Marketing collateral refers to any media or materials used by a business or organization to promote its products or services. This can include a wide range of materials, such as brochures, flyers, posters, catalogs, white papers, case studies, product datasheets, videos, images, social media posts, website content, and more.
The purpose of marketing collateral is to educate potential customers about the features and benefits of a product or service and to persuade them to make a purchase or take some other desired action, such as signing up for a newsletter or attending an event. This is why most businesses that make use of collateral material do so because it makes a useful sales tool. That said, anyone across the company can utilize marketing collateral, as long as it is used in the correct way.
Effective collateral material should contain information, persuasive dialog, appealing visuals and consistent brand messaging in regards to the positioning of the business or organization.
Why does your business need marketing collaterals?
Marketing collaterals are essential for businesses because this helps them communicate their value proposition to potential customers and differentiate themselves from competitors. Here are some reasons why your business needs collateral material:
- Builds brand awareness: Brand collateral helps you get the word out about your business and what you offer. By creating consistent and high-quality marketing materials, you can build brand awareness and recognition in the minds of potential customers.
- Increases credibility: Having professional and informative marketing collateral can increase your business’s credibility and make it easier for potential customers to trust you.
- Supports sales efforts: Marketing collaterals can help support your sales efforts by providing sales representatives with materials to help educate potential customers and close deals.
- Facilitates customer engagement: Marketing collateral can help facilitate customer engagement by providing valuable information about your products or services and encouraging them to act.
- Generates leads: Marketing collateral can generate leads by directing potential customers to a call-to-action, such as signing up for a newsletter or scheduling a consultation.
Overall, marketing collateral is essential to any successful marketing strategy, helping businesses communicate their value proposition, build brand awareness, and ultimately drive sales and revenue.
Types of Collateral in Marketing
Businesses can use many types of communication collateral to promote their products or services. Here are some common types of marketing collateral:
- Logo;
- Infographics;
- Digital reports;
- Brochures;
- Flyers;
- Posters;
- Catalogs;
- White papers;
- Case studies;
- Product datasheets;
- Videos;
- Images;
- Website content.
1. Logo
A logo can be a powerful marketing tool when used correctly as part of a company’s overall branding strategy. A well-designed logo can help to convey the values and personality of a brand, and create a strong visual identity that can be easily recognized and remembered by consumers. A unique and memorable logo can help a brand stand out from its competitors and differentiate itself in the marketplace.
Use a logo as brand recognition on all marketing materials, such as business cards, websites, social media profiles, and advertisements. Create a consistent visual identity that consumers can easily recognize. Build brand loyalty by creating a strong visual association between your brand and its values, personality, and products or services.
Use your logo on product packaging to create a consistent brand identity and make the product more recognizable and appealing to consumers. Use it on promotional merchandise, such as t-shirts, hats, and pens, to promote the brand and create a sense of community among customers.
2. Infographics
Infographics can be a very effective marketing tool when used as a correct part of a company’s overall content marketing strategy. An infographic is a visual representation of data, information, or ideas that presents complex information and visuals in a clear, concise, and appealing way. Infographics can be used to raise awareness of a brand, product, or service by presenting information in an engaging and memorable way.
Infographics can be used to establish a brand as a thought leader in its industry by presenting data, insights, and ideas in a way that is informative and easy to understand. They are also useful for lead generation. Attract new leads by presenting relevant and valuable information to the target audience, and encouraging them to share their contact information in exchange for access to the infographic.
In social media marketing, infographics are very shareable on social media platforms. This makes them effective in generating buzz and reaching a wider audience. In your content marketing strategy, use them to create engaging and informative content that attracts and retains customers.
3. Digital Reports
Digital reports can be a powerful marketing tool for a company’s overall content marketing strategy. A digital report is content that presents information, insights, and data in a structured and appealing way with visuals.
Digital reports can be used as sales collateral to provide potential customers with detailed information about products or services, and to highlight the benefits and advantages of choosing a particular brand.
