Booklet Advertising: Is It Still Effective In 2021?

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Booklet Advertising|Booklet Advertising: Is It Still Effective In 2021? According to a study conducted by Bentley University in the United States, people value printable materials that can be touched. And why not?

After all, digital fatigue can take a toll on anyone’s life. All you would need to feel human again is the sense of touch. In doing so a booklet comes out ever powerful.

Still unsure how?

Let us explain.

You’ve probably read a booklet on more than one occasion without even realizing it. All those catalogs, pamphlets, or training manuals you witness in your daily life are a form of a booklet.

But if your marketing brains are getting ready to reject the traditional idea of integrating a booklet in your communications, then take a pause and rethink your decision.

Integrating this powerful tool can just be the best decision you take for your marketing this year.

This blog post demystifies all the core advantages that a booklet can bring to your organization in 2021.

Why booklet advertising is still an effective communication tool in 2021?

There are a variety of reasons why a booklet that apparently seems to be old school is still a powerful marketing tool. However, to realize the why, you would have to take a few steps back and understand what really is a typical booklet.

Understanding the typical characteristics will enable you to map the scope and power of this marketing tool. More so, it will help you to devise a strategy to design yours according to your unique market requirements.

What is a booklet?

A booklet is actually a little book. It comes in a variety of shapes and sizes with 8-40 pages and simple saddle-stitched binding.

Booklets are one of the most effective promotional tools that any company should have. Booklets allow you to provide your customers with eye-catching, relevant, and focused information while properly branding your organization and generating sales.

They are commonly used as brochures, catalogs, rag mags, newsletters, Bluray, and DVD inserts and can be utilized as little tale books, instructional manuals, and recipe books (DVD booklet). Annual reports, for example, are essentially special-purpose booklets.

A booklet is often made up of four or more sheets of letter-size paper folded in half. And the number of pages in a booklet is always divisible by four, for example, eight pages, twelve pages, sixteen pages, and so on. Of course, some of the pages can be left blank.

Benefits of booklet advertising

A booklet is a perfect choice to help grow the company’s business because the booklet states everything related to the company’s products through image assistance.

Here are the reasons why booklet advertising is still considered effective and valuable despite the rising popularity of digital marketing.

1. Immersive interaction

In the age of the internet, we’ve lost the pleasure of touching and interacting with a brand. The amount of data available on the internet is mind-boggling — enough to give anyone a migraine. A booklet, on the other hand, can be read, handed on to colleagues, or kept if it is of excellent quality.

The best part is it has the tactile experience that software products fail to provide.

Having a company’s booklet is much more than just looking up information on the internet. It not only shows that you are a valuable prospect, but it also fosters interaction and attention.

Rather than scouring the web for an individual article or page, you solely need to read the information and possibly store it in the draw. Plus, nothing beats the scent of freshly printed paper – or maybe it’s just us!

2. Simplified audience targeting

When you have your target audience’s exact contact information and address, an advertising booklet is guaranteed to reach them. You can certainly target your prospects online, but even those advertisements may go unnoticed or be disregarded.

You can, however, put your booklet through the door of those you think would become customers, and the potential is infinite.

Consider how many takeaway menus you receive each day, each detailing the restaurants in your area. The tangible marketing is far more memorable, as evidenced by the fact that many of us seek the menu when we don’t feel like cooking.

And as your advertising booklet is tangible, consumers are more likely to remember your brand when they need services related to your marketing.

3. Personalized communications

Booklets have plenty of room to discuss each service or product in a concentrated manner. It helps in the creation of an informative version of your branding by delivering:

  • Your business history to get loyalty
  • Introduction of new services and product
  • Explain existing services and products
  • Relay core ideas

If people find your booklet beneficial, they can forward it to others who might be interested. This helps in the expansion of your company’s reach.

