6 ‘Must Know' Tips For Creating A Killer Business Brochure
Marketing collateral on steroids: How to write the ultimate sales brochure for technical products (and other products and services)
One of the responsibilities of the advertising sales manager for a process equipment manufacturer is to serve as liaison between the advertising agency hired by the company to produce its marketing campaign and print brochures, and the staff engineers.
The engineers usually complain the advertising copywriter doesn't understand the product or the audience – and that the copy is, many times, way off base.
The ad agency counters that engineers may know technology but don't know writing, marketing, brochure designs, or selling – and that they want to cram the sales brochure with too many unnecessary details. A brochure, after all, is not exactly a technical communication!
Who was right? As a matter of fact both arguments have some merit.
On one hand, clients – especially the engineers – complain that the agency's brochure copy is superficial. Often the cause is insufficient research on the writer's part in order to understand the technology and the needs, concerns, and interests of the target audience. The copy he writes reflects this lack of understanding.
Another problem with agency-written product literature is a tendency toward cleverness for the sake of being clever. The reader often doesn't get the joke, pun, or reference in the headline and she is turned off rather than engaged.
On the other hand, the agency's advertising strategy is for the brochure flyer to gain attention and be clear to the reader. The engineers, though, write in-depth about their product and its technology, and tend to assume that the reader knows as much as the writer, speaks the same jargon, and has the same level of interest in the technology. And often this is not the case.
Given these conditions, how can you – as an engineer or a manager, who either writes copy for the business brochure, performs the copyediting, approves copy, or provides input for ad agencies or freelance industrial copywriters – do your job better so the finished sales brochure is the best one possible?
In other words, how do you reconcile the agency's advertising strategies with the engineers' technical communications? How to write a technical product brochure that sells? (Please note that although the focus in this article is on brochure of technical nature, these are fundamental principles that can be applied to any field or niche.) Here are 6 tips for writing a powerful sales brochure:
1. Define the topic. Is your company brochure about a solution? A system? A product line? A product? A specific model? The support services you offer for that product? The accessories? The narrower the topic, the more focused and effective your sales brochure is within the limited space available.
Tip: Your brochure doesn't have to cover everything. You can always decide to have other pieces of sales literature that go into more depth on certain aspects of the product.
2. Know your audience. Are you writing to engineers or managers? The former may be interested in technical and performance specifications. The latter may want to know about support, service, ease of use, user benefits, or return on investment.
But even when engineers are your audience, keep in mind that they still may not know nearly as much about all aspects of the industry outside their expertise. So, when in doubt, it is better to explain so everyone understands, than to assume that everyone already understands. No engineer has ever complained to the author that the company brochure he wrote was too clear.
3. Write with your objective in mind. Most brochures on technical products or services support the selling process but are not designed to complete it on their own. That's why you need to clarify the sales brochure's objective.
Is the objective of the marketing brochure to convince the prospect that your technical design is superior to your competition? Or show that you have more features at a better price? Or demonstrate that your system will pay back its cost in less than 6 months?
4. Include the two things every brochure should contain. These are (a) what your prospects need and want to know about your product to make their buying decision, and (b) what you say to persuade them that your product is the best product choice – and your company is the best vendor.
Be selective. While the advertisement agency's copy is sometimes too light and tells the reader too little, engineer's copy often makes the opposite error, attempting to cram every last technical fact and feature into a tri fold brochure, or even a four or eight page brochure.
Understand the selling environment. There are three basic selling situations for process equipment, chemicals, and other industrial products. You must know what situation your product falls into, so you can market it effectively.
The first situation is that the prospect is not aware of the problem he has that your product can solve, or does not consider it a priority. To get this prospect's attention, your marketing brochure must dramatize the problem and its severity, and then position your product as the solution.
The second situation is where the prospect is aware of the problem, but is not convinced that your type of product is the best solution. A reprint of test results plus an offer of a free trial can go a long way to give credibility to the company and draw customers to try your product.
The third situation is when the prospect knows what his problem is, believes your type of product is the right solution, but needs to be convinced that your product is the best choice in the category.
Some ways to demonstrate your product's superiority are with a table comparing your product with the other companies', by giving specifications or talking about functionality, technology or design features.
