[ubuntu-uk] Leaflets

[Mark Harrison]

Right - I'll step forward as a marketeer :-)

However, in typical marketing style, I'm going to answer the question I 
wish you'd asked instead... hence I'm going to talk about the general 
"flyers for use at shows" issue, rather than the specifics of "how to 
craft a flyer that explicitly has the purpose of answering questions."


We had a long discussion discussion in the Sussex LUG about the leaflets 
to use for the British Computer Fair stands that the LUG runs each month.

The FLYER that we designed at that point (and reportedly worked well at 
attracting attention) can be found at

   http://www.youraffiliateexpert.com/temp/   - versions in ODP and PDF 
formats

I ought now to explain WHY I recommended this approach.

- The purpose of the flyer was to make people stop at the stand, and ask 
more. It was NOT to answer people's questions. The logic was that it was 
far more effective to "hook" someone with a bold leaflet, and then get 
them into a 1-1 conversation with someone who could relate to their 
issues, than to try to create a "reference document" for people to take 
away and not read. I'm in favour, BTW, of creating a takeaway reference 
document as proposed, but I think that a flyer to get people to "stop at 
the table" is helpful at any show.

- This is ONE example to show the format of the leaflet. There were 
several others, each with a photo, a name, a job title and a catchy 
soundbite. At BCF, the majority of attendees are NOT IT professionals, 
so we deliberately tried to pick references who worked outside the IT 
industry as well to plant some rapport into the minds of the passers-by 
that this WASN'T something that only appealed to "geeks". Obviously, at 
an IT-industry event, it would be far more sensible to pick 
people/soundbites that were from the industry ; or if it were a travel 
industry event, to pick them from the travel industry, or for a local 
government event, to pick them from local government, or... well you get 
the idea - create a feeling in the mind of the passerby that the person 
on the leaflet is similar to them, and faces similar issues.

- Each flyer had a consistent layout - name/title top left, photo top 
right, quote middle, "...just another person to <b>switch to linux</b>" 
bottom middle, Tux bottom left. Obviously, this was for a LUG - if the 
Ubuntu_UK list wants to do something, then it should have an Ubuntu logo 
instead.

- The tagline "just another person to <b>switch to linux</b>" is 
important, since it contains what is known in NLP as an embedded 
command. There are parts of the brain that process the entire structure 
of the sentence literally. However, modern thinking in neuroscience is 
that there are independent "clusters" within the brain that just store 
particular entities. In this case, I used the <b> .. </b> to discretely 
highlight the phrase "switch to linux" as a discretely parsable entity. 
The entity as part of the whole sentence is just a subsidiary clause - 
however the entity on its own is a command.... "switch to Linux", hence 
the use of the term "embedded command". I'd still go with the phrase but 
make it specific, so "Just another person to switch to Ubuntu". Again, 
it's critical that this phrase is common, and used across various 
slides, each of which carries a different name, face and quote.



I will come to the question of the "FAQ flyer" though. What I would 
strongly suggest is that the place to start is experience of discussions 
with a typical show attendee (you'll have to profile them somehow if 
it's the first time you're going to a given show", and try to work out 
what the FREQUENTLY asked questions are. Too often, FAQs are a 
mis-acronym for "questions our marketing people wish you'd asked", 
presumably on the basis that QOMPWYA doesn't form an easy-to-say word :-)



Oh, and you're welcome to use the flyer if you want, particularly if you 
change Tux to Ubuntu logo, and change the word Linux to Ubuntu. The 
author photo is copyright ric bacon, and I have a waiver from him 
allowing me to use it for unlimited purposes (including commercial 
purposes.) 'Twas a good deal - he assigned me those rights in exchange 
for a photographer credit in my book - see even my marketing material 
doesn't breach copyright :-)


Regards,

Mark Harrison


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