Also, when it comes to digital advertising, there are length and character restrictions. A PPC ad, for example, is limited to 30-30-80 characters (2 headlines up to 30 characters, one description up to 80 characters). A single Facebook image ad can have a headline of up to 25 characters and a description of up to 125 characters, whereas an Instagram ad can have up to 2200 characters, two lines, and up to 30 hashtags.

On the other hand, a booklet allows you more room to discuss your organization, products, and services.

Therefore, choosing a booklet to advertise your product or service is highly effective as there is no length or character limitation.

4. Cost-efficient

Budget is, of course, at the top of everyone’s concern. Online advertising might cost thousands of dollars each month, but advertising booklets, on the other hand, are pretty affordable. And if printed well, it can last a long time.

One of the best aspects of publishing Booklets for advertising purposes is the cost, especially if you order in bulk. The larger your print run, the less you’ll have to pay.

Also, you have a lot of control over the price of your Booklet order. You may easily change the pricing by deciding what you can afford – for example, the number of pages in your booklet, the paper type you want to use, and the product finishes you desire. Customization gives you the ability to make better pricing decisions for your organization.

You can even deliver the booklets by hand or take advantage of bulk postage rates offered by most mailing firms to ensure that your campaign reaches your target audience.

5. Improves Return On Investment (ROI)

Online advertisements do not last long and vanish in a flash. Booklets, on the other hand, being a physical representation of the advertisement, not only stress it but stay for longer. They don’t quickly fade away unless they’re discarded.

6. Improves and retains traffic

Booklets are helpful in capturing the attention of potential clients, especially for small and emerging organizations with limited resources. A booklet designed with the latest graphic design trends is a unique method to catch people’s attention.

An online advertisement is only visible for a few seconds; hence it lacks attention. On the other hand, booklets tend to last longer since clients take them home and keep them for longer.

Booklet advertising is all about the company’s product and service offerings to the customers and enticing them to a visit. It becomes super attractive because it contains little text and a lot of images.

Furthermore, booklets are significantly more effective than digital advertising because they demand the buyers’ whole attention. They encourage the reader to sit and sift through the pages, looking at your products, which is far more effective than simply scrolling through a paid internet advertisement on their smartphone.

If discount coupons or response forms are included, the booklets become even more appealing to potential customers.

7. Improved versatility

Booklets are one of the most versatile tools for informing people about your products or services.

Booklets with product information are frequently displayed at the front of the store or in the waiting area of retail stores and offices with a lot of customer traffic. For example, customers can review booklets on each category of the financial product while waiting in the lobby of banks.

Booklets are also taken to trade exhibitions and presentations by marketers to hand out to potential clients or business partners.

8. Increased business authority

Investing in a proper booklet will establish trust and demonstrate that you value your customers. Furthermore, you can increase your clients’ confidence in your business by including your objectives and goals.

Booklet designs that are professional and eye-catching, along with high-quality printing, lend credibility, authenticity, and respect to a company.

Booklets are so crucial for business promotion, therefore don’t compromise on the printing and design quality. It is worthwhile to invest in good design. A poorly printed booklet can destroy your company’s credibility and value.

A booklet also boosts your company’s authority by demonstrating to customers that you’re a serious organization with regular and reliable business procedures.

9. Effective promotion

Booklets can contain tear-off offers or discounts, making them an effective advertising tool. They can be used for effective promotion, create a time-sensitive offer, or other promotional campaigns. The best part?

It makes the measurement of the efficacy of your campaigns so much easier than the complex digital landscape.

Final thoughts

By looking at the effectiveness of booklet advertising, there remains no reason why you should not try using a booklet as a marketing strategy.

You must have a booklet as a crucial component of your sales funnel to provide more detailed information about what you’re selling or how you’re educating people.

Whether you’re using a booklet for technical specifications, a workplace manual, a product magazine, or something else entirely, you’ll want to make the most of every page to get the most bang for your buck.

To make the most of the booklet, make sure your booklet catches the reader’s attention, entertains them, piques their interest in the offered product or service, and finally prompts them to take a specific action.

