Collateral Impact: How to Design Successful Sell Sheets
Are you forgetting something? With so much time and effort going into a sales presentation, there’s a crucial piece of the sales funnel that’s easy to overlook: the sell sheet leave-behind. Without sales collateral, all of that preparation goes to waste when your prospect has nothing to remember you by. Before your next big opportunity, make the most of your sales strategy with sales collateral that makes an impact.
What Should You Consider When Creating a Sell Sheet?
Business collateral is by no means a one size fits all scenario. It is always helpful to have a general piece of collateral that gives a nice overview of the products and/or services you offer. However, having an arsenal of product/service-specific sell sheets is perfect for tailoring a meeting to the prospect. With both general overview and product/service-specific sales collateral, include the aspects that make your company unique.
With sells sheets and sales collateral, printing more isn’t always better. Ordering too many right off the bat can result in a whole lot of wasted materials because of how frequently sales collateral needs to be updated with new products, services, and current images. Starting off with a more conservative quantity also gives your business greater flexibility in testing and measuring what messaging/imagery/content is the most effective.
The visual design of the piece is also an important factor when creating successful sell sheets. As a general rule, cluttered, confusing, or boring pieces get thrown away. Concise, visually compelling sales collateral highlights the most compelling information, including what your business is about, what you have to offer, and how to contact you. While you want to provide the information your prospect needs, too many details can distract from what’s important and can confuse or overwhelm your prospect.
Your Sell Sheets Should Be Versatile
However, versatile doesn’t mean universal. Every business has its own unique target market, and what works for one business won’t necessarily work for yours. As marketers, we encourage businesses to create buyer personas to fully flesh out the kinds of messaging and design that will best connect with their ideal customer. This can help expedite the process of designing sales collateral, while also improving your chances of making a successful marketing investment.
Having a few different sell sheet options tailored to specific types of prospects also helps ensure that your business is able to connect with them in the most relevant way. Specific prospects will have their own preferences in how they communicate and receive information. Having varied sales collateral helps to accommodate those preferences. For example, some individuals will respond better to charts and infographics, while others will appreciate bullet point lists or fact sheets. Your sales collateral should reflect what each of your buyer personas wants to see.
In addition to crafting visuals that sync up with your buyer personas, sell sheets should also target different customer needs and steps in the sales funnel. By having a variety of pieces on-hand, you can meet your customers where they’re at with the exact information they’re looking for. Some sales collateral can provide a general outline of your business, while other pieces can address common concerns or objections. If your business has a wide range of products and services, having specific sell sheets that describe them in detail is also a major benefit.
For more tips on designing sell sheets and other sales collateral, connect with a 360 Direct Marketing team member here.
