Refresh Your Marketing Collateral for Maximum Impact

One often overlooked aspect of maintaining a solid brand presence is regularly refreshing your marketing collateral. From direct mail to marketing emails, here are five ways to update your design and keep it fresh.

1. Update your colors.

Remember when almond used to be the "hot" color for kitchen appliances, and bathrooms were pink? Color trends change—in home décor and in marketing! When was the last time your color palette had a refresh? Check out the latest color trends and incorporate them. Consider seasonal trends or industry shifts when selecting new colors to stay ahead of the curve.

2. Go heavy on the visuals.

In today's visual-centric world, photos and graphics are more important than ever. High-quality visuals can capture attention and convey messages quickly. Refresh your marketing collateral with new, eye-catching visuals to breathe new life into your campaigns.

3. Concise and easy-to-read text.

Keep your text concise and easy to read in the age of information overload. Use clear, simple language and break up large blocks of text with headings, bullet points, and infographics. This approach makes your message more digestible and improves readability across different devices.

4. Use plenty of white space.

White or negative space is essential for creating a clean and visually appealing design. By incorporating plenty of white space, you can draw attention to critical elements and make your content more readable. Use graphics, bullet points, and shorter paragraphs to maximize white space and maintain a clean layout.

5. Incorporate social proof.

Social proof, such as customer testimonials or reviews, can build trust and credibility with your audience. Buyers trust their friends and family more than they trust brands, so incorporating social proof into your marketing collateral can help persuade potential customers to take action. Consider featuring testimonials in your direct mail pieces or adding customer reviews to your website.

Refreshing your marketing collateral is essential for staying relevant and engaging with your audience. Design trends are constantly changing, impacted by cultural shifts, global events, and market dynamics, so keep things fresh and up to date. Design trends don't rest, so neither should your creativity! Need help? Just ask!

Want Buyers to Remember You? Choose Print

When you create marketing communications, whether print or digital, you want your audience to read and remember them, right? That's why it matters what channel you use. After decades of research, studies continue to point to the same conclusion: Print is simply better when processing and retaining complex information is required.

Most print versus digital studies come from the education world. In these studies, researchers ask students to read passages in print and digital formats and then follow up with tests to measure their comprehension and recall. Decade after decade, these studies reveal that print outperforms digital in several key areas:

·       Handling of longer texts: Print is more effective for longer texts, typically those exceeding 500 words. This suggests that the physical nature of print aids in processing and retaining information over extended periods.

·       Abstract and inferential thinking: Tasks that require abstract or inferential thinking are better performed with print materials. The tactile experience of reading in print enhances the brain's ability to engage with and interpret complex ideas.

·       Detail-oriented responses: When study respondents were asked to provide more detailed responses, print was again the preferred medium. This indicates that the physicality of print facilitates a deeper level of engagement with the content.

·       Interpreting material from multiple sources: Tasks that involve interpreting material from various documents are also better accomplished with print. Studies consistently find that the tangible nature of print materials allows for easier cross-referencing and comparison of information.

So, what makes reading in print so different? The physical engagement with print materials seems to play a significant role. With print, individuals engage multiple senses, including touch, which enhances information encoding in the brain. Additionally, physically turning pages and visually scanning each page creates unique cognitive markers that aid recall.

These findings have profound implications for marketing communications. Print is the way to go if the product you sell requires potential buyers to handle longer texts and facilitate abstract thinking.