It is necessary to have a descriptive and appealing brochure that will stay in people’s minds.

Let us know in the Comments section below what are your thoughts on booklet advertising.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor|Atreyee ChowdhuryAtreyee Chowdhury works full-time as an Instructional Designer and is passionate about writing. She has helped many small and medium-scale businesses achieve their content marketing goals with her carefully crafted and compelling content. She lives in Bangalore, India with her husband and parents. She loves to read, experiment with different cuisines, travel, and explore the latest content marketing and L&D trends in her free time. You can reach her on Linkedin or write to her at [email protected] for any content writing/marketing requirements.

3 Marketing Strategies to Direct your Food Business towards Success

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Marketing Strategies|3 Marketing Strategies to Direct your Food Business towards SuccessRestaurant marketing trends are continuously changing the digital works, and staying updated often seems a challenge. This saying holds good, especially when you’re keeping up with day-to-day restaurant management. And, choosing to ignore marketing for your restaurant is never an option. It is essential for retaining current customers and is an excellent way of maintaining healthy long-term growth.

Thereby, successful business tycoons suggest establishing a marketing campaign. It is because it helps in understanding your target audience. By doing so, you’ll have a glimpse over whether you’re marketing for young millennials or families. And, in turn, helps in ensuring that your brand message reaches your target customers most effectively. Spreading those marketing resources wisely is not to mention!

Now that you’re focused on growing your restaurant business, here are some marketing strategies that can help you increase your business revenue. These are:

Enable Mobile Ordering and Delivery:

Customers today are demanding more flexibility and personalization in their ordering. And, this change makes restaurants experiment with things like ordering through self-service kiosks to even through a mobile device.

Restaurant services and e-commerce businesses witnessed a paradigm shift when they delivered food. Also, both these businesses saw an immense increase in revenue.

Research shows that customers that order food online tend to visit a restaurant more frequently than those who don’t. And, restaurants are reaping the benefits of increased visibility and better promotions on delivery websites and apps.

Just make sure that you have operational software in place to track the financial impact of delivery expenses. By doing so, you tend to make more informed decisions about your marketing priorities.

Optimize your Restaurant’s Menu Engineering:

One of the most visible pieces of restaurant marketing is its menu. And, that’s the reason your restaurant menu must be relevant and profitable for your bottom line. Know that creating menus need an apt balance of popularity and profitability. Thus, make sure real-time and accurate data drive it.

Successful restaurant owners are all thumbs up for the latest technology, that’s outdoor signage from Sun Vision Display, as it fascinates customers to visit the restaurant and place orders. Studies show that 30% of customers influence digital menus at their restaurants. Also, it helps in converting paper menu cards into digital ones.

As a restaurant owner, you can display all your food ideas by having a digital menu list in place. This screen also helps in displaying respective prices on the digital signage screen. These are a must-have for businesses and restaurants, especially as they show offers and discounts, which helps grab customer attention and motivates them to place orders.

Prioritize Local SEO:

Local Search Engine Optimization means optimizing your local restaurant website. By doing so, you attain a higher rank on Google pages for their search keywords local area users search about your state or city. For example, “the best pizza in Chicago”.

Also, for optimizing your website for local SEO, it’s vital to work over your keywords. This factor will help you see what your audience is searching for. You can make use of tools like Google Keywords Planner or Keywordtool.io. Now you know all about it, turn to website development to focus on ranking for these terms.

Local SEO doesn’t show quick rewards, but it can have bigger prizes. Know that around 75% of users never move past the first page of search engine results. Thus, if your SEO efforts are up to the mark, the impact on your revenue and visits can be significant.

The Verdict

Restaurant marketing strategies are complicated and ever-changing. However, by using these creative strategies, you can gain information about customers and operations, which can help your restaurant marketing gain new revenue.

