Pet Marketing

I have seen a lot of sell sheets in my career and most of them suck. Here is an outline that I believe works every time… Think of your sell sheet more as a trade ad with specs and you will have more success in presenting to retail buyers. Also keep in mind the objective of the sell sheet – 1. give a quick sales message and 2. provide the buyer with the set up info need to get into their inventory management system 3. Gives your rep an outline and quick info to help sell – he/she keeps it in a sales binder. A good rule is: A sell sheet is never more than 1 page. You can use the back for UPC codes, etc., but the sales message should NEVER be more than 1 side of a 8 1/2 X 11 sheet.

1. Headline. Think of something creative that speaks about profits – the only think a retailer really cares about. Let’s use the example of a new rubber ball dog toy for illustrative purposes. You could right something like, “Follow the Bouncing Ball to More Profits!”. % of Sell Sheet: 10%

2. Product Hero Shot. Showcase your lineup with one item as hero. For example if you have 10 SKUs for a dog treat product, highlight one and talk about flavors available in the copy. The hero shot helps the buyer easily identify your product and let’s any packaging sell copy deliver its message. % of Sell Sheet: 40%

3. 3 Bullets as to Why Your Product is Great. I will usually put this to the right of the hero shot in a call-out box or some other treatment. You must narrow your product’s features/benefits down to 3 bullet points. No one will read more. Also, don’t repeat any sales messages that may already be on your packaging front panel. % of sell sheet: 20%

4. Body Copy. Here you can talk about why the product is different, why it was created, the problem it solves, etc. I would go beyond 1 paragraph (3-4 sentences) here. No one will read it. You can also talk about flavors if the list is not too exhausting. % of sell sheet: 20%

5. Specs. As I said in the opening paragraph, you can put specs on the back if needed… but here is what you need…

Item # (this is your internal item number that identifies the SKU)
Description: e.g. “Red Rubber Dog Ball”
How Many Units/Inner/Master: 4units/inner, 6 inners/master = 24 units/Master
Dimensions: L X W X H of your individual item, then inner case, then master case.
Cube: This is the metric used to figure out how many pallets fit on a truck. You can find the formula online… just Google it.
Pallet Configuration: TiHi – this refers to how the master case is palletized. Ti means how many masters on a layer and Hi means how many layers high.
UPC Codes: You can put these on the back, but you should have all of the UPC codes for all of the items/SKUs you are talking about in the sell sheet somewhere. They should be high enough quality print so a store buyer can have them scanned into their file maintenance system.
% of Sell Sheet – depends on how many items you have. Could be 100% of side 2.

6. Contact Info. Make sure your company name, address and phone, fax, web address, etc. are all listed across the bottom of the sell sheet. You want to make it easy for a buyer to call/contact you. % of sell sheet: 10%

I did not include specs in the 100% of the sell sheet. I assumed you will put them on the back. If you only have 1-3 items you can put them across the bottom right above your contact info.

Have questions or need help? Contact us at info@bulldogms.com

GOOD SELLING!

Share this:

Tags: Marketing, retail, sales

This entry was posted on Monday, August 23rd, 2010 at 11:33 am and is filed under Marketing, sales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.