If you're interested in developing promotional literature for your small business, you need to know what types of promotional literature exist and how you can use them to make more sales. Most promotional literature can be classified as a brochure, circular, case study, spec sheet, catalog, newsletter, poster, flier, envelope stuffer, annual report, or booklet. In part 1 of this 3-part series, you'll learn about brochures, circulars, and case studies.

Brochures

A brochure is a piece of promotional literature that can do double duty as an informational piece and a sales tool. Three types of brochures make it easy for small business owners to pick and choose how they will market their businesses and make more sales. A company brochure is a brochure that gives a basic overview of a company and what kinds of products or services it offers. You can use this kind of brochure to give background information about your company, share your mission statement, and let people know about your management background. A product brochure describes one product or an entire line of products and gives information about the materials used to make products, what the products can be used for, and other information that's important to potential buyers. Service brochures describe services that are offered by service-based companies. Some of the information included in a service brochure might be why a service is needed or how the service is performed.

Circulars

Circulars are used by retailers like grocery stores to announce special, limited-time, bargains. A circular is most often printed in color and made with newspaper stock to help it fit in with the rest of the contents of a newspaper. Circulars are usually used as inserts in local newspapers but can also be given out at stores, distributed via the mail, and handed out by door-to-door representatives. If you want to use a circular, you need to weigh the costs and benefits of using this type of promotional literature. Since sales usually only last for a few days or one week, a circular is only good for the length of the sale.

Case Studies

Case studies are very effective pieces of promotional literature, especially for service businesses that don't have a tangible product to demonstrate to prospects. A case study is a history of how a product or service helped a customer in some way. It can show how a product helped someone save money or a service helped to improve someone's personal life. There are several reasons that marketers continue to turn to case studies as a means of marketing products and services. One of the reasons is that people are more trusting of the data from a case study than of information contained in advertisements. This is because your customer is the one who is talking about the benefits of your products and services. Case studies are also very specific; they tell readers who had a problem and how your product or service helped to resolve that problem. People like that they can read a case study almost like a story of how your business helped someone overcome a problem. Since case studies hold reader interest, they are often more effective promotional pieces than brochures and other types of sales literature.