Many companies have been increasing their digital marketing assets over recent years. With a large number of Americans reporting that they continue to work remotely, the need for those materials remains crucial.
Right now, fewer sales teams, product managers and service reps are face-to-face with existing customers or new potential sales. With less in-person factory tours, on-site meetings and trade shows, the need to ensure your communications are effective is critical. Marketing assets need to support brand positions, look professional, be high-quality, and work even harder than before, especially if you and your team can’t always be there to talk directly to the customer.
Features to Make Your PDFs More Engaging
If you are looking to shift your marketing presentations to be more digital and more engaging, consider how you can leverage your existing “traditional” sales tools – like brochures, line cards or sell sheets – and change static PDFs into something more interactive. While many businesses already use basic features, like embedded hyperlinks or signatures, there are other useful tools that are often overlooked.
Here are some suggestions that can make traditional PDFs feel and function more like an interactive presentation:
3 Video Tutorials to Make Your PDFs More Interactive in Minutes
1. Make Sales Tool Easy to Navigate
Your customer may not need (or want) to read the information you are presenting in a 1, 2, 3, 4, page order. Similarly, if you are in a teleconferenced presentation, accessing visuals that support your commentary quickly and easily is critical. Consider adding a navigation menu on every page of your PDF, slightly adapting the design to allow for a clear and understandable user experience. This will help readers move quickly through a multi-page document and access the pertinent information they are looking for.
2. Make a PDF Easier to Browse with Hide/Show Details
Allowing a reader to quickly review and sort content allows people to find the specifics they want more easily. An interactive PDF can include features such as rollovers or click animation effects. These features can allow a reader to consolidate dense information into clearly organized content blocks – revealing product specifications, features boxes and technical descriptions easily by simply clicking on a button.
3. Embed Videos into the Layout
Little compares to the power of video when communicating information. Whether showing product demonstrations, instructional tutorials or customer testimonials – video can quickly tell a story with little reader effort. By including video assets in your document, a simple PDF instantly becomes more robust. Depending on the final delivery of your PDF, or your file size limitations, you can also embed video links or “calls” to a video hosted on YouTube or Vimeo.
4. Embed & Capture Form Data
If you have gotten a customer to engage with your document, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to continue their journey through the sales funnel. Considering including forms in your PDFs – either to collect general contact info, allow customers to submit a quote request, or even to collect orders. Like website forms, PDF forms can be individually set, sending unique form information directly to the right person in your organization.
Be Sure Your Team is Using the Right Materials
It may sound simple but putting in place a process to ensure your team has the latest files is a critical step when using digital marketing assets. From the first new PDF asset to revision updates, to controlling what content can be customized by the sales team member – some basic processes will help maximize value and brand compliance.
One way to ensure that the latest version of documents are used is to set up a web-based marketing portal housing sales tools on your website or a shared drive, which can only be accessed via a password-protected portal. This allows your sales team to download and share digital marketing assets, or automatically synch up assets whenever a computer has WiFi access.
Similarly, your sales team can also share sales assets directly with customers via links, assigning them a unique (and trackable) password to access and view documents. Instead of sending PDFs as attachments, by using a link to one central document, customers will always see the most current version of the file.
Support for Your Digital Needs
Many B2B marketing teams have adapted to new market conditions and new business requirements. If you need some support to increase your digital library, or with any digital or integrated marketing campaign needs, our team is here to help. Whether you are looking for a specific scope of work, or a full-service B2B marketing agency partner, we bring two decades of proven results to every project.
Contact us for a free consultation or let us know how we can help. We’re ready to help you Power Up Your Marketing.
Stifel Marcin – The B2B Marketing Agency
Unlike many advertising and marketing agencies, B2B isn’t just something that we do, it’s all we do. We’ll work to help your brand achieve its goals through the strategic combination of creativity, communication and technology. Our focused client intake processes give us the ability to thoroughly understand your business, products and objectives, working to identify the competitive advantages and opportunities that will grow awareness, leads and sales. We develop innovative marketing plans with strategic, data-driven processes, presenting complex ideas and compelling messages that position your business ahead of the competition. As your cooperative partner, our integrated B2B marketing agency is dedicated to your success. If you need help with digital marketing assets, our solutions can help. Let’s talk.
