My client wanted to showcase one of its key services in a way that would be subtler and more versatile than a traditional advertisement.  They had decided to create a case study – often called an “advertorial” – for this purpose.  The idea was to highlight the main features and benefits of the service and show how it solved a specific problem for its customer, an international bank.

Advertorials differ from traditional advertisements in that they are designed to look like articles in the newspapers or magazines they appear in.  In such cases, disclaimers such as “special advertising section” are used.  In the case of this assignment, my client is adding the case study to its website, featuring it in its marketing material, and placing it in business periodicals.  In addition, its customer is free to use the case study as it wishes, in its own marketing program.

After studying the information provided by my client and becoming familiar with the service, I interviewed the appropriate official at the bank to learn about his experience with my client’s service.  Specifically, I found out about the problem at the bank that needed to be solved, how they used the service, and the happy result.

After I completed my final draft, my client and the bank put the draft through several rounds of revision and fine-tuning.

The case study begins with a general description of the bank and its business.  Next, there is a commentary about the bank’s need to correct a particular problem.  Following that came a brief description of my client’s service.  Then quotations from the bank official spoke directly to the specific problem and how well it was solved by my client’s service.  The final element is a product / service description and a general description of my client’s overall business.

Advertorials have been used as a marketing method since the 1960s, mainly in niche marketing and trade publications.  Lately they have become more popular in mainstream publications.  Many companies have begun to experiment with employing them to promote products and services without incurring advertising agency expense.

My understanding has always been that “healthful” means contributing to the state of good health and “healthy” means enjoying the state of good health.  Eating healthful food can make you healthy.  My Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition backs me up: healthful – “favorable to the health of mind or body; healthy – “enjoying or indicative of good health”.

“Healthy” has been a trendy word for a long time.  Over the years it has gained strength and all but pushed “healthful” aside.  Holdouts like me are accused of being pretentious when we talk about a “healthful diet”.  I don’t mind.  Sometimes you have to take a stand.

What does this have to do with writing in the business world?  All “healthy” all the time is lazy writing.  We should keep the difference between “healthful” and “healthy” in mind whenever we come up against health-related copy.  Skilled copy-writers should be able to retain the punch of the word  “healthy” and still give “healthful” its due.

Comments?

1.  Simplicity: Use Small Words. Avoid words that might cause your readers to reach for the dictionary.  They likely won’t bother to look up unfamiliar words.  Instead, they’ll either let your real meaning sail over their heads or, worse, they’ll misunderstand you.

2.  Brevity: Use Short Sentences. “Be as brief as possible.  Never use a sentence when a phrase will do, and never use four words when three can say just as much.”

3.  Credibility Is As Important As Philosophy. “People have to believe it to buy it.  As Lincoln once said, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.  If your words lack sincerity, if they contradict accepted facts, circumstances, or perceptions, they will lack impact.”

4.  Consistency Matters. “Repetition.  Repetition. Repetition.  Good language is like the Energizer Bunny.  It keeps going . . . and going . . . and going.”  Find a good message and stick to it.  Coke created “It’s the real thing” in 1943.  Wheaties created the “Breakfast of Champions” tagline in 1935, the same year Campbell’s Soup came up with “M’m! M’m! Good!”

5.  Novelty: Offer Something New. Businesses should try to tell customers something that gives them a brand-new take on an old idea.  If successful, the new message will bring a “sense of discovery”.  If your message generates an “I didn’t know that” response, you have succeeded.

6.  Sound and Texture Matter. “The sound and texture of language should be just as memorable as the words themselves.”  For example: Alka-Seltzer’s “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is” and M&M’s “Melts in your mouth . . .”

7.  Speak aspirationally. “Messages need to say what people want to hear.  This is the one area where politicians often have the edge over the corporate community.  It’s very difficult to craft advertising language that touches people at the most fundamental, primal level, by speaking to their deepest hopes, dreams, and fears.”  The key to success is to “personalize and humanize the message to trigger an emotional remembrance”.

8.  Visualize. “The slogans we remember for a lifetime almost always have a strong visual component, something we can see and almost feel.  Allstate’s ‘You’re in good hands’, first created in 1956, went so far as to include the cupped hands visual in its logo to remind people of its peace-of-mind guarantee.

9.  Ask a Question. “‘Got Milk?’ may be the most memorable print ad campaign of the past decade.  The creator realized . . . that it’s sometimes not what you say but what you ask that really matters.”

10.  Provide Context and Explain Relevance. “You have to give people the ‘why’ of a message before you tell them the ‘therefore’ and the ’so that.’”

The purpose of the sales brochure is to help you sell your products or services.  Nothing else.  It’s an important sales tool that should fit logically into the buying process and move your customer on to the next step.

The successful sales brochure is written from the customer’s point of view.  In other words, what’s in it for him or her?

What Should It Look Like?
Your sales brochure can be devoted to all or selected products or services.  For example, if this will be your first sales brochure, you may want it to cover all of your offerings.  If you’re promoting a new line of goods or a single service, a sales brochure can be limited to that.

The size of the brochure depends on two things:

(1) The extent of the information you want to convey.  Remember to include all of the information that your prospective customer needs in order to decide whether he or she wants to buy.  This information should include descriptions, prices, specifications, ordering information, and guarantees / warranties.