5 tips for getting things right with your virtual conference

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | 5 tips for getting things right with your virtual conferenceIt’s extraordinary now to think that, as recently as two years ago, holding virtual conferences was a rather niche pursuit for business leaders. However, necessity is the mother of invention, as the saying goes – and, now, many of these leaders both attend and run virtual events.

This trend has realised a fair few advantages listed in a UC Today article – like the absence of both a commute and having to repeatedly trek across conference centres. However, you should still be careful to follow certain dos and don’ts when delivering a virtual conference.

Decide what you are aiming to achieve with your conference

Maybe you’ve got some news to break to the world, you want to address a specific issue that has long been left lingering or you have spotted an opportunity to generate more revenue. Alternatively, maybe the conference is an annual one usually held in person but you want to digitise it this time.

As a virtual conference isn’t easy to organise, you want to be sure why you are doing it and how it would benefit your audience.

What audience are you eager to attract?

You probably already have a good idea of what the conference’s audience will be if the event will be an internal-only one strictly intended for employees of your company.

Otherwise, though, you should ask yourself a series of questions outlined by UKTN – questions that could help you figure out how to attract the ‘right’ audience. For example, do you want to pique the interest of new customers, and from what age range would you like to draw attendees?

Determine a message or theme for your event

Is there a particular message you would like to be left in attendees’ heads as the conference closes? If so, keeping this message – or what one thing you want the audience to remember from the event – in mind as you organise the conference could help you to keep it streamlined.

If you can’t decide on a specific message, at least give the conference a theme for all of its elements to revolve around, enabling people to discern what to expect.

Organise more than one speaker

Speakers you organise for your virtual conference can include managers or employees of your business or professional, industry-relevant speakers from outside your company.

You could even choose to wrap up the event with an inspiring talk from a motivational speaker, leaving the audience feeling encouraged and energised.

Test your tech before the conference proper

If there’s going to be a technical glitch, you obviously don’t want it to happen during the conference itself. This is why, once you’ve selected all of the tech you will need for the big day, you should arrange a test run to make sure all of the required hardware and software works as it should.

To this end, you should utilise a virtual conference software platform from a reliable provider like ON24, and ask guest speakers to check their own audiovisual equipment if they will be participating from their individual homes.

4 Hard-Hitting Strategies For Effective Marketing

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Effective Marketing|4 Hard-Hitting Strategies For Effective MarketingIs your business sitting on a secret? Are you hiding your light under a bushel? The answer could very well be yes if you are not using effective marketing to get your message out there. The good news is you can read all about how to ensure your marketing efforts are hard-hitting as possible, in the post below.

Decide on a clear branding message

The first strategy that you need to use if you want your marketing to be as powerful as possible, is deciding on a clear branding message. This means you need a unique value proposition that will ensure customers flock to you instead of your competitors. You also need to convey this message in a consistent style that encompasses fonts, colours, imagery, and even the tone of the text you are using.

Indeed, many businesses choose to publish a scheme or guide to maintain consistency. Yet, to do this, they must first go through the process of defining the parameters listed above.

Of course, some companies choose to do all of this creative branding work themselves. Although many have greater success using a business offering professional branding services that have experience in this area. Indeed, many organizations find the detailed research and analysis that such specialists can offer, invaluable to the process.

The branding message is also always made clearer if you have a clear brand to begin with, so you should spend a lot of time on the brand voice, the name, the logo design and so on. The better that you can do these things, the more likely it is that you are going to have success with the branding message itself – and therefore that your marketing will be much more hard-hitting. The clearer your brand is, the easier it will be for potential customers to relate to it and show an interest. In addition to designing a great logo, you could consider using an Email signature generator as well, which could prove extremely helpful when tackling email marketing as one of your strategies. A great email signature will not only promote your brand, but it will offer your clients yet another chance to get in contact or get back to your website where the sales are made.

Use paid social media

Social media marketing is often appealing because of the low costs involved. After all, it costs nothing to set up a business account, and publish content there. However, if you want your marketing to be as impactful as possible it’s vital that you don’t ignore paid social media marketing.

