Minimalist marketing eliminates noise. It’s only about what your audience needs to hear right now. It’s purposeful. Why would you consider using it? Because consumers see between 6,000 to 10,000 ads a day. When clean and simple marketing pops up, it stands out. If you’d like to incorporate minimalist marketing into your strategy, we have some tips and gift ideas to get you started.
Clean design
In minimalist marketing, less is more. Less flashy, less clutter, less complex. In design, use only what you must to get your message across. That means lots of blank space and little to no copy. Keep it simple with a flat design and one to two colors. Showcase your name, product or service front and center. To test how well your minimalist design works, present it to staff who aren’t designers and haven’t been involved in the development. If they immediately understand the point, your minimalist design is on target. Remind your design team that creativity and minimalism go hand-in-hand with simple gifts for communications professionals, like a pen shaped like a paint brush. A clear paperweight can remind them that clean design equals a crystal-clear message. To get creative juices flowing, hand out Doodle Books.
Purposeful products
Offering a little bit of everything isn’t always the best route. Instead, choose your top five must-have products to focus on. Which products best convey what you do or how you can help customers? Which products are the most versatile? The most purposeful? Train your staff to present those products most often and keep them on display instead of showing a wide product range. Follow the same guidelines when exhibiting at a trade show. Showcase only one or two useful products to stand out from cluttered booths your prospects are seeing. If you’re an outdoors company, set up products on a tailgate table that you can raffle off after the show. And pass out samples or company literature in simple laptop backpacks or conference totes.
Straightforward content
Eliminate chatter and fluff from your emails and social media posts to get straight to the point. Make sure your content team has a clear purpose for every piece of content produced. Train staff to ask themselves, “Is this sentence vital to the message I’m trying to convey?” If not, it can be deleted. Rather than focusing on creating a certain number of posts each week, focus on your content’s usefulness. You can plan out your content calendar by assigning a “job” for each post or email, where each must serve a purpose to your audience. To remind staff to keep it simple, hand out minimalist gifts, like a solid-colored notebook with a sleek metal pen. Or a simple memory foam mouse pad. Imprint a minimalist message, like ‘less is more’, on each gift as a daily reminder.
On-board staff
Review your onboarding, staff training and business plan to see if it can be simplified. To help your team work more efficiently, give them a planner and ask them to create a daily and weekly to-do list. Review it to see if there’s anything that can be re-assigned to a different department, so staff stays focused on their areas of expertise. Getting staff on board with minimalist marketing helps keep them from becoming overwhelmed. It also keeps your team sharp and focused. To keep everyone on the same page, outfit your team with simple yet stylish caps or T-shirts. Include a one-word reminder, like ‘Purposeful’, to keep things minimal. Carry the same message throughout your office with posters and floor stickers.
Simple marketing stands out
Give your audience a breath of fresh air with minimalist marketing. With these training and gift ideas for your marketing team, your staff will soon know how to keep marketing straightforward and simple.