Communications success story

Health & Nutrition brochure boosted sales by 20%

Note: Legal restrictions prohibit use of company's name.

Not many communications projects can boast of achieving 20 percent increases in sales but this one did. Intended to meet an informational gap in [the company's] direct-sales marketing, this full-color 24" by 11" six-page Health & Nutrition brochure filled a need previously unrecognized. It changed the methodology of how [the company's]* independent contractor sales force approached customers. The brochure has exceeded 600,000 distributed copies in five languages.

The sales increases was calculated using statistics published in [the company's] worldwide full-color weekly motivational magazine. Previously, the dealer force closed an average of one sale for every five appointments booked. While not all sales personnel achieved the same levels, by using the Health & Nutrition brochure, many dealers experienced closings of one sale per every four appointments—a 20 percent increase.

The following description of the Health & Nutrition brochure project was submitted for accreditation as a business communicator through the International Association of Business Communicators. Overall organization and criteria for this page were developed by the IABC accreditation staff.

Click thumbnails to see PDFs of the actual brochure *

Statement of Objectives and Results

1. Describe your organization and the communications function
2. Identify the problem or opportunity
3. Develop the solution or plan
4. Sell the plan to management or the client
5. Implement the plan
6. Evaluate the plan

1. Describe your organization and the communications function

[The company] was, at the time of my hire in 1980, the world's second-largest manufacturer/distributor of high-quality stainless steel water-less (minimum-moisture) cookware. In 1980, [the company] grossed $205 million in 36 countries.

[The company] is privately owned by a single family and is headquartered in Redmond, WA. [the company] was started in 1920 by a Dutch immigrant who peddled cookware and kitchen items door-to-door in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana. When stainless steel was released from World War II restrictions, and with the invention of Bakelite in the mid 1950s for kitchen-safe handles, [the company] created a patented cookware design.

[The company] expanded to Venezuela, Peru, western Europe, Japan, southeast Asia, and Central America, and discovered growing Hispanic populations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Boston, and other major American cities. The sales call emphasizes that "your family will eat better, live longer, and enjoy better nutrition. You will save on your cooking energy costs and won't need expensive vitamin/mineral supplements."

[The company's] marketing communications department publishes a worldwide weekly sales, motivation, inspiration, recognition, training, information, and statistical magazine; training and informational videos; sales and training manuals; event and motivational posters; promotional gadgetry; and a big-budget year-end convention.

I was hired in 1980 as managing editor of [the company's] then 22-year-old weekly international magazine, targeted at the independent-contractor sales force and the independent-contract field managers who recruited them and receive commissions on each sale. By definition, [the company] is a multi-level marketing (MLM) company.

To receive the magazine, every week a dealer or manager must report sales equal to the U.S. dollar value of four sets of cookware. A set is the basic 12-piece package, retail-priced in the U.S. (at that time) at $985.00. I changed the magazine's focus to be a "value-added" perk that each sales person would willingly work harder to earn.

2. Identify the problem or opportunity

During a long roller-coaster ride from 1982 to 1990, the U.S. dollar made durable goods too expensive for people in foreign markets to afford and netted [the company] less profit in the currency exchange. Venezuela, which had accounted for nearly 60 percent of [the company's] sales, experienced a series of juntas, cutting deeply into business.

I recommended producing a series of pullout brochures detailing facts about carbohydrates, sodium, cholesterol, and other aspects of healthful food preparation. Approval was given for one brochure, Sodium, which printed in two colors on high-quality gray-speckled paper and sent out as a special addition to the weekly magazine.

There was an immediate jump in the magazine's circulation which lasted about three months. In several countries including Venezuela, higher sales linger when local managers made color photocopies of the brochure (at their own expense) for their dealers to hand out to customers.

After receiving numerous calls from dealers and field managers begging us to publish more brochures, I reasoned that another brochure on a useful health-related topic would translate into higher sales for a longer period.

3. Develop the solution or plan

In mid-1994, I persuaded my manager that a health and nutrition company should have at least one piece of literature explaining what constitutes … health and nutrition. For his use, I wrote an ROI proposal which stated as its goals:

• The new Health & Nutrition brochure would match the earlier sodium piece for size, quality, and content development, but would be in full color.
  
  
• It would cost only $5,000 to produce, including writing, design, and printing.
  
  
• It would again distribute as part of the weekly magazine to reduce postal and handling expense, with a press run of 6,500 (5,750 for the magazine and 750 for inventory should a manager requested more).
  
  
• French and Spanish versions would be created as word-processed text with no illustrations, photocopied for simultaneous distribution—the standard procedure for all magazine content.
  
  
• Effectiveness would measured through further analysis of our in-depth weekly sales statistics, which was published as an integral part of the weekly magazine. We expected more dealers to rise above the four-unit cutoff with a corresponding increase in circulation.
  
  
• If successful, we would finish the series with six additional two-color nutrition brochures, for a total of eight which dealers could carry in loose-leaf binders during their cold-calls.

4. Sell the plan to management or the client

My manager and I embarked on a personal campaign with other mid-level managers, asking them to mention the concept to their managers. I researched nutrition articles and brochures, so we could fan them out and say "wouldn't this be valuable for us, too?"

After six weeks, the CEO (grandson of the founder) approached us for the ROI proposal he'd been hearing about. We delivered a personalized, bound copy for his reading. Within hours, the VP of Finance called us to a meeting. My supervisor and I explained the concept and the research.

We were instructed to produce the Health & Nutrition brochure as quickly as possible. Our budget was set at $5,000.

