When a business builds a brand, it has to develop a story as well. That brand story has to include the venture’s core message, personality, brand promise and many other components that make its marketing strategy complete and purposeful. Today, no matter how great a business is, visual strategy sits as the most effective way of branding for it. Visuals capture attention like no other and they make excellent mediums of brand recognition when used correctly. When you use the visuals in your marketing strategy, you will sign up for the brand’s long-term success.
The importance of visual strategy to elevate brand identity
Brand identity is involving all the pieces of the brand together that represent how the brand is perceived. Visual identity, hence, includes all the visual components of it. Visual identity is more than just putting designs and colors to use; it is also about how the brand messaging resonates through them in positive, accurate & relevant ways. The audience, in this case, plays a vital role. Unless you know their taste or understand what they seek, no visual strategy can actually work unless the audience pulse is rightly gauged. The visual aspects of any brand do not belong to it; instead, it is all about what the audience wants.
Making the brand stand out with incredible visuals:
- Being unique is the key to stand in the competition.
- Make contents that can etch your brand in the memory of the onlookers
- Every post of every medium must be cohered and relevant
What is Marketing collateral?
Marketing collateral encircles the venture’s primary messaging and advertising to the client base. It is used to communicate important information to the partners about a company. Thanks to the digital media, the marketing collaterals have touched grounds beyond the usually printed format, which include POS devices and web contents. Also known as the collateral materials, the collateral marketing ideas run parallelly to the other media of communication.
Marketing collateral design uses
End-user or consumer marketing collateral is used when the brand has made initial customer contract through advertising means. There are many types of marketing collaterals like newsletters, white-papers, PPT presentations, web blogs, electronic displays, brochure and many more. The business-to-business collateral or sales collateral is used to find new associates and partners; they explain the details of products and services for all promotional activities. For example, the real estate agents frequently use collaterals like calendars, schedules and other printed informatives to determine the value of a condo so that they can impress customers creatively.
Message content for brand collateral
The effectivity of consumer-related brand collateral reflects an emotional appeal which communicates richly with the audience through its perfect messaging. The content is mainly the company’s main advertising message that also includes an appealing call-to-action. On the other hand, best b2b sales collateral comes with a rational appeal by providing persuasive information about the company’s offerings that generate more sales, customers and many other opportunities of growth. Surpassing the assurances of more money and sales, the most effective b2b collaterals include action steps necessary for the channel partner to make for generating more profits.
Planning for effective collateral strategy
Be it marketing or sales, collaterals for visual strategy, marketing campaigns need a well-thought-out blueprint. Before starting with collaterals, you have to focus on its intended purpose. How shall it be used? To determine, you have to choose the target; is it customer-centric or b2b centric? What is its message? What media have you selected for it to convey the message? It will be easier for you to create an exceptional collateral in the event you meet the challenges like:
- Relating to the audience
- Purpose
- Content
- Medium
It is needless to say that these acquire some good chunk of the marketing budget.
Strengthen your visual branding strategy with these marketing collaterals
- Biographies of executives and founders
Biographies of the brand’s founders and significant figures on the website or any other printed medium inform the users and visitors about the legacy and success of your brand. It helps them to associate with the company’s performance with the leaders’ achievements.
- Blogs
Blogs value your prospects. These mediums majorly do not focus on selling, but on the existing problems that the consumers have. Yes, they discuss the topics in details. Blogs can be used for tackling the topics indirectly related to the service or product sold. They can nurture prospects by educating them on the product and service in a not-so-salesy way.
- Case studies
With the help of case studies, prospects can see what the brand has achieved in the past through its products and services. This collateral creates a big impact in the marketing by pitching to the prospects the real-proof of the company’s achievements.
- E-books and downloadables
People love free things, even when they want to know about things more. Businesses can amplify their expertise by providing the audience free collateral downloads. Assets like e-books, pdfs and guides. These assets help the businesses to gather emails other necessary information to generate leads.
- Explainer videos
Videos are considered to be the best visual medium for any kind of commercial. Surveys reflect that more than 500 million hours of video content are viewed on YouTube every day. So a product or a service video can talk about the functionality of what the company is offering. You can create your own, or you can hire an expert video producing agency for the job to get the desired creativity for your brand.
The importance of sales collateral for successful selling
As discussed earlier, sales collaterals help the sales representatives to close their leads faster. These hike up the sales process by offering prospects the needed information required to make a buying decision. The sales collateral best practices for effective marketing include:
- Landing pages
This is one of the most significant sales collaterals which exclusively vouches for the brand in a singular web-page. This is actually well-suited for the digital presence of both large and companies lesser than the stature. Marketing managers as users visit the landing page of a brand’s website to get a better understanding the offered products and services.
- Testimonials
Just like case studies mentioned above, testimonials too talk about a company’s past experience in handling of any client projects; but the only difference is testimonials are presented from the clients’ sides. The satisfied customers and partners architect a pool of positive experience that makes a credible picture for the brand in the minds of users.
- Live sales videos
Videos of selling live on streets/shops actually make a huge impact on the users to see how the company transacts with its patrons. Show them how the sales pour in and how popular your brand is with the people. Caution: Especially applicable for companies selling physical goods or services!
- Images
Businesses today are into social media, which is incomplete without impressive images. Design and post social media visuals like covers, DP, Infographics and many other such creatives that will be speaking about your offered product directly to the consumers.
Writing it off
How to create sales collateral ideas or how to come up with incredible marketing collateral? These questions commonly hunt the marketing and sales experts of the company while they are up to creating the best strategies of profiteering from visual strategy. Not all companies have the in-house strength of creativity, and for those, the best option is to opt for hiring an external creative team that will leave no stones unturned for providing the best.
