Visual Marketing: a picture is still worth 10,000 words. by John H. Melchinger Chinese Origins One ancient Chinese expression is familiar the world over: A picture is worth 10,000 words. It is as true today as it was 4,000 years ago. Its marketing implications -- especially for verbally oriented salespeople--need heeding. Few people know that the Chinese Mandarin language began as a written encryption system. It was designed for transmitting messages between members of the ruling Mandarin class over long distances without fear of being intercepted and understood. Chinese Mandarin is visual, based on pictographs created by combining the basic 214 "radicals" in combinations that make the symbolic pictographs, or characters,that form Chinese words and phrases. Example: the character for safetyis a woman under a roof; a bit chauvinistic but in keeping with the ancient society's values The two characters that represent the word Chinaare centerand country, as the ancient Chinese thought of themselves as the center of the universe. The two characters that represent the United States are beautiful and country. And so it goes...the pictures formed by combining basic elements make meaning in this language. Historically, Chinese royalty used their language skills to invent new characters and make their mark in history. Drawing characters with brushes (Chinese calligraphy) became an art, and characters written by certain artists became famous collectibles. Not that the wisdom of their thoughts and words was neglected--but the art of the visual character became memorable. The language is visual, and its impact has affected most of the world for a few thousand years. Another Chinese expression you've heard some version of: Tell me--I will forget. Show me--I will remember. Let me try--I will learn how. And that's the crux of this article...using visuals to help people remember what should be memorable for them about you. It is not enough to impress people who can buy from you. You also want to teach the people you communicate with what to say about you when you are not there. Visuals go farther with this than any other communication methods I know. People See You People see you in their mind's eye. They remember you visually. Why not feed that to your best advantage? Your business card bears visual markings that may make you memorable. Ink color and typestyle are important, as are format and layout. Raised type and embossing also have visual impact. One technique that can make your business card create high impact memorability is to use an odd size. Consider creating a card that is other than standard in dimensions and heft. The tent style card (folded over to make a standard sized card) is common. Another approach is to use a 3" or 3.5" square card of heavier than normal stock. This is handy as both a business card and for jotting notes to clients. It's over-sized format also makes people notice it; it does not file away easily, so it is more noticed than it otherwise would be before it goes wherever the receiver puts all the business cards s/he receives. Letterhead creates your most frequently seen visual impact. It also carries your most important messages regularly to the people with whom relationship building is most important: your clients, centers and prospects. The visual impact of letterhead comes mostly from layout and colors. Layout can look like an expected image (you can easily imagine what a lawyer's or accountant's letterhead would probably look like), or it can highlight you as being apart from the crowd by presenting an image that is different in an appealing way. Your name can be bold, in a unique typestyle, and placed at the top center, left or right. Address, telephone numbers and email addresses can be at the top or bottom, left, right or center. Rules (printer talk for those lines that form complete or partial borders or frames) can be various colors, widths and placement. Don't neglect paper stock when creating your letterhead image. It can be 20 lb. or more, smooth texture (good for laser printing) or coated (good for inkjet printing, especially color). Letterhead and matching envelopes should feel good, with a pleasant amount of heft. Heft seems to be more important than texture. If you want to feel the difference, pick up a few pieces of different papers, close your eyes, and move each piece around in your fingers. You will sense the differences in stiffness, body and heft, and you will be better able to choose the one you like best. Notes also can present your image regularly. A full bodied, stiff paper about 4" x 6" attaches nicely to things you might send to people, such as articles and client information. This type note fits perfectly into a standard #10 business envelope, and should match you other stationery. It is large enough to hold your logo, name, address and telephone number. Your tagline, or some appropriate phrase or saying, might give it just the right "personality" you want to convey with it. Again, rules in a corner or a frame printed around the edges may enhance it. The remaining impact of notes, of course, is what you write on them. Use handwritten messages and a broad point to make your message stand out. Your real message may be none other than to convey that you are thinking of that person, such as a note on an article, Jayne -- Saw this. Thought of you. -- John You can further demonstrate what is was that made you think of that person simply by highlighting the headline or selected items in the article or whatever you are sending. Notes attached to things you send people can create big impact with little effort. The return on investment is quite high, especially when you systematize the effort for a bit of efficiency. Just make a list of the people you want to do this for. Keep the list handy, and make a checkmark next to the name each time you send something. This way you will see who you are neglecting and shouldn't, as well as with whom you may be overdoing this informal thinking of you effort. Your brochure is also a telling piece of marketing collateral that can improve with visual enhancements. All the same issues apply with brochures that work with business cards, letterhead