Sales Data Sheet Design Essentials

Sales data sheets are excellent go-to tools for detailing important information about individual products and services. The success of your sales data sheet hinges on three dominant factors: the strength of your copy, the intensity of your design and the intelligence of your distribution. The following sales data sheet design essentials will help you craft a winning sales sheet design that draws people in and assists in the sales process:

Captivate and funnel

The first and foremost goal of your sales data sheet design is to captivate your audience. Compelling design attracts attention, sets the mood and tone of your message and leaves the audience feeling like they're looking at quality products and services that have value. Be creative: Instead of a traditional vertical layout, try going with an attention-getting landscape layout, for example. Besides attracting and maintaining attention, your design should funnel eyes to the most important components of your sales data sheets, which are product features/benefits and your offer/call to action. It's a good idea to wait until you have the finalized sales data sheet copy and image collateral to begin drawing up design concepts so you can lay out your design to capitalize on these elements.

Design with large images and headlines

Images and headlines attract attention. Whether your sales data sheet promotes a software product, IT support, real estate sales or anything else, you should always incorporate large images and headlines to captivate your audience and funnel attention to the most important information. Try putting a large image of your product or your support team as a banner near the top of your sales data sheet design; or get creative and create a vertical side banner depicting happy customers enjoying your product. If you're promoting a suite of products or services on one sales sheet, try a panoramic graphic. Break text into small, manageable chunks (copy should typically be concise, anyway) and adjust your headline size based on the importance of the information in each chunk.

Highlight key information

To help funnel your audience to the most important information, highlight key copy by placing it in colored circles, boxes and other shapes; or use graphics and images as bullet points to help it stand out. Incorporate graphs and charts into your sales data sheet design whenever possible to compare product and service level hierarchies, to stack them up against the competition or to help your audience understand difficult concepts. Don't use too many colors (often different hues of one base color is all you need) or more than a couple of typefaces. If you try to make everything stand out, nothing will and you'll lose your funneling effect.

Break information into columns

Multiple columns are often ideal for sales data sheet design, because columns help break information into manageable pieces. They also make comparisons easy. See how your sales data sheet looks in a two-column or three-column layout of varying column widths to see if you can enhance visual aesthetics for information relay. You could have a large image spanning the width of your sales data sheet at the top with two columns beneath: a narrow column that details key information such as benefits, testimonials, charts, etc.; and a wide column with your offer and call to action.

Use a template

You can be more efficient and increase your return on investment when you use professional sales data sheet templates that are pre-formatted in the proper print-ready color mode (CMYK) and resolution (at least 300 dpi). These templates also have marks indicating bleed lines, cutlines and a safety area so you're sure to position your design correctly the first time, saving on potentially wasteful hold-ups later. Best of all, free sales data sheet templates are free from PsPrint. Sales data sheets are excellent take-aways and leave-behinds for sales calls, trade shows, events, sales folders, presentations and more. The quality of your sales data sheet design plays a key role in the ultimate success of your sales data sheets, so follow these sales data sheet design tips to craft a compelling sales data sheet that captivates your audience and motivates them to take the next step in the purchasing process.