Digital reports can be used to attract new leads by presenting valuable information that is relevant to the target audience, and encouraging them to share their contact information in exchange for access to the report.
4. Brochures
A brochure is a printed piece of marketing collateral that provides an overview of a business’s products or services. It can be handed out at events or mailed to potential customers.
There are several types of brochures to use in marketing collateral, such as bi-fold, tri-fold, gate-fold, and booklet. The type of brochure you choose depends on your end-goals. The right type of brochure for your business comes down to the purpose, target audience, and budget for designing it in the first place.
5. Flyers
Flyers are similar to brochures but are typically less detailed and more focused on a specific promotion or event. They can be handed out or posted in public places.
6. Posters
Posters are large-format marketing materials that can be used to promote events, products, or services in high-traffic areas.
7. Catalogs
Catalogs are printed materials that showcase a business’s products or services. They are often used by retailers and e-commerce businesses. They are an excellent product showcase. Catalogs can be used to showcase a company’s products or services in an organized and visually appealing way, making it easy for customers to browse and find what they are looking for.
They are perfect for cross-selling and upselling. Catalogs can be used to cross-sell and upsell products or services by featuring related or complementary products that customers may be interested in.
You can transform your printed catalogs into immersive digital experiences with a digital flipbook platform. Add interactive elements such as video clips, audio clips, GIF animations, external and internal links, and more. Increase your revenue by transforming your digital catalog into a point of sale system. Allow your customers to shop and browse within the catalog itself, and check out from a shopping cart in the toolbar. DCatalog can help you create a stunning digital catalog that enhances your brand collateral.
8. White Papers
A white paper is a longer, more detailed piece of marketing collateral that provides information about a specific topic or industry. It can be used to establish a business as an authority in its field.
9. Case Studies
A case study is a detailed analysis of how a business solved a specific problem for a customer. It can be used to demonstrate a business’s expertise and problem-solving capabilities.
10. Product Datasheets
A product datasheet is a one-page document that provides detailed technical specifications for a product. It can be used by sales representatives to educate potential customers.
11. Videos
Videos are an increasingly popular type of marketing collateral that can be used to showcase products, services, or customer testimonials. They can be shared on social media, websites, or email campaigns.
You can use videos as standalone communications collateral, or you can use them to enhance interactivity within your digital flipbooks.
12. Images
Images are a visual type of marketing collateral that can be used on websites, social media, or in printed materials to showcase products or services.
13. Website Content
Website content, including product descriptions, blogs, and landing pages, can also be considered a type of marketing collateral as it is used to educate and persuade potential customers.
What Kind of Collateral in Marketing Should You Use?
The type of collateral you should use in marketing will depend on your specific business goals and target audience. As a collective, all marketing collateral helps to support marketing and sales efforts. In the past, materials such as annual reports and white papers were considered sales tools. Now, however, every department finds themselves needing to promote their internal brand for employee engagement and cross-company transparency.
In the last few years, the move towards wideform acceptance of online media has allowed many opportunities to open up for companies wishing to promote their products and services. This includes allowances of text messages, personalized emails, and social media notifications. Thanks to the internet, many forms of online media can now be considered brand collateral, from blog posts, digital flipbooks, and more.
Flipbooks are longer-form marketing collateral that provide detailed information about a particular topic. You can use them to generate leads and sales or to establish credibility for your brand. Digital flip catalogs offer enhancements and online publishing solutions that engage your users through interactivity.
All of your brand collateral should work together to draw prospects through the buying experience and to the information that will help them make a purchasing decision. Digital flipbooks allow you to add video clips, audio clips, GIF animations, pop up images and more to showcase your products or services and provide accurate information. Add external and internal links so content and information is easy to find. Include calls to action that encourage your audience to accomplish your end goal.
Guide on How to Create Top Marketing Collateral
Creating effective marketing collateral is essential to promote your brand, products or services, and reach potential customers.There are a few specific guidelines to use if you want to create top marketing collateral.
