateur brochure.

Does your brochure pass Darrell Zahorsky’s Design Trash Test? Zahorsky, About.com’s Small Business Information expert, challenges you to put your brochure to the design test.

Design Trash Test

You only get one chance to make a favorable impression with your brochure design. An effective brochure design that communicates to your prospects isn’t about spending your entire ad budget on design and development. It requires the use of good brochure design and brochure writing principles.

Take just 5 minutes to discover if your brochure design will pass the trash test. Score your brochure with a + or -.

5:00 Appeal to Emotions: The old adage in marketing is that consumers buy based on emotions and justify with logic. Does your brochure design strike an emotional chord with your prospects? Appeal to the heart of your markets emotion by connecting with their pains or desires.

4:00 Be Professional: Is your brochure design professional or cheap? Adding poor quality graphics or clip art quickly downgrades the brochure.

Use good quality photos, images, and graphics to avoid the trash.

3:40 Be Personal: A winning brochure design connects personally with your audience. If your brochure spends more time talking about how great your small business is versus life from the customer’s perspective, it will more than likely end in the trash.

3:00 Achieve Readability: Your brochure design should be pleasing to the eye and include bullet points, arrows, boxes or any other graphics to improve the readability of your marketing piece.

2:30 Speak the Language: An effective brochure design will speak in the customer’s language. It’s vital to remove any technical language your customer doesn’t understand. The simpler your communications are, the easier to connect with your target market.

2:00 Lead with Benefits: A sure bet to have your brochure trashed is by feature dumping throughout the text or copy. Customers don’t care if your series 700 widget has a multi-function control panel. Grab your target market’s emotion by selling the benefits such as time savings, enhanced productivity, or any other powerful benefit.

1:20 Have a Single Message: It’s tempting for the inexperienced brochure writer to want to include as much information as possible in the copy of the brochure. However, using your brochure to close the sale by packing it with a barge of messages only confuses your market and ensures your marketing dollars end up in the trash. Focus your brochure on delivering on a clear, compelling message.

0:50 Focus on a Product or Service: Your brochure is likely to be trashed if it reads more like a catalogue than being focused on a single service or product you offer. The more choices you offer your prospects, the greater the chance you will confuse and lose them.

0:20 Make an Action Call: Your brochure should direct the customer to take a specific action such as a phone call for more information or to visit your website. If your brochure lacks a call to action, you can be sure it’s heading for the trash can.

0:00 Add Your Score: Now add up the +’s and -’s. If you have more than 3 -’s your brochure is heading for the garbage can and it’s time for a makeover.

Avoid the common mistake to pack your brochure with endless information and lack of focus. Spend the same amount of effort in designing and writing your brochure as any other function in your small business. If your skills are lacking outsourcing can improve your odds of winning the business of your prospective customers.

At BrochureBuilders.com we specialize in designing brochures with purpose. To see samples of our work along with pricing visit our brochure design gallery.