Marketing Materials, What do you need?

Marketing Materials, What do you need?

Kelly Kennedy: Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Business Development Podcast. On today's episode, we are talking marketing materials. Stay tuned.

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship. Not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal and we couldn't agree more.

This is the Business Development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and broadcasting to the world, you'll get expert business development advice, tips and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners. CEOs and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business. Brought to you by Capital Business Development, capitalbd.ca.

Let's do it. Welcome to the The Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome back to the Business Development Podcast. My name is Kelly Kennedy and I am the host of the Business Development podcast and the owner of Capital Business Development.

It is an absolute pleasure to be on here with you again today. On today's episode, we are gonna be chatting a little bit about marketing materials, what you need, why you need it, where you should be spending your money, and I'm really looking forward to imparting some of this advice because I think it is an underserved area an under talk to area, and I think a lot of businesses are confused about where they should be spending their money as far as marketing and, and what materials maybe they should be creating and how they should be going about doing that. So let's chat about it. There are three things in my world and that I truly believe that every business should have. You should have a great LinkedIn

space. So you should have LinkedIn profiles for both yourself and all your employees as well as a business page for your business. And this is going to be where you're gonna post business updates. You're going to share information with the world if you are creating. Marketing materials. You are sharing it on your LinkedIn and getting it out there as well as having your employees share that around as well.

How do you go about doing this? Well, not too challenging LinkedIn, you can really do on your own. So you can either have your team, if you got a team with you to create you a nice LinkedIn page, you can put your logo on there. You can put a nice banner and you can just start posting company updates and my advice to you would be to start posting once a week, so if you have some corporate information or just some marketing material for your business that you would like to share.

I chatted about this in a previous episode. The previous episode I believe I was chatting about Predis ai, which is one of the AI marketing programs that I am getting familiar with. I don't really wanna recommend it just yet because I'm learning, but that is one that we are utilizing with a couple of the businesses that I'm working at at the moment, and I can tell you so far so good very interesting in the way that they create posts.

Doesn't take a genius to figure it. Definitely need some of your own corporate photos and some of your own marketing ideas as well as a message. But if you can throw those things together, that sucker can pump out marketing material for you and you should be posting once a week on your LinkedIn site.

And that's just a great way to kind of get your, get your word out there. I've chatted about this in the past. You do not want to be dumping lots of money into your social media marketing, okay? This is not a space to be spending all your hard-earned dollars. Unfortunately, passive marketing such as LinkedIn ads, Google ad words, Facebook Facebook business posts, that sort of thing where it's boosting or getting your information out there.

Unfortunately, 90% of the time in my mind it is missing the mark. I made this mistake when I first got started. Capital business development. You know, I mean, it's super funny because I really have zero excuse. I own a business development company. I understand the fundamentals of marketing a business, and I should have known better.

But you know what? Even me, even I got sucked in and thought about it and was like, you know what? Well, why not? Why not throw up some capital ads and just blast them out there and see where it goes? That's the problem. I would say it's not going to the right people at all. The people that are seeing these things, even though you can pick the demographics, they're, they're not, they're not on there thinking, oh crap, I need capital business development.

I'm gonna touch this ad. Or I need ABC company, 1 23. So thankful they're boosting this in my face. Trust me guys. I, I want it to work. I want it to work. I want passive marketing to be more effective. It's not, what you need to be utilizing it for is brand recognition, okay? It's not gonna be funneling all these great prospects to your company like you hope and wish it would.

What it does do is puts your brand and your logo in somebody's face with a message saying, Hey, you know, we got this business. You might like it. Maybe you should come check us. If they're seeing that on a repetitive basis, that's where you're starting to gain the value because what you're actually doing is you're, you're getting brand recognition of your business.

So when your lovely business development people or people such as myself at capital, start making calls on behalf of your company, start doing cold contacts, start doing introductions. There's a solid chance that we're not going in completely cold, that one of these prospects has actually seen one of your LinkedIn posts, has seen one of these ads.

And they're, they're a little bit familiar with the business, so it does make our job a little bit easier, but. I want you to think about your socials from that standpoint. It is about brand recognition and not selling. We will come in and we will market your product, get you in a room, and you can sell in person.

You're not selling over these social platforms. So please, if you're dumping tons and tons of money into your social marketing costs or, or your, your ad spend, it's better used elsewhere. And we can talk a little bit about how I would suggest doing that as we keep going in this show today. The next thing that I would love for you to really, really upgrade and make amazing, and you 100% need to do this is your website.

Your website. Ladies and gentlemen, your website is the face of your company. It is not your a hundred floor sky rise. As much as that is pretty awesome, . It's still not, it's still not the face of your company, okay? In this modern day and age. We are checking your website. That is how we are finding out what your, what you do, what your company does, why we might want you, why we're interested in your products.