The executive review committee requested that we include a corporate page not related to nutrition but to recruiting *. To gain necessary space, we were allowed to eliminate a page about air quality. This actually extended the brochure's life, since [the company's] air-ionization product was discontinued less than six months later.

5. Implement the plan

• I served as project manager, planning and coordinating development, supervising design and production, and processing data for measurement and follow-up. I planned the schedule and produced the project breakdown and workflow for others (staff and vendors) on the team.
  
  
• Originally, I designated myself to be the lead writer and copy-editor but discovered that others were eager to do the writing. I believe my willingness to relinquish that duty enhanced the final quality.
  
  
• From the start, the Health & Nutrition brochure project was a team-effort. I found it easy to elicit assistance from the staff.
  
  • The home economist took my research and collected more. She wrote the main copy.
    
    
  • A nutrition consultant was hired to help with copywriting and organize the research materials.
    
    
  • My assistant editor requested copy-editing privileges, so I took over some of her other duties to give her extra time. She also wrote a bulleted column on the corporate page.
    
    
  • A graphic artist voluntarily painted an original work showing the ground-water cycle.
    
    
  • Another staff artist created a studio photograph instantly identifiable as "nutritious."
    
  
  
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture was asked for a computer version of the "food pyramid" graphic seen on food-product labels, but had not embraced electronic publishing. USDA provide a high-resolution printed version, which I recreated on the computer.
  
  
• We targeted a mailing date three weeks away and arranged printing with the same vendor who'd produced the sodium brochure. I promised the vendor they would print the rest of the series if they would "low-ball" the cost for us, which they did.
  
  
• Throughout the project, no production problems were experienced. From the beginning of the project, I worked closely with the printing vendor's production manager to develop "bullet-proof" electronic layouts. No problems were encountered (and even today, he remembers me as the only client ever to involve his staff right at the start of a project).
  
  
• Because multi-level marketing has a besmirched media reputation, [the company] refused to let me call the USDA diagram a food "pyramid"—we simply referred to it as "the food guide."
  
  
• The extensive body of supporting research material was delivered to the California Attorney General's office and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, which have regulatory power over our food-handling and water-filtration products in those states. We were asked by the State of California to make two minor changes.
  
  
• One mid-course correction was experienced, which impacted the production schedule and budget.
  
  Management was overwhelmed by the quality of the work and the depth of the content, written and visual. There was an emergency after-hours executive meeting. At its conclusion, my manager and I were invited in for a surprise.
  
  Instead of 6,500 copies, management wanted 110,000 English, 40,000 Spanish, and 10,000 French. There was to be NO photocopied translation—instead, management wanted printed full-color translations.
  
  We had already contracted for six hours press time and the subsequent 24 hour time slots had been sold to a much larger company. There was not time to print all of the increased quantity, much less rush development of the two language layouts.
  
  Although we kept the originally-scheduled press time, we were allowed to delay printing of the remainder for two weeks while press schedule details were finalized. In the meantime, we developed layouts for French and Spanish using the same design and artwork. Again, no pre-press problems were experienced.
  
  I negotiated an agreement with the printing vendor that [the company] would not pay for the additional press checks (six total; one for each side of the translated versions with two more for the second English run).
  
  
• The change meant our final budget was $14,500. Overall cost of the project was approximately $0.95 per unit.

6. Evaluate the plan

• The Health & Nutrition brochure changed the entire cold-calling technique. Instead of presenting customers with stainless-steel tomato knives, dealers greeted them with:
  
  "I know you are concerned with your family's well-being and would like them to eat healthier and have better nutrition. This beautiful brochure is full of information which will help you. It is my gift to you to keep, if you'll let me come inside for just 15 minutes to explain how to understand it and tell you what the information means for you." Once inside, of course, dealers launched into traditional product demonstrations and sales pitches.
  
  
• The effect was an immediate upsurge in dealers making cold-calls, with a corresponding increase in the number of prospects who opened their doors to receive the brochure, which in turn resulted in proportionally higher sales volumes.
  
  
• Following publication of the Health & Nutrition brochure, [the company] experienced worldwide sales increases of as much as 20 percent. Generally, weekly sales for all countries rose by at least one sale per individual, two in some countries.
  
  
• Six months after initial publication, the brochure was translated into German and Thai. We teased with another magazine cover to announce these new versions and remind dealers that English, Spanish, and French versions also were available.
  
• Until at least 2001, the Health & Nutrition brochure was still being used by [the company]. More than 600,000 copies in five languages have been distributed worldwide. There were periodic increases in sales following campaigns to introduce the brochure to newly-recruited dealers.
  
  
• For technical reasons, I made several recognizable modifications of my own to the "food pyramid" electronic artwork—changes which appeared in the version distributed for several years by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.
  
  
• At management's request, a short section was included indicating that [the company's] "waterless" cooking technique eliminated the need for all vitamins, minerals, and supplements. It is now recognized that some nutritional deficiencies must be countered with these dietary additions. I would eliminate this section if given the opportunity.
  
  
• One disappointment was experienced—we were not allowed to produce the six follow-up two-color brochures to complete the series. [The company's] management decided they would instead budget for reprinting the Health & Nutrition brochure on a regular basis.

FolLowing submission of this project to the IABC accreditation committee, I converted it to HTML for web distribution as an example of my communications, project management, and strategic planning skills. The following link goes to that web formatted version. To see a PDF of the Health & Nutrition brochures, please click either image at the top of this page.

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