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A Permanent Reminder

In this era of mass communications, people are besieged with emails and pieces of paper. Although much of an Insight team’s work is transitory, there will be considerable knowledge that you need to impart in a way that ensures that it will be used.
 
If you want your messages to be noticed, you need to make sure that they look important and permanent. If you can provide high quality material that appears as if it has taken time and money to produce, it is more likely to be looked at and kept. Your customers will view it as a useful reference tool, rather than a disposable item that gets buried under a mass of other disposable items!
 
There are several ways of ensuring that you supply lasting deliverables: 
  • Bound books, reports and folders – These might take the form of a spiral bound A4 book, or a smaller A5 handbook. Folders can act as toolkits, with booklets inside. Wherever possible, try to ensure that the spine of the book or folder is clearly labeled, so that it is easy to see what it contains even if it’s on a shelf.
  • Laminated sheets – We looked more closely at the value of laminating documents in the January edition of 5 Minute Insights. Laminated items the size of credit cards can be used for key facts. If more detail is needed, some printers now offer an A4 sheet that folds down to a credit card size.
  • Intranet – Why not incorporate specific reference sections on your corporate intranet?
Many consultancies make sure that they produce professional looking documents to give more impact to their results. When deciding about applying this approach to your documents, think about the following:
 
What?
Think about what elements you want to focus on – which ones deserve to be preserved? What are the key messages you want to convey?
 
Who?
Identify your target audience, and the relevance of the material to them, and how you want them to respond to it.
 
How?
For lasting deliverables, ensure that your messages are clear and succinct; and that the way the document is presented is eye-catching and memorable (for instance, a front cover with a strong image and a punchy heading; protective covers at front and back).
 
Bound reports or laminated documents need not be expensive – just make sure they stand out. Have a chat with your company’s print department (or the company they use) about what is possible for very low cost with just a bit of thought.
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