For some reason, a lot of people think brochures are dead because they figure they’ve got a website and why on Earth would they EVER need a brochure?

There are all the cons:

• it takes a lot of time to plan, write and produce
• it requires skillful graphic designer who understands print production
• it requires printing, which can get expensive
• it seems to out-of-date the day after it’s printed

But, what many people forget is that brochures have not lost their value in the marketing and sales process because they provide (sometimes the only) the tangible and visual representation of a brand.

If you were going to purchase a car, maybe a Mercedes-Benz. It’s ridiculous to think that a nice, slick, 4-color, glossy brochure won’t make a solid impression on the buyer, and is in fact a strong marketing tool in helping to reinforce the quality brand that Mercedes stands for.

Mercedes tells you they have the best engineered cars in on the road and it’s only natural that they would want to provide brochures and marketing materials that position their brand in EXACTLY that way – showing the potential buyer why they have the best cars.

The branding logic is, if their brochures are this well-done and impressive, what must their cars be like?

What do your print materials say about your company? Do they say Mercedes or Yugo?

A question that I’m often asked is: Is it fair to link marketing to sales?

My answer is always, “Yes!”

Why?  Because otherwise what is the purpose of marketing?  Marketing’s primary role is to generate sales. However, in most cases it is not direct. The traditional role of marketing is said to be like leading a horse to water and then sales is there to make the horse drink. But, in my opinion, it’s totally valid to hold marketing accountable to the success of sales. I’ll give you an example:

Let’s say that you want to sell your product to females between the ages of 18-25, that’s your target market.  After launching your marketing program, you’re happy to see that you’ve generated a lot of leads, but unfortunately most of the leads are males in the 35-55 – that can be a problem.

You could focus on the positive and say, “Hey…the marketing is generating lots of leads!” but if you’re not making sales, or the right kind of sales, your marketing is obviously not very effective.

There could be one of two problems:

1. Either sales is not making the right sale;
2. or marketing is not targeting the right audience.

For scenario #2, if your marketing is not bringing the right customers to the watering hole, it is much harder for your salesperson to close the sale.

However, in scenario #1, if marketing is doing a good job in attracting the right audience, but sales still can’t convert the leads, then something is wrong with the sales process – or perhaps with the product itself.

Many branding and marketing books will try to tell you that there’s some secret formula to making your market feel confident in your company’s ability to deliver, but it’s really rather straight-forward.

To win confidence, you simply have to consistently deliver on what ever promise your company or brand makes. Whatever that promise is, you have to consistently be there.

A lot of companies make a lot of plans around a promise – whether it’s Domino’s promise to deliver your pizza 30 minutes or else it is free or J. Crew’s absolutely no-hassle return policy – if you don’t deliver on that promise, it’s going to cost you.

And even with customer service, as a society we have become more demanding in the quality that we expect and the minimum levels of customer service we’re willing to accept. And, as the world gets smaller with Internet communications, companies need to make pure craftsmanship of customer service.

But, it all starts with being consistent.