There are many other copy writing techniques available to produce a superior technical product brochure in any of these three situations. But if you follow the basics in this article and do nothing else, you are guaranteed to see a substantial improvement in your brochures that you, your sales reps, and your customers will appreciate. You might even some day receive that rare compliment: "You know, I actually read your brochure. It wasn't boring, and it told me what I needed to know!"
For more helpful tips and information about copy writing and marketing please visit www.bly.com/reports.
About the Author
Bob Bly is an independent copy writer and consultant, specializing in writing brochures, direct mail, ads and PR materials for industrial and high-tech marketers. His clients include IBM, McGraw-Hill, Becton Dickinson, Nortel Networks, Grumman, ITT, Alloy Technology, York Saw & Knife, and Lucent Technologies. Bob holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Rochester and is the author of over 70 books including Internet Direct Mail: The Complete Guide to Successful e-mail Marketing Campaigns (NTC Business Books). Bob Bly can be reached at rwbly@bly.com.
Taking Action Against Child Labor
business communication and report writing notes business communication and report writing notes business communication and report writing notes
Some time or the other during our schooling most of us have been assigned the task of writing book reports. We have to live with book report assignments throughout our academic life, grade school, high school and college.
Book reports in grade school are easy as the writing is simple and most of the times the teacher takes an indulgent view due to the student's age.
High school book reports are a different ball game altogether. Are they not? The teacher expects us to know what we are doing and the assignments too are more unmanageable. This is the time when we are expected to know how to write a book report properly without those irritating grammatical errors and fledgling mistakes.
Nobody likes remarks like "see me after class" from teachers but still every one of us has had to face them one way or the other during high school.
College, again, throws new challenges when we find that the concept of book reports is not crushed but haunts us under a different name altogether. Suddenly book reports are termed as essays and instead of broad stories the assignments become more focused on an idea that is a recurrent element in the book and specific themes. Instead of indulging in wishful thinking and hoping we were still in high school where things were easier, it is the time when we are required to unearth our talent if we have any.
If we really get down to doing it seriously, learning how to write book reports is pretty elementary. It is simply a matter of organizing and doing it chronologically instead of indulging in it in a haphazard manner. The best way of writing book reports is to work on it step by step. Without trying to make notes in-between, first read the entire book. Writing notes in between may result in loosing focus of the underlying idea the author wants to convey.
The second step is to decide on the focus of your report as per the guidelines of the assignment: depending upon whether the assignment is for a general summary or a focus on a particular aspect of the book, prepare a general outline and structure of the report.
Once the outline and the structure is ready all that is needed is to keep in mind the book's major themes and start pouring your heart out on what you feel the book and the theme is all about. After all, a book report is all about enlarging the small issue.
However if you are practically a novice in writing book reports and/or want to improve your technique, there are a good number of websites that can assist you in your endeavor.
According to William Scott in his ‘Organisation Theory', business communication is defined as "a process which involves the transmission and accurate replication of ideas ensured by feedback for the purpose of eliciting actions which will accomplish organizations goals'.
Business Communication is used to promote a product, service, or organization; relay information within the business; or deal with legal and similar issues. It is also a means of relying between a supply chain, for example the consumer and manufacturer.
At its most basic level, the purpose of communication in the workplace is to provide employees with the information they need to do their jobs.
Business Communication can also refer to internal communication. A communications director will typically manage internal communication and craft messages sent to employees. It is vital that internal communications are managed properly because a poorly crafted or managed message could foster distrust or hostility from employees.
There are several methods of business communication, including:
Web-based communication - for better and improved communication, anytime anywhere ...
e-mails, which provide an instantaneous medium of written communication worldwide;
Reports - important in documenting the activities of any department;
Presentations - very popular method of communication in all types of organizations, usually involving audiovisual material, like copies of reports, or material prepared in Microsoft PowerPoint or Adobe Flash;
Telephoned meetings, which allow for long distance speech;
Forum boards, which allow people to instantly post information at a centralized location; and
Face to face meetings, which are personal and should be succeeded by a written follow-up.
Why are communication skills in business essential?