Indeed, now other platforms have followed facebook’s example, being seen on social media largely depends on paying for posts. Additionally, be sure that you time the publication of your social media posts and paid promotions as well if you want them to be as effective as possible in reaching the right people.

Pay attention to UX

To be successful your marketing message needs to match up with the experience that you are offering your customers. This means if you want to get them to trust and have faith in your product, the experience you offer them, particularly online, is highly important.

To that end, investing in great UX is money well spent, as it will help maximize customers’ experience, whenever they have contact with you. Additionally, by making sure your UX is the best it can be you will remove any potential hurdles to the purchase process, ensuring you maximize sales.

Show authenticity

Today’s consumers are savvy to the processes they are a part of. They know that the content you release is designed to further your goals as a business. With that in mind, too much sales content can leave your customers with a bad taste in their mouths.

Instead, the focus should be on authenticity. That means less cheesy advert and more honest discussion about the use, features, and benefits of your product. Humanizing your marketing can also work wonders here – so consider using real people from your workforce instead of trained actors and offer content with a sense of rawness like live video.

5 Tips to Generate Sales for Your Dropshipping Business

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | 5 Tips to Generate Sales for Your Dropshipping Business

On the surface, running a sales-generating dropshipping business seems like a straightforward process.

Customers order and pay for your product, you pay the supplier after receiving the consumers’ payments, and the supplier handles the inventory and ships the items to the buyers.

Easy peasy, right?

Well, not quite.

With thousands of other dropshippers in the market, you’ll need the right strategies, the best dropshipping tools, and a can-do attitude for your business to beat competitors and gain massive profits.

In this guide, we’ll look at five tried and tested tips to generate sales for your dropshipping business.

1. Find the right dropshipping company for your business

A dropshipping solution or company can manage your order fulfillment logistics seamlessly.

Find ones that match your unique business needs and help you operate efficiently to ultimately grow your sales.

For instance, ecommerce solution Oberlo lets you source products from various suppliers available on AliExpress (among other platforms) and add them to your Shopify store.

You can choose the product you want to sell and import all the items’ listing information, such as the price, description, and images, in a few clicks. After importing, you can edit the product listing accordingly.

With this feature, adding products and fulfilling orders becomes efficient, allowing you to focus more on selling and increasing your profits.

Additionally, Oberlo syncs with your Shopify store, so your inventory automatically updates when your supplier changes your products’ available stocks.

For more tips on choosing a dropshipping solution, check out Neil Patel’s best dropshipping companies review.

Also, it helps to check if the dropshipping solution you want to use integrates with reliable and the best ecommerce platforms for your small business. That way, building, running, and streamlining your dropshipping business becomes so much easier.

2. Display customer ratings and reviews

Most new customers are normally skeptical of buying from you at first, especially if 15 other dropshippers sell the same items you do.

An excellent approach to build trust with your potential customers is by displaying customer testimonials, reviews, and ratings on your product pages.

Customer reviews can work like personal recommendations and show your prospects your previous customers’ positive experiences with your products, enticing shoppers to purchase.

Place a “Write a Review” section and rating option on your product pages to encourage customers to leave reviews about your products.

Display testimonials from satisfied customers on your homepage to help showcase your products’ quality and reliability.

AliExpress lets you import customer product reviews from the ecommerce platform directly to your store using the AliDropship plugin.

The plugin lets you import reviews for all products, a specific category, or for several categories at a time.

Posting positive customer reviews can increase your dropshipping business’ credibility and boost customer confidence in your products, leading to more sales.

3. Run social media ads

Know which social media platforms your target customers use and run social media ads. This helps you optimize your ad campaigns and advertising only to people who are most likely to buy your products.

Here are a few social media advertising tips:

  • Identify your objectives. Know your social media advertising goals to help you find the right social network to advertise and shape your ad campaign strategies.

