Over the years, along with the world of marketing and business, marketing collateral has evolved too. Thirty years ago, you could print out some brochures and flyers, give out a few business cards, and consider yourself what many refer today as a marketing guru.
Today, marketing collateral can take many different shapes and forms, thus providing modern marketers with endless possibilities. But before we go any deeper into different types of marketing collateral, let’s define it first.
What is Marketing Collateral?
In the past, marketing collateral referred primarily to print and other offline materials (such as brochures and flyers), whereas today it entails a wide range of online and offline media, used both to support the sales process and inform prospects about the products and services you offer.
In simple terms, marketing collateral is a set of different types of media used to help boost the sales of a particular product or service. So, every piece of content, illustration, video, social media post, GIF, or meme can be considered as a piece of marketing collateral.
The main purpose of your marketing collateral should be to answer some of the most important questions your potential customers might have. What kind of a product or service you’re offering? What are its main benefits? Why should people use it and how does it help solve some of the problems they might be having? What makes it unique or better than your competitors’?
The most effective pieces of marketing collateral should answer most of the questions above while at the same time being compliant with the requirements of the modern digital marketing environment. That being said, we have selected 6 highly effective types of marketing collateral expected to boost your business online.
6 Effective Types of Marketing Collateral to Boost Your Business Online
1. Case Studies
After you did a great job helping your customer accomplish their business goal or solve a problem, you surely wouldn’t like all that hard work to go unnoticed, right? What you need to do now is create a case study. It’s one of the best ways to show everyone how valuable your services are.
In marketing terms, we define a case study as “an analysis of a project, campaign or company that identifies a situation, recommended solutions, implementation actions and identification of those factors that contributed to failure or success.”
If you’re looking to learn more about this type of digital marketing collateral, we’ve prepared a detailed guide on how to showcase your company’s success using a compelling case study (including 40+ case study template ideas).
If you’re looking for additional inspiration, here are some more real-life case study examples.
2. Blog Posts
Blog posts are vital marketing collateral to any content marketing strategy. They are a great way to provide your customers with actual value and help them solve their problems and achieve their goals. That being said, whatever you do, don’t make your blog posts be too salesy.
As a longer-type content, blog posts enable you to give an in-depth description or analysis of a particular topic. Articles that you publish don’t even have to be directly related to products or services that you offer. Instead of writing a bunch of salesy promotional blog posts, you should aim to educate your audience and establish yourself as a thought leader in the field.
Let’s use the LeadQuizzes blog (you’re currently browsing) as an example. Even though the LeadQuizzes quiz maker is primarily a lead generation tool, you can still find tons of educational articles on almost anything marketing, business, and social media related.
Let’s be honest, you don’t need to be new Hemingway to write quality blog posts (though you could use the Hemingway app to improve the quality of your writing). But you need to make sure you tackle the challenges and issues your potential customers might be facing and offer them a solution. Solve a problem unrelated to your product or service and once they have a related one, you’re much more likely to be their number one go-to problem-solver.
Speaking of blog writing, we’ve created an overview of writing apps and tools that should find their place in every content marketer’s toolbox.
3. Ebooks (or Other Downloadable Material)
An ebook, as everybody knows, is a digitally published version of a traditional printed book. They are available in a variety of formats (PDF, .epub, .mobi, and so on) and one can read them on a number of devices (including computers, tablets, smartphones, and eBook readers).
Why do we use ebooks? In addition to being able to fit thousands of books inside your Kindle instead of having to build an entire new house to fill it with dusty books, we cannot neglect their marketing potential either.
In the marketing world, an ebook is usually a brief overview of a specific topic that often serves as marketing collateral. Marketers can benefit from ebooks in terms of generating more leads, sales, and subscriptions, telling a more comprehensive story and providing more actual value to customers, or simply having an additional channel for content distribution.
People generally love free stuff. Even if it has no real value. But, if the stuff you give out provides them with real value, it’s even more likely they will eventually pay for your product or service. Offer a free ebook in exchange for an email address and continue nurturing the relationship until it results in a sale.
If you’d like to learn more about this type of marketing collateral, here’s our guide on how to create an ebook in 6 simple steps (plus 40+ ebook template ideas).
4. Online Quizzes
As already mentioned above, ebooks are often used for lead generation. And even though some claim the use of ebooks for lead generation is a thing of the past, with high-quality content and adequate promotion, you can still capture a significant number of leads. But still, there’s an easier and more engaging way of capturing leads – online quizzes.
Online quizzes are one of the most underrated types of marketing collateral. They’re a hidden gem of lead generation. Once you create a quiz, you can embed it to your website, share and promote it on Facebook, use it as a popup, tie it to a compelling offer, and so on. The possibilities are endless.
The best thing about quizzes is that they’re highly effective – using online quizzes, LeadQuizzes users have generated 4,224,340 leads and counting! If you would like to learn more on how to use this type of marketing collateral, here’s a detailed guide on how to create your own online quiz.
5. Landing Pages
Many people consider landing pages the cornerstone of online sales. Whether you realized it or not, there’s a very high chance you’ve already visited a landing page or two before reaching this article today.
(Don’t worry, this article is not our landing page. This is.)
What exactly is a landing page? Basically, it’s any page on your website where you send your visitors with the aim of initiating a conversation and closing a sale. What does a landing page look like? Here’s an example of a landing page (just a part of it, actually – you can see the entire page on the link above):
A landing page is a piece of marketing collateral that focuses primarily on conversions – selling products or services, generating leads, inviting people to a conference or webinar, promoting a course, offering a discount, and so on.
What makes landing pages such an effective piece of marketing collateral? Only the fact that landing pages (when adequately A/B tested and targeted) can increase conversions by up to 300%.
If you’re looking to create a high converting landing page, you may want to turn to tools like Unbounce or LeadPages for a helping hand.
6. Explainer videos
Some people just prefer video to text. If we keep in mind that 65% of people are visual learners, it makes perfect sense. Add the fact that around 5 billion videos are viewed on Youtube on a daily basis and using video as marketing collateral starts making perfect sense.
Explainer videos are great marketing collateral because they let you present your product or service in a practical, straightforward, and intuitive way. It’s always better to show than tell. If your product is rather complex, you can simplify its functionality and make it more user-friendly by creating an explainer video.
Even though many people would rather watch a video than read a long blog post, don’t overdo it. Explainer videos should be kept down at a few minutes (ideally 1-2 minutes). So, if you can visually describe your product and explain its functionality in a couple of minutes, explainer video might be perfect marketing collateral for you.
You can embed an explainer video on your website, share it via social media, or sent in an email newsletter. To create an explainer video on your own, you can use tools like Biteable or Pow Toon. Of course, you can always hire a professional to do it for you. If you’re looking for a bit more affordable solution, you can always resort to freelance platforms such as Upwork or Fiverr.
These are the 6 types of digital marketing collateral we at LeadQuizzes have found highly effective, but there are dozens of other options to consider as well. Here are just some of those:
- Newsletters
- Portfolios
- Press releases
- White papers
- Testimonials/reviews
- Brochures/flyers/business cards (and other print materials)
Whichever marketing collateral you decide to use, make sure it aligns with your overall brand image and adequately gets your marketing message across.
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