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10 secrets to create a sales collateral

by: enquiry on Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 Time: 11:19 AM

10 secrets to create a sales collateral
1. Always write from the customer's perspective and address ways your product or service helps solve common customer challenges. If your customers can't identify with the content, the collateral will have no impact.
2. Just like you would with a good marketing plan, start with a clear value proposition and offer solutions that could become customer benefits.
3. Steer clear of internal company jargon. Instead, use language that your audience can identify with to show you understand your customer.
4. Though we may like to think otherwise, chances are your product is not a commodity. Your messaging needs to be value-driven and demonstrate what your company and your sellers do to support your customers.
5. Talk to your customers. What value has your company, products or services created for them that new prospects would want to know about?
6. Talk to your sales force. What messages do they use that resonate with their customers? What was lacking in previous collateral that you could improve upon?
7. Understand how and when the collateral will be used. This will determine its content and the level of detail included. If your sellers are distributing the brochure to the purchasing department, you might emphasize implementation savings and total cost of ownership. This is quite different from a piece that is given to line managers or technicians. You may want to create several versions of the collateral, rather than making it "one size fits all" and satisfying to no one.
8. Too Much Copy: Whatever you wrote for a first draft, you can probably cut the word count in half. Say the same thing with far fewer words. Let the words on the page breath with more white space around it. Let the shorter copy put greater emphasis on the points you want to really sink in, that you want the prospect to remember.
9. Features Before Benefits: It's bad enough when collateral focuses on features without explaining what they do. But even if you're including both features and benfits, too often marketers put them in the wrong order. List the benefit first, then follow with the feature that enables that benefit or outcome. Prospects want the benefits, they want the outcomes your product or service represents. Start with what they want to hear.
10. No Call to Action: Your sales collateral is not meant to be a direct-response piece. But if you do everything else right and the prospect wants to learn more, what do you want them to do? Plenty of collateral lists the company's main line. Do you want motivated prospects to call the receptionist? Or could you promote a dedicated line to a sales consultant? Better yet, what about including a value-added offer so that both ready-to-buy and not-quite-ready-to-buy prospects are equally compelled to respond, engage and keep walking the path with you towards a sale?
SPARCInfo Technologies is a leading content publishing company with an established presence across the United States, Europe and Asia. Based out of India’s Silicon Valley, Bangalore

About the Author

SPARCInfo Technologies is a leading content publishing company with an established presence across the United States, Europe and Asia. Based out of India’s Silicon Valley, Bangalore,SPARCInfo Technologies provides a host of services – Content Writing, Lingual Translation, Sales Collateral Development, Online Marketing, Competitive Intelligence and content for E-Learning Portals. Employing the best talent the Content Writing Industry has on offer and leveraging our vast network of content writers, lingual experts, marketing specialists, PR managers, creative specialists and domain experts, distributed worldwide, SPARCInfo Technologies creates content that provides an ideal blend of market positioning with a creative writing flair. To know more visit: www.sparcinfo.com

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