Monday I had the pleasure of being a judge in the Construction Writers Association Marketing Communications Awards. It was an interesting experience as I don’t think I’ve ever looked at so many promotional pieces in one day – over 60 in three different categories.

After looking so closely at such a large number of marketing pieces I really got a feel for what works and what just blends into the woodwork. By the end of the six hours I spend judging, something had to be really stellar to stand out in my mind.

What makes a great marketing, promotional or advertising piece:

A very clear goal

Before you sit down to create something, you need to know what you are trying to achieve. For example, one campaign was aimed at letting customers know about a financing program that was available. All the copy was about the financing, not selling the product. This campaign was very effective.

Another company produced a piece that was trying to promote new products, push an existing line and celebrate an anniversary. It was trying to achieve too many goals and as a result, it didn’t achieve any of them.

Great graphics

When you’re competing for your audience’s attention, it had better look good. You need great images, good use of white space, the right colours and fonts. It doesn’t have to be full colour on glossy paper to be effective – although it sure helps.

With the proliferation of graphic software available, too many people are trying to do it themselves. If you’re willing to spend $300 on printing, why would you scrimp on the design?

One piece that stood out was for portable lights that could be configured in multiple ways. It was a simple square flyer that folded out three times showing how these lights could be extended to reach difficult spots. This visual illustrated the versatility of the product in a way words never could.

Some of the bad ones didn’t do any one thing wrong. It’s just they were cluttered, with too many photos and colours, too much text and everything looking the same. When it comes to graphic design, often less is more.

Simple, clear copy

Copy – the words – are essential. But they need to be the right words. Some of the most effective pieces had few words. Others had pages of copy. The key was they all were working to achieve the stated goal of the advertisement. There was not fluff. And they were in a language the audience used and understood.

The best pieces all had great headlines – short phrases that grabbed attention and made the point. None of the winners used lots of hype. No “Amazing offers” or “once in a lifetime opportunities”. Some used humour, some didn’t. But all the winners had headlines that helped achieve the stated goal of the ad.

One product had a fairly lengthy campaign – they submitted 30 pages of materials. But they had blatantly copied from a very well known national campaign. And it wasn’t as if they were trying to be tongue-in-cheek. This was a serious and somber campaign. This obvious plagiarism completely ruined the credibility and tone of their campaign.

In the copywriting world, everyone has a “swipe file” – a collection of advertising and promotional pieces that are truly stellar. Whenever you go to write something new you pull them out for inspiration. You don’t copy them exactly. Particularly from an advertising campaign anyone who has watched tv in the last three years will have seen.

When writing copy for a promotional piece, ask yourself if every sentence, every word is helping you achieve your goal. If not, leave it out.

Technology that works

These days few businesses create promotional campaigns without at least considering a multimedia or web component. Audio, video, and animation can literally bring your advertisement to life. If it works.

If you are planning to send out CDs or DVDs to prospects, you’d better make sure they work, on a variety of platforms. We received a few that wouldn’t work on any of the computers we had available. They were tossed without being looked at. A prospect would spend even less time trying.

Another entry was an off-line/on-line campaign that consisted of some clever mailers whose purpose was to drive traffic to a very cool website. The website was fun, funny and interactive and showed how the product in question beat its competitors. The problem … the library where we were judging didn’t have high speed internet so the audio and video was very choppy. It was frustrating to try to watch.

Then I realized – the majority of customers for this product would also live in rural areas. Many – if not most – of them would not have access to high speed internet. Yes, even in Canada and the US, there are rural areas were not only do people not have high speed internet, they CAN’T get it at all. If you are creating a web campaign, you’d better be sure your audience can actually view it.

If you want to create a promotional campaign that really gets results, you need to have all the pieces in place. Miss even one and you won’t get the same results.

Andrea J. Stenberg