Creative brand collateral has a way of attracting potential customers to your business. Branded collateral is a time-tested marketing tool that allows people to remember you, long after the initial interaction has taken place. As a business owner, you want to take advantage of the different types of brand collateral that are available to you and ascertain which ones may be the best for promoting your business and brand.
Many forms of brand collateral are incredibly inexpensive, allowing you to expand your brand’s influence without breaking the bank. Creating these branded items is a fantastic way to get the most bang for your buck on your marketing spend.
There are many kinds of brand collateral, including print collateral, digital collateral, event collateral, product collateral and promotional collateral. In this article, we’ll go over each of these in greater detail and analyse how your business can benefit from them.
- Print Collateral
Print is still a factor in 2024. This is why so many companies invest heavily in booklet printing, business card design and the creation of brochures, flyers and posters. Print collateral has a positive psychological effect on potential customers. It’s also extremely cost-effective, especially if you print in bulk.
When making print collateral, there are several considerations to keep in mind. Because of the temporal nature of physical objects, print collateral wears out over time. To maximise their lifespan, you want to use high-quality, durable materials. It’s also important to think about the environmental impact of your printed collateral and use easily biodegradable materials.
Overall, creating print collateral is an essential way to build a thriving brand and spread awareness about your company.
- Digital Collateral
It will come as no surprise that digital collateral is an extremely common, and effective, way of growing your brand in 2024. Digital collateral, including websites, digital ads, social media posts and marketing emails are all being used by businesses great and small to build their brands.
Digital collateral is similar to print collateral in that they both involve a lot of creative work on your part. You’ll need to work with a copywriter, graphic designer and overall marketing strategist to produce them. How digital collateral differs from print collateral is the scale on which you can distribute it and how accessible it is to anyone who owns a laptop or a smartphone.
The low entry costs and ease of production involved with making digital collateral have led to its becoming one of the most widely used branding tools in the world. You’d be remiss not to take advantage of it in your own business.
- Event Collateral
Attending industry events is crucial to becoming a leader in your industry. They allow you both to sell your products and spread the word about your brand. In order to be successful, high-quality event collateral is essential.
Event collateral refers to the branded materials needed to promote your company at an industry event or showcase. These include items like banners, show booths, product presentations posters and signage.
Properly produced event collateral has many advantages. It helps you catch the limited attention of the attendees by drawing them towards your booth. Event collateral also helps you communicate what your brand is all about to potential customers and business partners.
- Product Collateral
The success or failure of a brand’s product can often come down to the quality of your product collateral, which includes all the extra pieces that are added to a product to make it ready for market. Packaging, labels and instruction manuals all fall under this category.
The first thing you want to consider when producing product collateral is legal compliance. Make sure that you include all the necessary information about your products in a format that’s visible to your customers as soon as they open the packaging. You also want to use your product collateral to encourage customers to make repeat purchases, so it’s important to make it as visually appealing as possible.
- Promotional Collateral
Promotional collateral is a type of branded material that sometimes includes print collateral and product collateral. Items like gift cards, referral cards and branded clothing and accessories all fall under this category.
These items are not your primary product but can be sold or given away as a supplement to your usual product offering. They allow your brand to stick in the minds of your consumers and also double as an additional source of revenue for your company.
Promotional collateral has been used by companies the world over to broaden their reach and grow their audiences.
Understanding the different types of brand collateral and how to use them is essential to building brand awareness and growing your business. You can start small with some business cards or flyers, or go all out and create several different types of collateral.
In this article, we’ve covered the major categories that fall under brand collateral. By using them in your own business, you can spread the word about your brand and boost your sales. What are you waiting for? Start creating brand collateral for your business today.