Do-it-yourself sales sheets, or flyers, are efficient and effective 1-page/2-sided marketing tools. Use them to boost profits from book sales and your back-end products or services. You can prepare these powerful marketing tools using word processing or desktop publishing software programs.
Caption. Consider adapting your sales sheet template to other purposes (see Best Practice # 15, below).
After you create them, you can distribute them as Adobe Acrobat PDF files. You can attach them to emails or download them from your website. When appropriate, you can print copies on your desktop printer or have them commercially duplicated.
Advantages
Sell sheets offer 3 primary advantages:
- Focus. Your message, whether shared in person or online, faces tremendous obstacles. Your prospects are bombarded by hundreds of marketing messages each day. There e-boxes are likely filled. Unless your messages stand out and are easily read, they are likely to go unread. Attractive and easily read sales sheets promising helpful, relevant information can capture, and hold their attention. While reading your sales sheet, you have your prospect’s total attention.
- Depth. Sales sheets can tell a story and communicate more information than many marketing tools. This makes them ideal partners for social media. Sales sheets can tell more of a story and share more details to reinforce your offer and encourage positive action.
- Differentiation. Sales sheets can visually differentiate your message from your competitors’ messages. Whether you distribute them as email attachments or website downloads, you can set your message apart using design tools like colors, layout, typography, or white space.
Templates
Templates are investments in future efficiency and branding success. Templates save you time creating future sales sheets. Templates determine the location and formatting of colors, graphics, and text, eliminating design decisions when you’re preparing future sales sheets. You don’t have to worry about typefaces, type size, column widths, line-spacing, or colors in headlines, subheads, body copy, and captions. Templates also remind you of the categories of information your sell sheet should include.
Best practices
- Image. Your sales sheets should complement the design of your business card, newsletters, social media, and website. Templates make it easy to create sales sheets that project a consistent (and familiar) family resemblance.
- Design once, produce often. Rather than trying to master the nuances of graphic design, consider hiring a graphic designer to prepare a template you can adapt for future sales sheets. This creates an almost “paint by numbers” approach to producing future sales sheets.
- Photography. Consider investing in a professional photograph you can use add to your sales sheets and other marketing projects. A professional photographer knows how to eliminate distracting backgrounds and how to help you relax so you can project a friendly, but competent image.
- Lead generator. Consider using sales sheets to build your email mailing list as well as a tool for promoting book sales and attendance at special events like podcast interviews, webinars, workshops, and videos. You can also explore including a lead generator form on your sales sheet, offering more information about your forthcoming book or upcoming event.
- Distribution. Focus on email and online distribution, but print copies as needed on your desktop printer. Carry a few copies with you on every airplane you travel on and every event you attend. You never know when a casual conversation can turn into a future prospect. Use a commercial printer, however, when you need more than 50 copies for distribution at events where you are speaking or presenting.
- Shelf-life. Focus each sales sheet on a single book title or upcoming event. But, always leave space to mention your experience and other titles or services that you offer. This allows your sales sheets to address both short-term and long-term goals.
- Easy reading. Pay attention to type size, line length and line spacing. The relationship between typeface, type size, line length, and line spacing is crucial. In addition, replace long words with short words. Avoid long paragraphs. Break long sentences into two, or more, shorter sentences. Use subheads to permit readers to easily scan the content of your sales sheets.
- Proofing. Avoid embarrassing mistakes and typographical errors by working with an independent editor or proofreader. Don’t depend on self-editing: it’s very difficult to locate misspelled words, omitted words, or repeated words in your own writing. Don’t depend on co-workers, family members, and friends for proofing. They may not be comfortable critiquing your writing.
- Include all necessary information. Add copyright information, your firm’s logo, and full contact information to each page. To eliminate Number each page
- Update. Keep your sales sheets up to date. At the start of each year, update copyright information to the current year. Remove references to expired events.
- Testimonials. Reader testimonials or comments from attendees at previous events are extremely powerful. But, avoid the temptation to include too many testimonials. Select two or three of your most credible and enthusiastic recommendations. Emphasize the testimonial or quote from the appropriate source. Provide links to additional comments on your website.
- Links. Provide links to supporting information to specific pages of your website. For example, instead of listing the titles of each of the chapters in your book, share some–but not all–of the titles of the chapters in your book.
- Promote your sales sheets. Promote your current sales sheets in your newsletters and on your website. Include links to them in your guest posts, press releases, and social media marketing.
- Flexibility. Use spreadsheets for more than book promotions or upcoming special events. Consider creating them for promoting compilations of previous blog posts or podcasts, upcoming interviews, or for answering frequently asked questions.
- Experiment. Once you have created a sales sheet template, or had one created for you, look for other template applications. For example, give your sales sheet a “newsletter look” by sharing helpful advice on the front, combined with your book’s table of contents or an event description and link to a registration form on the back.
- Print Prepare separate sales sheets for each book or back-end event or service.
Have you used sales sheets in other ways to to promote your book or special events. Share them with other Nonfiction Author Association members!
Author Bio:
Let Roger C. Parker, an experienced book coach, introduce you to the marketing power of sales sheets to boost profits from book sales and increase attendance at special events like interviews, webinars, and demonstrations.rcpcom@aol.com.
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