Visual Marketing: 99 Proven Ways for Small Businesses to Market with Images and Design

32. Leading by Example: Using Stock Images in a Downloadable Tips Sheet to Demonstrate That Marketing Can Be Easy and Inexpensive

One path to higher customer sales is through providing educational resources, as e-mail marketing provider VerticalResponse well knows. Its free marketing guides, like “50 Ways to Grow Your Email List” are attractive and useful resources that educate business owners and funnel them into the sales cycle for the company. There's nothing worse than trying to shotgun a target too wide of an audience with a single product. But VerticalResponse recognizes that its users range from newbie marketers to seasoned professionals, so the company designs different level guides and tutorials to target each level.

Why It Works

“We have many small business owners as clients and we know that they are challenged for time since they have to ‘wear a lot of hats’ running their own business,” says Kim Stiglitz, director of retention and conversion marketing at VerticalResponse. “We firmly believe that by creating simple, quick, and easy-to-use free guides, we can enable our clients to be more successful with their email, direct mail and postcard marketing.”

The guides get right to the point with short tips. They use stock images for visual appeal, a fact that is deliberate, ...