We have very likely checked your website. And then there's a, there's a subconscious thing that happens when you check a website, okay? If it's crap, your brain is like, that product's crap. I'm not interested in this. And you check out, which is why my, my friends and family, my business development community, people, You gotta make your website visually appealing.

I want your website to be absolutely gorgeous. I wanna look at it and just be like that. That is amazing. I love the look of this because unfortunately, us millennials are the ones buying your products and we are a very visually appealing generation. And if we are looking at something that is just not catching our eye and just not providing that, boom, we want to stay.

Stay in this. Okay. I'm literally just gonna say it, short attention spans, that's what it is. We have short attention spans millennials. The next generations we, we just get bored easy. So we'll be looking at something and if it's just, if it's too technical, if there's not enough, pretty prettiness or I like to just call it visual appeal.

If there's not enough visual appeal in what you were trying to show me. It's really hard to stay, stay on topic and to want to engage with that material. So please, when you are designing your websites, it is critical. The content and the the message is critical. You need to be able to show that you are technically skilled, that you have a product that can provide me value.

However, I also need you to do this in a way I get engaged with. And what we are getting engaged with is high quality images, high resolutions, beautiful layouts, maybe new layouts that we're not really familiar with. You need to engage us, you need to engage us on these websites, okay? And the way that you're gonna do that is with visual appeal.

So I would like you. To go out and hire a professional. I know we live in a time where you're gonna have Squarespace or you can just build your own website. Don't do this. Please don't do this. Hire a professional. Let them know this website needs to boom. We need people to just be super engaged with this website.

I need visual appeal. Set them up. Set them up for success. Hire a really great web designer. Set them up for success. Let them know what you need. Help them maybe with the images, help pick images that, that blow you away so that you know it'll blow your customers away as well, and really start to develop a well-rounded advertising materials selection of highly, visually appealing material.

Okay. Websites. I've definitely hit on this. If you guys wanna touch a little back, the last episode, episode four, I did talk about websites a little more. So if you haven't listened to that episode, please go back, check it out, and then please come back to this one. The next thing that your business 100% needs is physical and digital brochures.

Okay. The, this is the way that you are going to market your material out to potential customers. This is the, this is the, the material that your business development teams, your sales teams, anybody marketing for your business, is going to be using a ton of, it needs to reflect your absolutely beautiful website.

So I always suggest that you go in and you create your website first. Go in, create that absolutely visually stunning website. Then hire an absolutely amazing graphic design company that can, that can compile that information into a beautiful two, four page brochure. What I like to use with my customers, depending on how many products and services that you, you offer, is to have just a general brochure that has on the front a very beautiful, engaging picture that really wraps you in, that makes you want to open this material.

Okay? Once again, gonna go back. , these brochures, especially if they're physical brochures, can sit on people's desks for an incredibly long time. Okay. I remember having a customer once tell me, Hey Kelly just calling you now, had your brochure on my desk for two years, but now now we need your services.

Okay. Well, yeah. You have no idea how long these brochures are gonna be sitting around, and it is very important that they are visually appealing. Somebody is looking at that, maybe they're having lunch or they're sitting at their desk, they have this brochure and they're finally saying, you know what? Hey, that's freaking awesome.

I, I need to know more about this ABC company because they, they have clearly put some time and effort into creating a very beautiful brochure. And that's the key. The key guys, they have to open those brochures, right? Like you'll, they'll never get the information of what it is you're selling or what your value is if they don't even open the front page.

And I can tell you if your brochure sucks. If, if it's not visually appealing, the odds of somebody even keeping it, let alone opening it are slim to none. So take a little bit of time. I want you to really focus on visual appeal when you were creating marketing materials these days. Okay? In 2022, 2023, and on in the, in the modern world.

We need visual appeal. We need something that's engaging. So I want you to spend some time creating marketing materials that are incredibly visually appealing with these brochures. What do you need in them? My suggestion is to not have a lot of information on that front page. I would like you to keep it fairly plain.

I would like you to maybe have your logo, maybe one brief message and a really beautiful picture. And from that point too, it, it generates interest because if you got this really, really interesting picture, you got the logo of the company, which likely also explains what type of company it is. And you got maybe just a brief message on the front, like a one liner or two liner.

It creates interest and intrigue and it makes them want to open that page to the next page. What I'm, what you don't wanna do is have a front page that's so convoluted that they don't even know what the heck they're looking at. I've seen brochures that have so much writing on the front that have like 50 pictures and a ton of writing, and you're like, what, what is this?

What is going on? What am I supposed to do with this? It can become incredibly overwhelming and they won't open it. So, Keep that front page, keep that cover. Not plain. You want it to be visually appealing and engaging. However, you also want it to have a little bit of intrigue and mystery, so keep it not too busy.

Okay? On that inside you want to have some information about your company. So, I'd like to say on that, that introductory page, you want to have like an about us, you know, who is 1, 2, 3, company, you know, where, what do you guys stand for? Where do you come from? What's your history? What do you do? Then have like a next page as like a differentiator.

