Marketers use a variety of methods to connect with audiences and showcase a brand’s value. Marketing collateral is one of these methods, encompassing the print and digital worlds to communicate the features and benefits of a product or service. The overarching purpose is to generate leads and sales. Let’s dive into marketing collateral in greater depth:
Defining Marketing Collateral
Marketing collateral is any printed or digital material that promotes a company’s brand, products, or services. This includes brochures, flyers, email campaigns, case studies, infographics, and other deliverables that convey a key message to a specific audience. Communication is the entire purpose behind collateral—with sleek designs and engaging content, these materials show the reader a brand’s value in one neat and accessible package.
Types of Collateral
Brochures
Brochures are printed or online pamphlets that describe your company, products, or services. They use plenty of imagery and quick, snappy copy to present information concisely. They’re meant to be an easy point of reference for key information about your brand, and their messaging can include your company history, customer testimonials, success stories, and so much more.
Case Studies
These are specific stories of how you helped a customer and what the results were. This adds social credibility, showing the value of your offerings without reading like a sales pitch. In case studies, you should answer a few important questions:
- What problem was the customer-facing? Why did they come to you?
- How did you, your product, or your service solve their problem?
- What were the results achieved? Did the customer experience less downtime, for example? Specific numbers are great to use here if possible.
Infographics
These are graphics-heavy materials containing statistics, processes, or timelines. Infographics are designed to present number-heavy information in a more engaging and easier-to-digest format than a wall of text—visual proof of your industry knowledge, company history, methods, or problems you solve. A commercial cleaning business could make an infographic about the spread of germs in an office space, for example.
Sell Sheets
This is a downloadable document or a printed piece that summarizes your offering on one page. Sell sheets often include bulleted lists and short paragraphs to avoid overwhelming the reader with too much information. The point here is to get straight to the point about what you have to offer.
Pitch Decks
A pitch deck is a short presentation—typically in PowerPoint—used during a sales pitch to convince the audience to work with your business. It is more structured than other forms of collateral and usually contains 8–12 slides that discuss questions, pain points, and what sets your business apart. The goal is to persuade the audience to keep the conversation going after the presentation.
Videos
Videos are the most dynamic form of marketing collateral and are an excellent tool for inspiring action and connecting people with your business. Topics range from how-to guides to customer testimonials to behind-the-scenes footage of your company, all essential for putting a human face and voice to your brand and engaging the audience on a deeper level.
Other Types to Consider
- Blog Posts
- Online Banner Ads
- Newsletters
- Postcards
- E-Books
- Whitepages
- Catalogs/Brand Magazines
- Tradeshow Displays
- Website Content
Keep in mind there’s plenty of overlap in physical and digital collateral. Infographics can be brought as printouts to a meeting and posted on a company’s website, for example. A piece of collateral’s use depends on your marketing goals. If you need supplemental materials for in-person sales presentations, sell sheets or brochures are worth considering. If you’re enhancing your website’s content to drive more traffic, adding case studies or videos to a product/service page is a good option.
Want to know the best marketing assets to use at every stage of the buyer’s journey? Download our free guide and discover the key marketing materials that will drive conversions and nurture leads effectively.
Best Practices for Using Marketing Collateral
1. Consider Your Audience
Think about who exactly you’ll be directing your content toward. There are the demographics, including age, location, career, gender, and so on. But there are also the behaviors, preferences, challenges, and motivators. What issues are most of your potential customers trying to solve? What do they typically value? Looking at your current customers can help you pinpoint this persona. From there, you can create marketing content that speaks to their problems and goals and helps them make a decision.
2. Consider Your Goals
It’s not enough to go down the list of collateral types and make one of each. In fact, that probably won’t get you very far. It’s important to understand why you’re making the piece in the first place. Where will you use it, and how do you expect it to help your sales efforts? A brochure meant to educate readers about a new product will look very different from a brochure meant to introduce potential customers to your company.
3. Consider Your Brand
Whether you’re creating an online video or a printed postcard, your brand must be consistent across all formats. That means using the same logos, fonts, and colors. It also means using images with similar looks and feels. Establishing official brand guidelines, if you haven’t already, is a good starting point to ensure a consistent experience that makes your brand more memorable and identifiable.
4. Consider Your Data
You can create marketing collateral, but if you aren’t measuring the data behind it, you’ll have no idea how well it’s performing. Metrics like open rates for emails, clickthrough rates for websites, and sales appointments or orders placed after a direct mail campaign can all show you whether your collateral is serving your company and resonating with your target audience. Use tools like Google Analytics to gather the hard data you need. If you aren’t seeing the numbers you’d like, it’s time to adjust the content, delivery timing, or collateral type.
Create Your Own Collateral With Abstrakt Marketing Group
Marketing collateral is a flexible and creative tool for boosting brand awareness, but getting started is tricky. Do you have the design expertise on hand, or the copywriting skills? Abstrakt Marketing Group is here to help. Our in-house designers, copywriters, and marketing managers work closely with you to create marketing collateral suited to your unique brand, values, and goals. Every deliverable includes attention-grabbing copy and design to impress readers, whether they’re online or in person. Connect with Abstrakt today, and let’s create something amazing together!