and notes. In addition, you have a handful of other high impact opportunities with brochures that you do not have with the others. First, a brochure may be of any size or arrangement of features that works for you and your audiences. How you use it (as a leave- behind or as a talk tool) is not at issue here; rather, let's explore just the visual impact a brochure can produce. The most common brochure is 11' x 8.5', folded twice to make three equal panels on each side of the brochure, inside and out. The term "pocket brochure" describes it nicely; it was meant to be carried in a man's suit pocket and easily produced when needed. It also fits perfectly into a #10 business envelope because it is folded exactly as a letter gets folded for the same envelope. As a matter of fact, the pocket brochure format is so common that several paper companies have created brochure stock with > artistic designs for people with laser printers to add their text to produce a quite colorful, eye-catching brochure. Matching stationery, from business cards to letterhead and envelopes are also available in most business stores and from mail order catalogs. Nowadays, with the advent of superior color and inkjet printers, the laser printer is less acceptable for printing brochures on any stock because the ink cracks and peels easily after a little handling and mailing. You've seen this effect with laser-printed addresses on envelopes that come through the mail, as well as with the letters inside. A good color printer can resolve this if it uses indelible inks and does a superior job printing in black. The new ones do. Inkjet printing, however, requires care and attention to paper selection. The papers that work best with inkjet printing usually do not also create a good effect with laser printing. Color printers add one more feature that I am finding quite useful in the development of marketing pieces: they allow printing certain text in color. You've no doubt seen very impressive sales presentations with color graphs and charts, red ink for negative numbers, blue or black ink for positive balances, and green to indicate what could happen to the good if certain steps are taken. All great stuff. Now, imagine a brochure, letterhead, biography or any other of your marketing pieces with headlines, names, titles, logo, Internet addresses and websites, or any other important feature to highlight, done in a tasteful color. Go one step further, and using the power of new word processing programs such as Microsoft Word 8.0 (part of MS Office 97) and others, use color to highlight text, just as if you applied a Hi-Liter to the text by hand. You can create high visual impact, especially in brochures and presentations, with just a small amount of color. Using color can also allow you to produce a single brochure and emphasize one issue or market in one sales call, then another issue or market in another. Targeting audiences and ideas is easier with visual enhancements such as color. Bulletins can produce higher visual impact for you than almost any other marketing tool, if bulletins are appropriate for you to send to your target markets. The masthead you create for your bulletins--the banner at the top of the page--make your bulletin noticeable. This goes a long way to getting people to read your bulletins. As your messages become note worthy over time, readers will begin to visually isolate each of your bulletins for their more urgent attention. Of course, what you write from bulletin to bulletin eventually demonstrates the worthiness of your bulletins in general, but their initial impact and getting them read falls as much to the visual impact of the first pieces as to the messages you put in them. Bulletins, as I originally conceived and designed them, are 8.5" x 11", mailed in #10 business envelopes, and clearly marked outside and in as bulletins. When they are folded, I make sure the banner (masthead) is folded out, not in, so when the envelop is opened, the banner shows first. Another visual appeal is to stamp the word BULLETIN on the front of the envelope, in a rich color such as IBM blue. Of course, avoid metered postage and place an interesting stamp on the envelope to increase interest in its contents. While we are on the topic of addressing envelopes, let me report that several clients have recently asked whether the envelopes they send should be handwritten or not. Although I have seen no real data to support a clear answer to this question in the private practitioner portion of the financial services business, I have applied a general rule of thumb that seems to work well over the years. If the message is personal, a handwritten envelope and note may help, and probably will not hurt. If the message is business, keep it that way--use the printer. If you are working with a client who knows you, there is no reason not to mix handwritten and word-processed text, keeping the distinction strictly to what is personal and what is business. In general, a postscript (PS) does not belong in a business letter, whether written by hand or not, so don't save your personal notes for postscripts; put them right in the body of your letter. Presentations provide great opportunities to create visual impact. One- pagers are my favorite marketing tool. In a single, simple image, you can convey a high impact message that will not be forgotten. Example: Remember Maslow's hierarchy of needs? There have been several triangles over the years, made to look like pyramids, that depict the five stages of emotional growth and maturity, and equate each to a product or level of reality in financial growth and maturity. You know what I mean: protection, security, accumulation, investment, speculation. There are many ways to sayall this, but one basic image works well for showing all this, and the image is more memorable than all the words. Unfortunately, this type imaging is dangerously underemployed in marketing financial services today, and all the word maneuvering that goes on causes a lot of the compliance problems and lawsuits that exist. Draw pictures to promote concepts. Use the pictures regularly and consistently. Your ideas will be both understood and