You want to have some information. It's like, what are your services? Why choose you? Why are you better than your competition? What makes you stand out in the world? Very important. on the back, you might wanna just have some brief information as where your locations are. Maybe a little nother message if there's something else, maybe about the owner.

If if you're a smaller company and that's it. Like they don't need to be these gigantic, convoluted things they just need to say. Who we are, what we do, why choose us? What are our services? That's it. That's it. That's they. They don't need to be crazy special, but they do need to be high quality. They do need to be high quality.

And this also comes down to when you are printing your physical brochures, when you get your physical brochures printed. Your digital brochures should also match the, so your physical and digital brochures. Just ask for a copy of the digital copy when you get your physical ones made. And then you have one for your computer, which you can send via email.

And then you have your physical brochures. When you are printing your physical brochures. Do not use junk paper, okay? Please don't use thin paper in my mind. Card stock you want, you want something that's thick, that's got a little bit of meat to it when somebody picks it up, it shows quality guys, it shows quality.

I've held so many brochures that were literally paper and I'm just thinking like, how cheap, how cheap is this company like, and, and these companies weren't cheap, by the way, just a heads up. These companies were not cheap. They just didn't know better. Okay. You need to show value in everything you give people.

Okay? Your business cards should look great. They should. They should. They should. They should be thick. They should maybe be unique. They should have some information on them that makes them stand out. Like my capital business cards, they're multicolor, they look really cool. They're shiny. Why? What? Because why not?

Your company is cool. It's multicolor, it's shiny. Why shouldn't you convey that in all of your marketing materials? And so my suggestion with with your brochures, make sure that you're using a thick card stock. Make sure it's visually appealing and you are going to get good results. You are gonna get good results because you are, you are being judged on everything. You give somebody, I, I know you don't look at it that way, but you are your company. There's, there's subtle ways that we perceive things. Okay. And it can come down literally to the quality of your business card. It can come down to the thickness of your brochure.

It can come down to the image you chose. People will reject you for all sorts of reasons, so don't give them any, you know, try to try to limit those reasons. Try to build your brand in a way that comes across as highly valuable. And you do that by spending a little bit of time and creating high quality marketing materials.

Not cheap ones, high quality ones. Okay. And as for your digital brochures, your digital brochures should be just a mere image of your physical brochures. From there you can essentially just email those out in all of your LinkedIn connections or, or introduction messages. You can email those out to all of your customers who you're contacting cold or sending emails.

You should be attaching these brochures in, in all cold contact or all initial contact as well, just. Your customer is aware of who you are and what your services are. Instead of it just being like, Hey, I'm John from ABC 1 23 company and I'm having to go to your website. Obviously we are trying to direct them to the website.

However, you still wanna make it easy for them. You want your customers to have a good idea of who you are, what you do. If they search your, your email or if they, they're coming back to it, they should be able to pop a brochure and just get a really good idea of what your company is so that the next time you call them, they're well aware of who you are, what you do, and why they should give you the time of day. All right, everyone that concludes it for marketing materials. That truly is, that truly is what you need. You just need website, LinkedIn page, and you need brochures, digital and physical. You do those things. You have the marketing materials that you require to successfully market your business and for someone else to successfully market your business for you.

I would once again just recommend that you are utilizing a professional, professionals make all the difference guys. We, we don't create marketing material at Capital. We just recommend you out to, to specific places that we, that we like and we know do, do great work. However, you know, we use them too.

You, you need professionals. You need professionals creating your marketing material. They just, they know what is, they know what's I don't wanna say what's hip, cuz that's kind of cheesy, but you know what I mean. They know. They know what's current. They know how to, how to market you, where you're not gonna be old fashioned, where you're gonna stand out.

They're gonna help you create those highly visually appealing looks that you have to have in this modern day. And. And you can always go back to them for changes, edits, or just anything else that you might need to do as far as updates. So please, when you are creating your digital brochures, your marketing material utilize the professional they are gonna, they're, they're gonna make all the difference.

And when you were hiring for your web design, make sure that you were hiring somebody who creates incredibly high quality material. Don't hire Joe, the Joe, the, the, the web designer from two doors down, because unless you were, unless you were sure that Joe creates top-notch material, okay. Spending a little bit extra money upfront here to create a high quality website is going to boost your overall image in the eyes of your customer, and that it, it's critical.

It's absolutely critical to the success of your business. Your public image is number one.

Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Business Development Podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to do this for you. If you've enjoyed the content today, please do like, subscribe, rate. Give me, give me some heads up on how I'm doing.

Really appreciate it. You can always reach me directly with any questions. If you have any questions for the show please do send them to podcast@capitalbd.ca. I would love to start addressing some listener questions during my episodes. Thanks again for listening and I look forward to the next time.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca, see you next time on the Business Development Podcast.