(2) Your reader’s profile.  The average consumer isn’t inclined to read a lot of text, but will respond better to scannable information that is broken into short sections, with useful headings and bullet points.  Others — specialists such as engineers and scientists — expect to see detailed information and will probably pay attention to longer written sections.

Give useful information and include everything that goes into your sales pitch. 

Keep Your Prospects in Mind.  Know Your Customers.
In other words, remember to write for your audience.

•    Business-to-business brochures should be on the serious side.

•    Brochures aimed at consumers, small retailers, and media firms should try to create excitement.

Think about your reader and what he or she expects to get out of the brochure.  Some customers respond to hype; others don’t.  Engineers love diagrams.  Scientists favor charts and tables of data.  Accountants like to see financial information in tables.

Organize Your Selling Points.
Readers will glance at the front cover, then the back, and next they’ll thumb through the brochure one or two times.  If it looks interesting, they’ll go to the first page and start scanning the inside pages.

Because many people never get beyond the first page, your reader must understand what you’re selling by glancing at the front cover.  For good measure, repeat your selling message on the back cover.  The cover should stir curiosity or promise a reward for reading the brochure.

Content
Stick to the sale.  Don’t tell the reader about your company – SELL.  Your prospect doesn’t want to read about how great your company is.

He or she wants to know that you can satisfy a need or desire for a certain product or service, at a good price.

•    Put a strong selling message on the front cover.  Promise a compelling benefit or reward for reading the brochure.

“How to cut your phone bill by 20%.”

“0% APR for 6 months”

“$100 gift card”

Without this, there’s no motivation for reading the brochure, and many people will either ignore it or throw it away.

•    Your products or services.  Give the features and benefits of your product or service, but you must emphasize the benefits to the consumer—why the prospect should (must) buy your product or service now.

Don’t confuse features and benefits.  Remember, a feature of the area rugs sold by your company is that they are made of the finest worsted wool.  A benefit is that the rugs will add a touch of distinction to your customer’s home.

List the benefits, starting with the most important.  All the benefits in your brochure must appear to be important.

•    Contact information.  If your street and postal addresses are different, specify both.  Give all the phone numbers used by your company – the main number, toll-free number, cell number, and fax number.  Include your email address.  In some cases, especially if you’re located in a suburban or remote area, it’s a good idea to provide simple driving instructions and even a map.

How to Write It
•    Use plain English.  Avoid complicated, ornate language and jargon.  Too many adverbs and adjectives will lessen the impact of your message.

•    Visualize.  Whenever you can, use photos, diagrams, and other visual aids.  These can be effective in showing, rather than telling, your prospective customers about the benefits of your company’s products or services.

•    Deliver your message.  Everything in your corporate brochure should support your best sales pitch.

•    Will it scan? The typical reader of a business brochure doesn’t start at the beginning and read every word.  Most people will scan it first, picking up on key points along the way.  Then they’ll go back at a later time and read more closely.  They should be able to get your message by scanning it the first time.  Further reading should reinforce their understanding of your message and fill in the details.

•    Check your spelling.  It sounds elementary, but you won’t make a good impression if your sales brochure has typos or misspelled words.  Don’t depend entirely on your computer’s spell-check feature.  Use a dictionary.  Use a proofreader.

•    Check your punctuation.  There are many good resources available that will help.  You can use an English composition textbook or a stylebook, such as the popular AP Stylebook (the Web-based version is fully searchable and costs $25.00 for a one-year subscription).

•    Be consistent.  If you want to use an informal style of writing, that’s fine.  Just be consistent and use the same style throughout the brochure.

•    Use white space.  (White space is the area of a page that’s free of any type or artwork.)  If your pages are crammed with text and images, it can be off-putting for the reader.  Having to read a page that’s filled with text looks like a daunting task; it’s too much like work.  Short paragraphs or sections are more inviting.  Remember – your readers will be scanning through the brochure, at least the first time around.  Too much white space, though, is a waste of paper; use your best judgment.

•    Avoid clutter.  It’s good to use photos, charts, and graphs in a sales brochure if they help to make the sale.  Too much means clutter and that makes the brochure hard to read.  You want people to enjoy reading about the benefits of your products or services.

•    Use standard fonts.  Unless you’re in a field that calls for an unconventional look, you’ll be better off using a standard sans serif font (such as Arial) for the body of your brochure.  It’s usually a good idea to stick to one font throughout the brochure.  If you use a graphic design firm for the final touches, they will advise you on this.

Organizing Your Brochure
•    Cover page.  This is the place for a strong selling message.

•    Inside pages.  These can be devoted to the benefits of buying your products or services.  Put the most compelling benefits first.  After your selling points, include a clear call to action that, for example, prompts the reader to call for a free demonstration or a free consultation.

•    Last page.  This, or the outside back cover, is the place for your contact information, including a map and driving instructions if necessary.

•    Back cover.  You can repeat your strong selling message here.

Conclusion
When you finish, ask yourself whether the brochure answers all the questions you would ask if you were the prospect.  If not, go back and get it right.  Then ask a friend or trusted colleague to evaluate it.

Your final product should be a sales brochure that motivates prospective customers to go further in the buying process.  The next step may be to schedule a demonstration in the customer’s home, to invite the prospect to come to your store for a gift, or to send a trial version to the interested prospect.