In any form of business, communication is an internal as well as an external affair. The success of the business rests upon communication and it has become all the more essential due to the following reasons:
Increase in size: Business firms have grown tremendously in scale of operations. A large business firm today employs thousands of people and has factories or offices in different parts of the world. The head office of the company must always be in close touch with branch offices. An efficient system of communication is required for this purpose.
Growing specialization: Narrow division of work results in different activities being handled by different departments. Due to narrow outlook every department tends to overstress its own work. Sound communication is essential for ensuring mutual co-operation and understanding between different departments. Otherwise the organisation cannot function smoothly. If, for example, there is no communication between production and sales departments, the sales department might book orders which the production department cannot supply.
Technologicaladvancements: Rapid changes in science and technology lead to obsolescence of technology and knowledge. In order to upgrade or modernise technology, management must persuade employees to accept new technology. Regular training of staff becomes necessary to update their knowledge and to provide them the skills needed to apply new technology.
Cut-throat competition: Liberalisation and globalisation have resulted in severe competition between different sectors of business. Persuasive communication in the form of advertisements, personal contacts and publicity becomes essential to survive in the race of competition.
Trade union movement: In all business sectors, employee unions are very strong and powerful. Management must consult union leaders on several matters. Regular exchange of information and ideas between managers and union officials helps to maintain healthy relations between them.
Human relations: Effective communication between management and employees is necessary to develop mutual trust and confidence. Participation of employees in the decision-making process and other means of communication help to develop among employees a sense of belonging and loyalty to the organisation.
Public relations: Society expects more and more from managers. Business has to keep Government, distributors, suppliers, investors and other sections of society well-informed about its contributions to society. Public relations help business to improve its image in society and big enterprises employ professional experts for this purpose.
Personal asset: Communication skill is essential for success in every job. Managers are required to deliver speeches, write documents and conduct interviews. The ability to communicate effectively is equally essential for promotion in career.
Essential Communication Skills for Managers
Good communication is the foundation of good managerial skills. In fact, communication skills for managers are a part of management studies also. All would-be managers are trained in this. It is essential not only for the growth and success of the company but also for the personal growth.
However, just theoretical knowledge is not enough. If a manager does not possess practical communication skills, he would fail. He may have all the requisite technical skills, know the business and policies but fail to communicate effectively. This inadequacy overshadows the other skills.
Generally, the main problem is that the effort to communicate is missing. Also, in some cases there is no effort on behalf of the organization to introduce some measure or plan to improve communication skills for the managers.
The real question here is how to develop these communication skills for the managers. The answer is innovation and a little bit of effort. Find below specified some of the ways in which mangers can improve their communication skills.
The first thing that an organization needs to do is to gauge the communication skills of the managers through an evaluation of the performance of their routine activities. The human resource department of a company should implement some target and performance specific activities. Then, conduct various surveys and audits throughout the year to measure the communication skills of the mangers and supervisors.
Another method is to conduct training for the managers to teach them interpersonal communication skills. In this kind of training, the managers should be taught topics such as measuring the quality of personal communication; how to recognize the obstacles to good communication; developing interpersonal behavior to create healthy working relationships; non-verbal communication skills; developing active listening skills; giving and receiving feedback.
Apart from these, a number of other communication activities should be organized to develop communication skills of the managers. These activities include organizing communication audit for each mangers area of responsibility. Team sessions or periodic workshops on staff communication skills can be conducted.
A regular newssheet or an email newsletter should be sent to all the staff members in a particular area of activity. This should explain to the manager the importance of the need of the employers and thus suggesting them how to deal with these needs.
They should conduct regular meetings to review the performance of all the employees in the company rather than the customary practice of six monthly or quarterly reviews. This will keep the managers alert too.
Finally, the most important tip to develop communication skills for managers is to recognize their own strengths and weaknesses. Only a managers inner potential can make him a good communicator.
Role of Communication in the Workplace
Most organizations understand the need and importance of effective communication in the workplace and therefore concentrate to improve its standard. These organizations strongly believe that communication is the central point of all activities and everything else revolves around it.
To achieve the desired standard of workplace communication, constant efforts are required. Any failure in workplace communication results in chaos and defeated purposes. To avoid these situations, organizations need to make specific yardsticks and follow them strictly. Proper flow of communication in the workplace ensures harmony of objectives among all individuals. Any gap in communication or miscommunication hampers the coordination between various departments.