1. Set Your Goals
Before creating any marketing collateral, it’s essential to know your target audience. Who are they, what are their interests, and what problems do they need to solve? Knowing your audience will help you create content that resonates with them and makes them more likely to engage with your brand.
What do you want to achieve with your brand collateral? Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales? Setting clear goals will help you measure the effectiveness of your marketing collateral.
2. Choose the Right Format
Remember that there are various marketing collateral formats to choose from, including brochures, flyers, postcards, whitepapers, case studies, videos, and infographics. Choose the communications collateral format that best suits your message and target audience.
3. Design Your Brand Collateral
As mentioned, there are many collateral formats from which to choose. It can feel like there are too many choices to sift through, in order to find the best type of collateral to use and where to start in designing them. All marketing collateral is served well by a good balance of text and visuals.
Understanding and knowing the right balance between text, visuals, white space, for the overall layout is key. A good layout will make your brand collateral easier to digest and understand, which helps your readers better retain the information you share.
4. Incorporate Your Brand Identity
You spend a lot of time getting your product and company out there and building brand awareness. A good piece of brand collateral will continue to build on that awareness, while strengthening trust and loyalty from your customers. Your marketing content should reflect your brand’s identity, including your logo, colors, and fonts. All of these aspects are helpful to encourage brand memory within your audience. Consistency in your branding helps build trust and recognition with your target audience.
5. Include a Call-To-Action
Every piece of marketing collateral should have a clear call-to-action that tells your audience what you want them to do next. Whether it’s to visit your website, sign up for a newsletter, or buy your product, make sure your call-to-action is clear and compelling.
6. Create Compelling Content
Your content should be informative, engaging, and persuasive. Use clear language, compelling headlines, and visuals to grab your audience’s attention and keep them interested.
7. Optimize Your Content for Distribution
Once you’ve created your marketing collateral, make sure it’s easy to distribute across all channels, including social media, email, and your website. Use keywords, hashtags, and shareable links to increase your reach. DCatalog makes it easy to distribute your digital marketing collateral across multiple channels and to a wider audience.
8. Measure Your Results
Learn how your audience engages with your content. Use analytics to measure the effectiveness of your marketing collateral. Track metrics such as views, clicks, shares, and conversions to see what’s working and what’s not. Use this data to make informed decisions about future marketing collateral.
9. Incorporate Interactive Elements into Your Marketing Collateral
Interactive marketing strategies give marketers a huge opportunity to engage users and drive results. That’s because interactive content grabs the attention of the audience and helps them process information better. Getting and keeping an audience’s attention is a challenge for businesses and marketers alike. This is where interactive content comes into play.
With immersive, rich-media elements, your brand collateral will help you craft stories that speak to your audience. Incorporate videos, quizzes, surveys, and polls to help your audience interact with your content. Tailor personalized content to your users. Create an emotional connection that builds trust, and your customers will become loyal to your brand.
Wrap Up
Now that we’ve detailed the ins and outs of every marketing collateral type, you can create and design your own communications collateral across all departments, and for both new and existing customers to return.
Since we’ve talked about adding interactive elements to your marketing collateral suite, why not get started today with our intuitive platform? With DCatalog’s intuitive platform, create amazing interactive digital experiences like no other. This is the perfect way to keep your audience engaged and coming back for more.
Reach out to one of our Publishing Executives today to start building interactive marketing collateral that elevates your content and drives results.
FAQ
How do you use marketing collateral?
Marketing collateral can be used in a variety of ways to promote a business, product, or service. It can be used in sales presentations, trade shows, email campaigns, social media, and other marketing channels.
What are the main objectives of marketing collateral?
The main objectives of marketing collateral are to educate, inform, persuade, and engage potential customers. Collateral should provide relevant information about the product or service, highlight its features and benefits, and differentiate it from competitors.
What is an example of collateral in business?
An example of collateral in business could be a brochure, a flyer, a white paper, a case study, or a product demo.