For instance, if you’re selling jewelry to increase sales, run Facebook ads, and use the platform’s Life Events ad targeting parameter to target newly engaged users or those in new relationships.

  • Test your ads. Perform split tests on several ads to help you determine which ones give you the best returns on investment before casting a wider net.

This helps you optimize your social media advertising efforts and ensure you’re spending your budget on ad campaigns that have high chances of enticing your audiences to buy.

  • Design your ads for mobile. Ensure your social ad images and content adapt to different display sizes so mobile users can see your offers and promotions easily.

Failing to do so means missing out on engaging thousands of social media users on mobile and losing boatloads of sales opportunities.

While running social media cans can be relatively easy, keeping track of your campaigns on top of your other marketing efforts can be a lot of work.

One solution is to create an app to improve your internal workflows so you don’t spread yourself too thinly and wear yourself out.

Building your own app, such as a simple client portal, ensures you get the tailor fit solution that matches your exact needs.

Also, when creating your app using Azure DevOps, back up your codes and data with Backrightup.

The flexible service can automate running your backups and restoring your Azure DevOps instance, saving you time and effort from doing it manually — which can be tedious and laborious.

Doing so ensures your codes, instances, repositories, and other critical app data is secure and intact in case of server errors and malware that cause data loss.

4. Leverage videos

Using videos is one of the best ways to engage your potential customers and stand out from your competitors.

After all, videos allow you to showcase your products’ benefits and features and inform customers how to use your products properly through creative and fun content.

Here are several ways to use videos to help boost your sales:

  • Explainer videos. Use videos to highlight your products’ features and value. This helps you showcase your product’s benefits and makes it more interesting for shoppers to learn about your products.
  • Video ads. Evoke emotions through video advertisements. Video ads can require more time and effort to make, but these are excellent for telling stories, sharing scenarios that shoppers can resonate with, and presenting your products as the solution to customer pain points.
  • Video demonstrations. Create videos demonstrating the proper ways of using your products.

Your product’s technical aspects can be challenging to convey with words alone, making videos great for showing customers how to assemble a small piece of furniture or attach a certain accessory.

Video demos also help stir anticipation and excitement among your customers since they can get a glimpse of your product and get a good idea of its dimensions and functions, so they know what to expect.

Leverage videos to engage your potential customers better, build trust, and even add value to your products, and in turn, skyrocket your sales.

5. Work with a reliable supplier

Because your supplier manages product inventory and ships the items directly to your customers, you don’t get to see the actual product’s quality.

Find reliable suppliers that provide high-quality products, efficient shipping processes, and easy order tracking (among others) by following these tips.

  • Consider going through the order process yourself to ensure the product’s quality is up to the standards you expect to provide your customers.

This also allows you to test out factors, such as the ease of ordering, shipping period, and the returns process.

It also helps to use a dependable product data management software for ecommerce to stay on top of your inventory, catalogs, and other product information. This allows you to identify gaps and address issues in your product management and streamline working with your suppliers.

  • Scour online reviews and forums to see what other dropshippers and customers have to say about a specific vendor. This can help you find which suppliers to steer clear of and which ones to trust.
  • Check if the ecommerce platform provides a way to verify sellers. For instance, product finder and research tool Jungle Scout offers a database of global suppliers on Amazon.

The tool can help you source your products and validate known sellers on Amazon by checking their confirmed shipments and customer volumes.

You’ll also see the supplier’s top customers and resellers. This information can give you a good idea of the seller’s reliability.

Additionally, your suppliers’ policies should align with your dropshipping business’ to ensure you handle customer issues and returns efficiently, leading to happy customers.

Ready to boost your dropshipping sales?

It can take some elbow grease and grit to generate tons of sales for your dropshipping business, but the tips in this guide are excellent starting points to success.

Know the tools and strategies that work best for your dropshipping business, and you’ll be selling products like hotcakes and growing your profits in no time.