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All businesses need customers in order to generate sales and profits, and when a new business is starting up, getting those first customers is often a challenge. In order to do so, it is normally necessary to spend money on marketing materials. There are several different ways of marketing your business available, and start-up cash is often limited, so it is important to choose the right way to market your business and to get the most out of it.
A low-cost way of advertising your business can be printing flyers or leaflets. Flyers can be very effective and can be posted through letter boxes, left under windscreen wipers, given out in the street by hand, displayed in shop windows, or stacked on counters in libraries and Post Offices, etc. It's not just about how you print flyers and what you do afterwards, however, but how much consideration you take when designing them.
When it comes to design, our online printing services include a flyer design service and various flyer templates if you need some assistance in coming up with your . However, if you prefer to design your own flyer, this is not a problem either. The main thing is that your design ties in with the rest of your company's branding, such as other promotional materials, business cards and shop fronts. The customer should be able to know at a glance exactly what your business is about and be drawn in to finding out more.
When designing any branding materials yourself, be particularly careful around spelling, punctuation and grammar. Poor or misuse of any of these can be extremely off-putting to customers and looks unprofessional and careless. The message that they receive is that you don't care about your marketing materials (which you've spend money on), so why would you care about your products, services or customers? Make sure you ask several people to check your text, including a professional proofreader if you can afford one.
Also make sure the text is legible – don't choose fonts which are too fancy (and so difficult to read) or a point size which is too small. An A5 flyer will actually look much smaller than it appears zoomed on the computer screen, so view it in real size before you submit. Include all essential information, such as contact details and your address, and go for fonts which encourage the eye to follow the text.
The headline you choose should instantly grab the reader's attention, so that your flyer doesn't end up in a bin. Keep your text snappy, concise and straight to the point – too much text will make the reader switch off. Do some market research also to find out which particular words and phrases could work best in your industry or for your target market. Also include a 'call to action'. There's no point telling a customer all about your fantastic products or services for them to go 'OK, so what?' at the end. Ask yourself that 'so what?' question and use your answer to come up with your call to action. This could be a simple 'come and visit our store' or even a promotional voucher.
