Our tips for designing a media kit will catch the attention of new prospects and help close bigger sales.

By Gretchen Kast

With many of our clients major annual meetings wrapping up by late spring, summer is our time to take a step back, evaluate our marketing materials and start making a plan for the year ahead. As usual, this starts with the media kit. We’ve previously written about how to decide if it’s time for a media kit refresh. This time around, we want to dig a little deeper into how we develop truly effective media kits that actually drive sales.

A media kit should be a helpful compliment to your overall sales strategy. It is something prospects can reference on their own before or after a phone conversation or in-person meeting. But at the same time, it should also be effective as a stand-alone piece. So how can you be sure your media kit is really hitting the mark? 

What are the key attributes of a successful media kit?

It Reinforces Its Primary Purpose

What is the purpose of a media kit? On one hand, it should provide prospective sponsors, exhibitors and advertisers with key information about all of your marketing opportunities. But, more importantly, a media kit should help them decide whether or not these opportunities are a good fit for their organization.

Take a step back and think about what factors influence this decision making process. What kind of audience can you connect them to? How do you reach them? Why are you the best outlet for achieving their goals? A good media kit will answer these questions right away—preferably on the very first page.

Remember: a media kit is more than just a fact sheet. It is an essential tool in the total sales strategy toolbox.

It Is Clear & Concise

One of the most common media kit mistakes that associations make is letting them get too long. While it can be tempting to create an all-in-one document, a total information dump can actually be counterproductive when it comes to sales. When faced with too much information, many readers can easily become overwhelmed or simply get lost in the details. This is especially true when you’re putting forward a wide assortment of data points like membership statistics, ad sizes, deadlines, etc.

In order to create a truly effective media kit, remember that less is always more – and clarity is paramount. Rather than inundating your kit with every single detail, try focusing on the high-level information first.

That doesn’t mean you should edit out all of the specifics, of course. Just be thoughtful about how they’re being communicated. For example, number-heavy statistics about circulation, membership and web traffic are often much more digestible when presented in infographic form.

It Highlights Your Strengths

More than simply outlining your opportunities, your media kit should also reflect your unique strengths. The way you present your information has a major, albeit somewhat subtle, effect on this. If you design the kit like a self-service menu, you may be unintentionally encouraging potential advertisers and sponsors to stick to one-off insertions or one-dimensional programs.

At Blue House Sales Group, we know that customization is the key to building long-term relationships—and comprehensive cross-platform marketing programs is the most reliable way to guarantee the biggest returns on investment. We work closely with companies to develop bespoke programs that are curated to their individual needs. By strategically combining print and digital advertisements alongside sponsored content, trade show exhibits and sponsorship placements, we ensure that their messaging really makes an impact.

Rather than try to outline various custom programs in our media kits, it’s more effective to paint a more general picture of the diverse opportunities and what might achieved/achievable with each.

We then make sure the media kit directs people on how to contact us directly by phone and email. This way, people will come away from reading the media kit with a clear understanding of what we can offer them—and tees up more productive conversations about building a program that fits their individual goals.

Want to learn more? Get in touch today.