7 Easy Guidelines to Transform Your Sales Materials into Powerful Tools That Win Business
Gary is a media manager of a large auto company which recently issued an RFP for a Q4 campaign. Aimed at promoting a new flagship model, the campaign has a hefty budget attached to it, meaning his calendar was packed with sales meetings.
Halfway through the day, he couldn't help but notice he's feeling tired and under the weather, almost as if these meetings were sucking the life out of his body. As exciting as the proposals got, he felt like he was trapped between walls made up of same, repeated phrases, lackluster PowerPoint presentations of bland offers of the same product. After a deep sigh, he looked at his calendar and added an insignificant checkmark next to the last meeting. Only one more to go. Jimmy from one of the mid-level publisher websites is coming to talk about how running a campaign with them is going to launch the new model into the stars. Lovely – he said to himself right before his phone rang, letting him know that Jimmy is coming upstairs.
After exchanging a few sentences about the weather and the horrors of NYC traffic, it was time to get down to business. Dim the lights, draw the curtains, let the show begin.
Don't Present the Product, Tell the Story
As shocking as it may sound, the people you're presenting to already heard your pitch a million times already. Your words can only do so much, and sometimes it's more likely that they'll remember the way you dressed rather than a single word you said. They're like big babies who like pretty pictures. Take them on a journey. Let your presentation tell a story, not just showcase the offer. Use metaphors to talk about the product without actually mentioning it. Full-screen images break the monotony and help engage with the story. Use videos and animations to spice things up. Your audience is desperate for something new and unusual, something to lighten up their day. The only limit is your creativity.
Every Pixel Matters
Sure, your ideas might be excellent, and your story might be spot on, but if your sales materials don't look sharp, you might get a countereffect. Lackluster sales materials not only fail to tell a story but also kill the pitch. The production quality directly represents the effort you put into the sales materials creation. No one wants to spend their time and money with someone who doesn't care about winning them over. Explore the latest trends, scan the industry and see what the competition is doing. What's working for them? Learn from their mistakes. Making sure that every pixel is in place is one of the ultimate presentation weapons.
Don't Overcomplicate
Your product is your baby, and you can go day and night talking about its lovely features. It takes superhuman strength to avoid putting every single one of them on a sales sheet, but that's precisely what you have to do. Tease your audience, give them a tiny snippet of what you have to offer, just the essential things. Cut down on the words and focus on images, as they're more memorable. Put out the bait, and, if they bite, you're free to go over the details with them. If they're, for example, interested in your mobile targeting capabilities and ad formats you can even have a separate two-sheet addressing only that. Avoid bombarding them with information straight away. Remember, less is more.
Customization is the Key
Is there a better way to say I care for you than a custom mockup? The sponsorship opportunities and targeting methods you offer are tremendous but showcasing them visually is a must. A custom-made sales sheet is a fantastic sales tool. Even changing a couple of images and mockups will do wonders. If you make sure they're custom made for the client you're saying “I care so much about you that I went out of my way and made sure you know exactly how your beautiful ads will look on our site. If I care so much about this presentation, that means that I'll treat your campaign like my newborn baby. You should definitely work with us!” Or at least something along those lines.
Back Everything up with Research
There comes a time in every sales pitch when the “real talk” kicks in. Everything looks great and interesting but does it actually work? Well, this is why all of your sales should have underlying research backing them up. “We offer mobile targeting, and you should work with us because 237.2 million people in the US use mobile devices for browsing (Statista 2017). You should sponsor our fantastic app since they spend more than 88% of their mobile time with apps (ComScore 2018).” Doesn't it sound reassuring?
Something to Remember Me by
You went over everything you wanted to cover, and it's time to wrap up the meeting. If you took care of all the previous steps, you can rest assured your pitch made an impact. However, a discreet reminder never hurts. Presentations can easily get lost in an ocean of emails, but a small piece of printed sales material will stay on their tables long after you leave letting them know you care. A simple, easy to produce reminder which can make a world of difference when it comes to making the final decision.
Who Has Time for All of This?
Well, not you of course. You're a full-time salesperson, not a super-creative photoshop wizard with research tendencies and a knack for poetry. The answer is simple – outsource it! The dedicated external support team will make sure you're armed with sophisticated, state of the art materials while you're focusing on getting the meetings and doing the thing you do best – selling. Working with so many clients like yourself inevitably means they know all the blows and whistles, dos and don'ts, and tricks and hacks to make sure you have that extra edge. Give it a try. Details change everything, and these are the ones that truly matter.
As Jimmy left the room, he was confident that he'd be adding “closed/won” to his sales tracking sheet later that week. His pitch was spot on, and his sales materials followed all the key guidelines, resulting in a very memorable impact.
On the other side of the door, Gary was speechless. He definitely didn't expect this level of effort, and he even had fun watching the presentation. This was indeed something new and exciting. To make things even better, he just drastically narrowed down his options for the next year's campaign.
