About Larry Bauer

Larry Bauer is a highly skilled, experienced writer who brings an extensive marketing background to his copywriting. You’ll notice from the questions he asks that Larry understands business, how companies get to market, and how to communicate to customers. His ability to think strategically, combined with an appealing, conversational writing style, makes his copy both reader-friendly and effective.

Posts by Larry Bauer:

Tips for Creating Effective Corporate Brochures.

By in Blog Posts, Branding, Marketing No Comments

The brand is everything today. Most marketers believe that nothing is more important to their organization’s success – let alone their personal careers – than protecting the brand. But just because marketers think it’s important doesn’t mean companies are doing it well.

A corporate brochure is a prime opportunity for brand positioning, so make sure you spend enough upfront time on the brand component. According to Branding Strategy Insider, success depends on having a clear, concise and consistent brand position.

Don’t minimize the importance of “clear and concise.” What makes a tagline so difficult is boiling down your organization’s personality into a few words. It’s the same with defining your brand. To be effective, everyone needs to easily understand your brand’s central values. Make some inquires around your company. Odds are you’ll get a wide range of descriptions, probably none of them right.

So be sure to ask your team these three questions:

  • What is our brand?
  • How does it behave?
  • What does it stand for?

If you’re comfortable with the answers, then you’re ready to proceed with a corporate brochure.

But Do You Really Need a Corporate Brochure?

Some marketers today think corporate brochures are a waste of time and money. Online is where everything is happening, they reason, so put your money there. But that’s shortsighted.

The Web has its place, but it is only one option, and not always the preferred choice. Portability is still a huge benefit to many information recipients, and print is a welcome relief from having to stare at a computer screen.

Brochures also carry higher credibility. Virtually any business can get on the Web today, but not every company has the resources to produce an effective corporate brochure.

Don’t underestimate the value of shelf life, either. Buyers don’t usually make instant decisions, especially for high-ticket products and services. They are more likely to keep a brochure they requested than bookmark your website.

Finally, the lessons of progressive marketing are choice and multi-channel integration. We know that as soon as you start choosing the medium for your customers, you’re in trouble. They make the choices, not you.

Study after study also demonstrates that well-integrated, multi-channel campaigns work better than any medium alone. So think through how your corporate brochure will integrate with a larger communications strategy having both print and online touchpoints.

Want Expert Advice?

MondoVox can help you develop a corporate brochure that achieves your organization’s communication goals. We can help clarify your branding and provide creative execution that distinguishes your corporate brochure from the competition. For more information, email Julia Moran Martz. To see examples of our corporate brochure work, visit our website.

— by Larry Bauer

A Dozen Do’s. A Dozen Don’ts.

By in Blog Posts, Marketing No Comments

Start collecting corporate brochures. Most of them will come in handy when you can’t sleep at night. Here are two-dozen tips for making your brochure reader-friendly, inspiring and persuasive.

Do

  • Have an objective for the brochure.
  • Develop a creative brief – use it for buy-in as well as a roadmap.
  • Integrate your brochure within a larger communications strategy.
  • Demonstrate that you understand your audience.
  • Consider versioning for major markets – a brochure can’t be everything to everyone.
  • Position, position, position.
  • Talk about markets, products, services and solutions – show them in use whenever possible.
  • Be conversational – you’re building a relationship.
  • Say something specific – a 99% customer satisfaction rating means more than a corporate commitment to customer service.
  • Develop good captions – one of the most read and recalled copy elements.
  • Include contact information on the brochure – ditto for everything that accompanies it.
  • Hire a professional proofreader – they’re cheap and can save your butt.

Don’t

  • Assume that no one reads today – people don’t read lousy copy.
  • Use corporate-speak, jargon and over-used phrases.
  • Make third-person references to your company – this isn’t a term paper, be personal.
  • Write in the passive voice or use other complicated verb tenses (hint: helping verbs + past tense of action verb).
  • Bore readers with technical content – use charts, graphs and diagrams.
  • Assume readers will automatically turn the page – you have to earn their interest at every point in the brochure.
  • Overlook the cover as your first opportunity to creatively position your organization.
  • Write or design by committee – they’ll suck the life out of the brochure.
  • End with a table of contents or corporate overview – there are better uses for your closing page, like suggesting an action step.
  • Try to speak to everyone – focus on your key targets.
  • Use creative sources that know nothing about your market – you’ll spend all your time getting them up to speed.
  • Fail to develop a distribution plan – not everyone who makes an inquiry is a qualified candidate.

One final bit of advice. Develop a schedule and stick to it. Corporate brochures have a tendency to become never-ending projects. If you thought the brochure was important enough to do in the first place, then it’s important enough to do on time.

Talk to Your Printer. Have your designer bring the printer into the mix early. They’re part of your creative team, and a good rep can help with special techniques, provide paper dummies, ink draw downs, make the brochure more eco-sensitive and keep you from creating a piece that looks great on-screen but won’t print well.

— by Larry Bauer

Integrating Social Media.

