Are Your Marketing Materials Working Hard Enough?
Many businesses invest time and money into creating marketing materials, only to use them for their original purpose and then move on. That brochure you printed for a trade show, the case study on your website, the customer testimonials you collected, or the professional photos from a branding shoot may still have plenty of value left in them.
Before starting a new project, it's worth taking inventory of what you already have.
For example:
Customer testimonials collected for your website can also strengthen proposals, presentations, sales materials, and recruiting pieces.
Professional photography can often be reused across newsletters, social media, trade show displays, brochures, and other marketing materials.
Existing brochures and sales sheets may contain content that can be updated or reorganized instead of recreated from scratch.
Case studies, project summaries, or success stories can often be adapted for multiple marketing purposes rather than remaining in a single format.
The next time you're planning a marketing piece, don't just ask what needs to be created. Ask what you've already created that could be put to work in a new way.
š Quick Steps to do now:
Before creating something new, look at whether an existing piece can be refreshed or adapted:
Locate your newest company brochure or capabilities sheet. Does it still reflect your current services and branding?
Gather customer testimonials you've received in the past year. Are they being used anywhere besides your website?
Check the age of the photos on your website. Do they still represent your business today?
Make a list of marketing pieces you created in the last three years. Are there any that could be updated instead of recreated?
Looking Ahead
As you identify marketing assets that still have value, consider setting up a simple marketing archive so those materials are easier to find and reuse in the future.
A basic archive can prevent that by centralizing your key marketing pieces in one place:
Logo files and brand assets ā current logo versions, color palettes, fonts, and any approved variations. This is something I provide to my branding clients, with an explanation of what everything is used for.
Core marketing materials ā brochures, sales sheets, capability statements, and one-pagers. Save original editable, in addition to pdf versions.
Professional photography ā organized by shoot or category, with the most recent or approved images clearly labeled
Customer testimonials ā a running document that includes quotes, names (if approved), and where they originally came from
Presentations and templates ā pitch decks, slide templates, trade show materials, and reusable layouts
Approved messaging ā company descriptions, service blurbs, and commonly used copy blocks in one editable document. These can be incorporated into a brand guide.
The goal is to reduce the time spent recreating or searching for things you already have. Hey- we know it will still happen to some extent - I suffer from āWhatdidIcallthatfileā Syndrome when having to search for something from the past. When assets are easy to locate, they naturally get reused, updated, and extended instead of lost or rebuilt from scratch.
