Brochures, Catalogs, Menus & More

Making your marketing materials stand out whether it is a brochure, catalog, menu, flyer, email blast or any of the many other types you could use is as important as your Brand.  In fact, to make the most of your marketing efforts it is important to always go back to the 5 P’s pf marketing which are:

1. Product – Not just the physical product or the actual service, but all the customer benefits and values that the product represents.
2. Price – This is the acid test of whether the features you added to the product were really valuable, or whether you might have been better to cut a few low-value features out and so be able to offer a lower price.
3. Place – This is many times thought unimportant to online business. However, many deals still go best with a handshake. Services can only be cost-effectively provided within a fixed travel-radius. Shipping costs matter. Place is still a vital concern. With the internet, all online shops are on the super-highway and equidistant to any customer, and yet people still look for local and regional suppliers. Financial and legal issues are still mostly set by place too. Where will you place your distribution centers? Would better placement of your business let you ship faster or more cost-efficiently?
4. Promotion –  This is the P that everyone knows Marketing is about. Of course, we are not only talking about advertising in promotions, but also sponsorships, public relations, special offers, viral marketing, and so much more.
5. Positioning – This is not just dealing with where you will sell your product or service in the market, but where you will place your product in the mind of your customers (see post on Branding)

Go through the 5 P’s regularly and remember to ask  yourself who, what, where, when, and why?   This will take you a long way down the road in your marketing strategy.