By in Blog Posts, eMarketing, Social Media 1 Comment

Social media reminds us of soccer in America about 25-years ago. Youth leagues across the county were playing the game. It was inexpensive, fun, good exercise and even the youngest players could handle the fundamental skills of running and kicking a ball. Soccer was a grassroots, community-based movement that flew under the radar for a time while attracting millions of participants.

Social Media is a grassroots movement with many of the same characteristics. Its draw is the ability to share personal human stories on a grand scale. Participants relate their own experiences to others of like interests. These conversations can and do encompass product/service experiences and recommendations allowing for powerful viral marketing and sales referrals.

For instance, while YouTube is a seemingly infinite source of goofy ephemera, users also find a plethora of product demonstrations posted by actual product users. These how-to videos often use name brand products. Podcasts also provide opinions, interviews and commentary on many topics including products, services, technologies and trends. Social media tools offer a way to participate in dialog outside your own back yard. Let’s start by looking specifically at one tool that’s been around the longest: blogs. We’ll discuss other important tools, like social networks, in subsequent issues of MondoBeat.

Blogs in General.

Blog is short for weblog, or websites that use a dated log format with the most recent entry listed at the top. Most provide alternative views on a variety of subjects, and the top bloggers challenge traditional offline media counterparts for both readership and advertising.

As recently as 1999 only 23 blogs existed. Today’s worldwide blogosphere is more than 75 million, though some authorities believe the number of active blogs is more in the 2-4 million range. Forester Research says that approximately 25% of adult Americans read a blog every month. If you consider that these are early adopters who provide referrals and commentary for the next wave called the early majority, then blog participants represent a key target demographic.

The proliferation of free weblog-creation software helped blogs gain their immense popularity. Originally link driven, the new blog software made longer text entries possible. While many blogs remain primarily textual, there are also blogs devoted to:

  • Videos (vlog)
  • Photos (photolog)
  • Portfolios of sketches (sketchlog)
  • Links (linklog)
  • Brief posts and mixed media (tumblelog)

Corporate Blogs.

These can be used internally to enhance the communications and culture within an organization or externally to help achieve branding, marketing or public relations
objectives. Many organizations keep a blog on their website. These blogs usually contain content appealing to the demographic that the organization seeks.

The content may primarily relate to the activities of the organization, or it may have very little to do with the organization itself. Frequently, a blog will focus on the kinds of content likely to attract the desired web surfers, even if that content is not related to the product or service that the company provides.

More often, though, the content is at least a mix of subjects with business-related posts carrying the heavy load. For example, Mike Critelli, executive chairman of mailing solutions provider Pitney Bowes, covers a wide range of topics in his “Open Mike” blog.

Most topics do relate to his business with commentary on subjects like “Environmental Impact of Mail,” but a few are more personal in nature and reveal a bit of the chairman to his audience. In Critelli’s words, “In spite of my obvious passion for the mailstream and the industry I have been a part of, I will comment on a broad range of subjects, including some of those I have called out in my biography.” How you structure your blog, as well as who does the writing, really depends on your objective.

How you structure your blog, as well as who does the writing, really depends on your objective. For instance:

  • A manufacturer of women’s upscale fashion might create a blog that addresses subjects ranging from the latest trends to how to better serve high-end shoppers at the retail level. The blog might include a video link to a fashion show, an interview with a leading designer and discussions about the economic outlook in fashion retailing. In a down market, a blog like this could be sensitive to consumers needs by offering timely ideas for stretching their clothing budget with a few good pieces or dressing for job interviews.
  • A charity organization’s blog might include a commentary on recent success stories, an inspirational video interview with someone helped by the organization and discussions about upcoming fundraisers.

Blog-site Advertising.

If you don’t want to start your own blog but would like to reach the targeted audiences of other blogs, you can use MondoVox to handle ad placement. We try to match marketers with independent blog owners and their highly valued audiences. But keep in mind that a desire to advertise doesn’t automatically mean you will be accepted. Many of the best niche-community blogs are not owned by corporations and are more likely to pick and choose whom they will associate with their blog.

Relevance is critical, and blog owners often engage with marketers to share thoughts about what might work best for their readers and communities. That’s because authors generally require approval of every campaign in advance, which also helps deliver a valuable endorsement about your product or service from the blog’s leadership.

How to Get Started.

A good way to begin is by subscribing to other blogs in your market category. Technorati and Google Blog Search are among the leaders in blog search. Technorati can list search results either by authority or by date. Authority is important to consider in evaluating a blog, because the higher the authority—translate “popularity”—the more impact the posts and comments will have. Once you identify the blogs you want to track, “really simple syndication” (RSS) makes subscribing easy.

What if Your Social Media Skills Aren’t so Terrific?

MondoVox can help you develop and implement a social media strategy. We can identify high potential opportunities, set up blogs, create videos, craft offers, develop landing pages and provide metrics. For more information, email Julia Moran Martz.

— by Larry Bauer

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