hen you look around and
research what people Made us think.
think the purpose of a
brochure is you find suggestions And what we thought was that all
such as: the definitions are pretty mealy
mouthed and miss the point.
"The first question you need to
ask yourself is ‘What does my The point being that the purpose
company want this brochure to is surely to MARKET [i.e. engage
do?' or ‘What purpose will the in the commercial promotion,
brochure serve?' and ‘What sale, or distribution of Z] or
target audience is it intended to SELL [i.e. deal: do business].
reach?'"
If it isn't then why would any
When you then research what the business add to costs by
answers to these questions are producing said brochure?
you get things like: ‘to
provide information'; ‘to [Back to mealy mouthed answers
enhance our image'; ‘as a PR there!]
tool'; ‘to provide product
information'. Does it not follow then that a
"brochure site" must also market
Then when you Google ‘WHAT IS A or sell? Yet, when there are over
BROCHURE SITE?' this is the 500,000 business websites in the
answer you get: "A small web site UK, only about 26,000 of them are
consisting of the basic ‘trading online'. What does
information about an that say about the other 474,000?
organisation. This would be
similar in content to a flyer or All this at a time when internet
leaflet." shopping has, according to IMRG,
reached 10% of retail sales in
the UK and "£80 billion of 7. 44% of shoppers polled expect
consumer spending is on or their online shopping to increase
influenced by the internet, of in the next 12 months
which:
8. 90% had researched goods
1. "£30 billion of RETAIL online then bought them offline
spending is online
9. 52% of consumers plan to
2. "£20 billion of OTHER CONSUMER reduce their high street spending
spending is online in 2006
3. a further "£30 billion of All this when a really good
OFFLINE RETAIL sales is impacted shopping cart costs less than
by internet information, research "£400 [yes, we sell them] and
or stimuli organizations such as Business
West allow you to claim up to
4. 10% of retail sales now take "£500 worth of website
place online development funding from IT @
Work Online. [Which we, of
5. e-retail sales have grown at course, can help with!]
an average year-on-year rate of
45% for the past 6 months The world sometimes seems very
strange!
6. e-retail sales have grown
2,000% in 6 years
About the Author:
Richard Hill is a Director of E-CRM Solutions, that specialises in CRM, direct and internet marketing [http://www.e-crm.co.uk] for SMEs. He is non-executive Chairman of Innovantage [http://www.innovantage.co.uk] a business intelligence company and a non-executive director of Innovecom [http://www.innovecom.com] a computer networking company.
Read more articles by:
Richard D S Hill
Article Source: www.iSnare.com
