Face it. Your audience is already bombarded with and overloaded by marketing message after marketing message, day in and day out. There is such a huge amount of constant marketing noise, that many people are beginning to simply tune it out. Your audience is becoming more and more desensitized to marketing and advertising everyday.

Imagine a room full of people all trying to market their products and services and sell to the same person at the same time. The room is packed with people talking at the prospect. The prospect is looking out into the crowd and he is getting frustrated because everyone is talking at the same time and he really can’t hear anything.

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When you hand a client, prospect, or potential strategic partner your business card, brochure, rack card, or note card, you are putting your brand right in their hands. You have an opportunity to make an impression through touch that is not always possible when connecting online.

You only have one opportunity to make a first impression, and trust me, you don’t want to risk making a bad impression with an unprofessional marketing piece or confusing your audience with items look like they are from completely different companies.

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I have seen it over an over. One person creates a marketing piece, such as an advertisement that is really good. The ad is converting leads into sales and the marketing is seen as a success.

Unfortunately, the next thing that usually happens is that others try to copy the successful ad for their business.

Here is the problem, they don’t adjust the ad to fit their marketing or their focus and the ad fails to answer the three key questions every marketing piece must answer for its audience in order to be successful.

The result is failure and money and time wasted on a marketing piece that was copied instead of thought out and planned.

I don’t want to see you make the same mistake, so I am sharing with you the top three questions every successful marketing piece needs to answer to produce the results you want and attract the clients you want.

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Whether you are a business owner or a service professional, I can bet that when it comes to marketing, you’re feeling more than a bit overwhelmed.

I can also bet that even though you may be an expert in your niche, keeping your marketing pipeline full of new customers isn’t your specialty.

That is why I want to share with you three things that you always need to think of when you are working on your marketing materials.

1. Think of Your Mother.
Write the content and design the piece with your mother in mind. Your mother represents a great cross-section of your audience. Would she understand the message? Would she understand the action that you are asking her to take?

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I know you’ve seen them; the homemade brochures, the flyers that use Microsoft word art, the business cards that were printed at home and cut crooked by hand, and the websites that look like a high school homework assignment.

If you’re anything like me, you pause just for a moment when a business person hands you something like that, and you wonder how they can represent themselves so poorly.

Investing in professionally designed marketing materials instantly gives your business an image upgrade.

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Marketing is often a word that when mentioned around business owners draws out grumbles, moans, and sighs. While the task of marketing your business may not be your first choice, it is a vital part of the success of your business.

Here are three simple things you can do to make your marketing, advertising, public relations, and sales efforts much easier:

Differentiate yourself

When your marketing and sales message is too similar to your competitor’s message, your prospects and customers are left with price as the only differentiator. Trust me. You never want to be in that situation.

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Yes, digital printing has made traditional marketing materials more affordable. But let’s face it, print marketing is still expensive in comparison to online marketing. As an entrepreneur myself, I know how tight your budget can be and that even though you know you need the print marketing materials, it i sometimes very hard to spend your valuable budget dollars.

So, to help you get the most bang for your buck, I recommend creating print materials that not only use your colors, graphics, message and typefaces to reinforce your branding. But I also recommend materials that can be used for different purposes and in different circumstances.

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Ok. You’ve started a business and you have your new, professionally designed, custom logo. Now you need some marketing materials so your can get out there and promote your business, your products, and your services. But what do you need exactly? A brochure, stationery, folder, flyer, website, blog? With all of the different options you have to choose from, how do you know what to do first and how do you know which is the best choice for your business? And more important, which pieces will get you the biggest return on your investment and bring you the most value?

These are questions I get asked all the time and my answer is always the same. There are three main marketing pieces that every solopreneur, entrepreneur and small business owners needs. They are: 1) A business card, 2) A website, and 3) A marketing piece.

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