Make Flyers great again in Word

Now the day has come when you have to update the old flyer. Nothing big, but the texts are simply no longer correct. You don't need any of the marketing people to do that. You can do a little text work yourself. First ask the marketing department for the word template of the flyer. That's where the first surprise may come: Visually appealing flyers like this one would not be created in Word at all, but in so-called graphic design programs like Indesign.

It is important that you have a digital PDF version of the flyer. Just as you can convert Word templates into PDF files, the reverse is also possible. But before I do, allow me to take you for a moment to give you some preliminary thoughts on the flyer project. I promise you that you will save even more costs and at the same time attract many desired customers.

You must ask yourself the following questions before the flyer project. It will take you 20 minutes.

1. Why do you want a flyer?
2. Why do you think it is the tool of choice? (Do customers explicitly want a printed flyer? Do employees want a flyer? Why exactly?)
3. What do you want to achieve? For whom exactly is the flyer intended?

Often the sober answer to these questions is:

From my experience with experts, I know that many experts want something to keep customers calm. They don't want to deal with the customer from a sales point of view and need a kind of replacement business card with more content and contact details, preferably not referring to themselves. For executives, on the other hand, the printed flyer is popular, in order to create the impression with marketing-shy superiors that you also have this area in your team fully under control. If this is also one of your motives: Shh... it will definitely remain between us. But: use the update to make your content more successful. Answer the above questions from the perspective of your customers. 

If you really insist on a flyer, you cannot avoid the following point: Is the visual basis of the old flyer still up-to-date? Many companies have a corporate design, some even have a corporate identity. The corporate design specifies exactly how the company logo is to be integrated, which formats can be used, which colours are possible, how the fonts have to be and much more. Your marketing department usually knows the Corporate Design. Do you know if anything has changed there? If so, you can put your foot in it by revising and then using a flyer in Word that is no longer CD-compliant. 

In the course of my marketing career I have had to throw away numerous printed flyers due to content or design obsolescence. I therefore suggest that the content you would like to have created should not be prepared as a flyer, but online. Here are my arguments: 

Advantage Online Content versus Word-Flyer

• More interaction possibilities for customers

• More comprehensive, target group-specific and attractive presentation
• Possibility of multimedia processing
• More flexibility
• Cheaper
• More sustainable
• Possibility to measure usage data for content
• Better processing and tracking of digital requests
• Conserving resources

With online information, users have the opportunity to express criticism, praise and requests for changes in comments or to access further information via links to related sites and social media portals. This is referred to as Web 2.0, and it is also possible to make it easier for users to start a dialogue with you. For this purpose, you can offer a variety of channels online, depending on the user's preferences. Offline you can essentially attach a return form. The new application possibilities of Web 3.0 include 3D simulations, user participation in the creation process, virtual reality and much more. And Web 4.0 with the support of artificial intelligence is also already in the starting blocks.

On the net it is easy to change or add information at any time. After printing, however, it is impossible to change the content of print media. With today's fast moving information, it doesn't take long before your flyers are out of date and have to be thrown away. 

To keep a flyer manageable in terms of content and printing costs, you have to limit the number of pages. Therefore you have to concentrate on the most important information. The flyer will therefore only ever be able to vesrogen a certain selection of target persons really well with information. Online there are no limits as far as the abundance and the preparation of the information is concerned. Almost all contents and ideas can be published here. By means of an appropriate structure you can also address different target persons and present the contents with different content and different preparation. This is a great advantage, because the more topics and details you cover, the more buyer personas you address. 

Content provided online is considerably cheaper than content prepared in print media.

More and more people use their computers to find out about a particular subject. This is particularly true for the younger generations born in 1990 and later, but also professionals of the previous years are increasingly using Google. It is simply more convenient. A keyword is typed into the search engine and you are shown what you were looking for. This trend is irreversible. You can be sure that digital content marketing will continue to grow.

To better illustrate your applications and expertise, you can, for example, include videos online. You can also create surveys or downloads. And you can use pictures and tests anyway. Interactive forms ensure that customer enquiries are sent directly to your e-mail inbox. You don't have this wide range of applications with flyers.

With regard to online activities, you can even prove over time that users have been proven to go to the site and use a particular offer or contact you, for example. And if they don't do that, then at least you know that it doesn't work the way they want it to, and they can turn to something else.

It is also advantageous for your internal processes if the potential customer enters his data online in an offer request form or similar. You or your team do not have to manually transfer the customer data into any systems, whereby errors can occur. You have everything legible in digital form. Maybe your company is fit and offers a so-called API interface to enter online forms directly into your CRM system. But don't worry if something like this is not possible. Even a digital input in a simple information letterbox is already better than faxes or mail deliveries, which then fly around somewhere in the house and are sometimes wasted.

Data on unnecessary paper printing and forest dieback: Germany is the world's largest consumer of paper. Every German consumes an average of 242 kilograms of paper per year (2019). Despite the recycling of old paper, this still corresponds to an annual deforestation of 40,000 football pitches. Despite recycling and online communication, the consumption of paper has been rising continuously for decades. Our demand is mainly covered by wood imports. Our main supplier is Brazil, where the rainforest is currently receiving its final death blow. For the rest of Western Europe and the United States the situation is not really better. What else do I have to say? 

If you have useful content for your customers,

then you will win in the long run.

Nobody can close their eyes to the truth of real customer benefit. 

I do not want to talk you out of the flyer completely. Some flyers also contain feedback options for potential customers and are used. It remains unclear whether users would not have preferred to go online. For example, the best way is to put all the interesting content online and then print just a small display card with a smart code that links to the website and use that on analog events.

Supplement the display card with a small discussion with the customer about what you have to offer. It is the best recommendation during a buseinss event if the customer experiences you as a pleasant, competent business contact. Then give them your business card, the place to find you on the net, and best of all have them give you their business card as well. These are the best conditions to convince the prospective customer of yourself. You do not need a print flyer for this.

You will soon discover that it is lucrative to be found online. Give marketing a chance to convince you.  Your marketing manager will search for interesting content for you and prepare it for your area of expertise. He uses special tools to find out what your target group is so interested in on the net and ensures that your content ranks well on Google. His goal is also to ensure that the customer's interaction with you works via the website. To achieve this, various requests for contact are installed, the so-called call-to-actions. And soon you will enjoy a steady stream of enquiries in your CRM or inbox. In the B2B area this is sometimes not as numerous as in the B2C area, but a plus of 10% qualified enquiries per month is also valuable. 

And for all those who are still not convinced, here are the ultimate instructions for converting any PDF from your company to Word. Alternatively, the instructions for making changes in a flyer directly in Adobe PDF. Just click on the links below. Good luck! And don't forget to talk to your marketing manager about your future content marketing.