remembered, and your clients will then be better able to make informed decisions. Disclosure, presentation and the client's ability to make informed decisions are all critical legal tests when a sale is litigated. Drop copies in your client files to demonstrate what you showed the client. Keep your history with clientsclear by keeping good records. One Image--Many Good Results To demonstrate the impact you can create in a simple visual, here is one that I created in the seventies that still works very well today. It is memorable, accurate, and easily repeated by someone to whom you have presented it, even when you are not there. It multiplies the impact of what you do by teaching others how to explain what you do in an interesting and compelling way. Although I call it the universal consulting model, most people who have seen it call it something like "the cloud talk" because they remember what it means and look likes, thus give it their own title. First, the image, then the talk that supports it. The gist of the talk goes like this: Everyone has a here and now...a place where they are today...that we could pretty well describe in facts, figures, attitudes and interests. A snapshot of the present situation. Wouldn't you agree? If nothing changed...interest rates did not vary, you never got a raise, had more children...the world just remained exactly as it is...then we could pretty well plot where you are headed. Right? Reality is, things and people do change. The financial environment fluctuates. Life throws curve balls and opportunities at us. Consequently, a person's goals are rarely exactly where s/he's headed at any given point in time. My job as an advisor is to help people make the continuous and most suitable adjustments in course required to get them where they want to go. Adjustments, mind you. Not knee-jerk reactions that cause wholesale change when it is not needed. Just sensible adjustments to your course, based on what's most suitable for your ownsituation. In the process, if we do it right, I will spend about 80 percent of my time asking questions and discovering what you have, how you got here, and where you really want to go. When I get to know you really well--what you want, where you are now as a starting point, what you are willing to do to get there, your risk tolerance, all that and more--I will then spend about 10 to 15 percent of my effort isolating the problems you need to solve. By problems I mean only one thing--issues, which when resolved, will get you where you want to go. I don't pretend to deal with non- issues. The focus must be productive to succeed. Now to do this effectively, there are four key roles. Two are mine; two are yours. My first role is process manager. I know the financial decision making process upside down and backwards. It is my job to lead you through it. Your first role is content expert. Nobody knows you better than you, so we put your information into the decisionmaking process. My next role is expertise manager. Assuming that you want to make informed decisions, we may need some special expertise at any given point in the process. If what you need to know is in my areas of expertise, I will bring the right information immediately to the table. If not, we will agree on how to get the right information for you, and I will see to it that it gets to you on a timely basis. The last role is yours. Am I correct in assuming that you want to make informed decisions? (get affirmation) Then your second role is the most important: decisionmaker. No one can make better decisions about your financial future than yourself--nor should they. Does this sound like the process you would like to go through to decide how best to reach your goals? Would you like to get started now, or set an appointment for sometime soon when we can sit down together, prepared to get really into it? In the many years that this image and talk have been used to describe life insurance selling, financial planning, consulting in many areas, and a host of other advisory situations, results are consistent: people remember. They remember understanding, remember wanting to act, and remember enough to try to tell others enthusiastically, using the same picture and gist, that this process makes sense. Package It All in a Bundle If you spend 10 minutes each work day making sure you look good (I am being very conservative here), then in one year, working 45 weeks, you will have spent thirty-seven hours and 50 minutes (one full work week) preparing yourself to look your best. Why not invest half that much time developing consistent, high-impact visual images with your stationery, creating a few incredibly memorable talk tools, and including a visually impressive masthead for bulletins you can send whenever you wish to report something newsworthy to certain clients, prospects and centers. This effort alone can help raise your image in the marketplace sufficiently to be remembered better, and more effectively, than you are today. It is worth the effort. Of course, if you combine the refinement of your visual image with targeted themes and memorable phrases, you could become dangerous in the marketplace--to your competition. To see is to believe. John H. Melchinger coaches financial planning and estate planning professionals who market and sell to high income and high net worth buyers. His consultations on developing their professional practices through effective marketing are highly profitable for his clients. John's career experiences in financial services and products--since 1977--make him exceptionally qualified to have developed innovative, non-traditional marketing and skills development programs in estate planning, financial planning, business planning, ethics and consultative selling. His how-to books, articles, bulletins, workshops and presentations have become classics in the industry, and his clients are among the most profitable and productive in their fields. John is available on the Internet at jhmco@ix.netcom.com, by telephone appointment at (403) 459-1472, by fax at (403) 419-2936, and by mail John Melchinger 3 - 11 Bellerose Drive, Suite 117 St. Albert, AB T8N 5C9 Canada Web Sitehttp://www.MROline.com