The methods followed for effective workplace communication vary among organizations. And the size and objectives play an important role to choose the best method to be applied. In a big organization both verbal and written communication are vital whereas, in small organization only verbal communication would be enough.
Communication is an exchange of information and it helps people understand the possible outcome of business processes. Therefore, it is important that the media chosen for communication is familiar among all people so that people can easily attain and provide information. To increase the effectiveness of workplace communication, a balanced combination of formal and informal means is beneficial. Gossip and rumors are indeed effective ways to circulate information and receive feedback.
Communication helps decide upon and achieve professional and personal goals. It is important for top level executives and managers to communicate with their juniors and clear their doubts. Regular interactions among various executives, ensures the meaningfulness and authenticity of information. It helps executives build positive attitude and strengthen their beliefs.
Effective communication can be done using various internal journals, magazines, pamphlets and intranet. They can serve as official proof of the happening of an event and other information.
Effective listening and trusting the speaker are two essential elements which help people concentrate on the subject matter of communication. While communicating, all people should keep the objectives of communication in mind and avoid any bias towards each other.
Communication in the workplace establishes a bond among people of various departments and converts them into one specific identity. Effective communication helps people save their precious time and increase personal and professional productivity.
Attempts should be made to seek feedback from the receivers of information to ensure that communication has actually taken place. Without a proper feedback, the process of effective communication is incomplete.
Several kinds of information are circulated in an organization on a daily basis but people need to understand which information is relevant for them and which is not. Communication in the workplace helps people understand what is expected of them and how to convert their talent into performance.
The first big impact that communication skills can have on a company are on the employees. If the employees feel that they can easily communicate with the top level executives, the communication inspires them to become more loyal and hard working. The company can become a better place to work with a better production level.
Another benefit is that good communication skills there would be drastic reduction of mistakes and misunderstandings. When there is greater and more effective interaction between the employees, there will be lesser number of mistakes and misunderstandings. This is beneficial for a company as it would save a great deal of time, effort and money for the company.
Communication skills also take a great role in selling. People thus realize how and which client they should deal with, this in turn increases the business for the company. These are few examples of the benefits that good communication skills can render to a business entity while in actuality, there are many more benefits.
Achieving effective business communication
Effective communication is considered to be one of the most important prerequisites of corporate success. That is why a large number of organizations are engaged in building a network of internal as well as external effective business communication.
Effective business communication enables an organization to market itself in a better perspective. It helps create a favorable brand image and enhance its relationships with public and the media. It helps an organization motivate and guide its employees and share the values of corporate culture. With effective business communication, the employees can easily be told about the corporate culture, visions, plans and strategies.
It also allows an organization to achieve better business negotiations and strengthen the bond with its customers. Therefore, to achieve success an organization needs to have employees with excellent business communication skills.
People with good communication skills are very successful in motivating others and therefore tend to lead people in a desired direction efficiently. Good business communication leads to enhanced business leadership skills. To empower an organization with effective communication skills some steps are required to be taken.
To know the degree of communication gap, a survey needs to be done in form of questionnaire and one to one basis, if possible. This is very helpful to know the root of the problem. After getting the feedback, a review is done and all the areas which are found related with the problem are worked upon. It is important to consider those areas to avoid any problem in future.
Take all the steps required to tackle the situation. Duly inform about the changes and improvements to all who will be affected by them. It helps make a positive effect on those people. Sometimes, it is also possible that organizations overshadow these requirements to achieve their corporate objectives. They need to understand the importance of effective business communication and its effect on the business.
Communication affects an organization internally as well as externally. Any negative news floating within the organization should be cleared immediately through effective communication. Otherwise, it will become a belief and affect the productivity of individuals along with that of the organization.
All individuals who require communication training should be provided that and their performance should be reviewed on regular intervals. There are organizations which involve their employees in these kinds of programs. And, most of the organizations have actually been benefited by these training programs.
Always remember that effective business communication is a two way process and positive results can be achieved only with the combined efforts of the organization and the individuals. To achieve success both of them must understand and perform their role well.
About the Author
Dr.R.Senapathi, Director, Department of Management Studies, Adhiparasakthi Engineering College, Melmaruvathur, Tamilnadu, India.
