Now I have tricked you a little bit. I don't do company sales brochures because they are useless. But I've decided to make this entry to explain why you shouldn't waste your money on any kind of them.
Some people believe that sales brochures can take the place of white papers or case studies, and claim their places among sales literature. Well roughly as much as a guy wrapped in tin foil and riding a limping donkey can take the place of a brave knight in shiny armour riding a big black steed.
And I mean the guy wrapped in tin foil and riding a limping donkey is the proverbial company sales brochure. No one takes him seriously. He can scream that he's a knight but he can only become a laughing stock. In the 21st century, a sales brochure is such a laughing stock too.
This is why.
White papers (case studies too) and sales brochures are at the opposing ends of the marketing continuum. White papers (case studies too) are educational, informative and reasonably objective. By contrast, company brochures are blatant sales pitches.
And buyers are not dumb. They need help to make buying decisions, but don't want to waste their time and energy on reading meaningless self-aggrandisement. Sales brochures are structured such that they pound on readers' emotional hot buttons, like greed, fear, shame, envy or vanity. They are all flash, glitz, glitter and glamour, full of - often empty - promises.
Company brochures work in the B2C world where people spend their own money and are emotionally attached to it, but B2B buyers are beyond that. Not 100% but they usually don't fall for emotional manipulation.
White papers and case studies are persuasive yet objective descriptions of business problems and solutions. They present products and services indirectly. The selling is very subtle.
Instead of flash, glitz, glitter and glamour, white papers and case studies engage readers' logic using facts, statistics and quotations supported by third party references in the footnotes sections.
Instead of advertising superlatives, a.k.a. bullshit, white papers and case studies use the techniques of rhetoric and plain English. The kind of English that readers use.
Yes, there are some low life bottom feeder companies that try to fool their markets by re-dressing their companies' sales brochures and call them white papers or case studies, but buyers are far too smart to fall into that trap.
Buyers find out about those companies, and never trust them again.
Using sales brochures to sell complex, high-ticket IT solutions is like using the heat of a cigarette lighter to make a gourmet meal. It's a struggle of epic proportions. So why bother?
Let's replace the heat from the lighter with heat from a gas cooker. Now' we're cooking.
Are you?