How to Create a Killer Brochure
In the age of the internet, print medium has lost some of its sheen. But even today, printed stuff makes a lot of sense in business, especially with the marketing material.
For me and most marketers like myself, brochures are one such important ammo without which our marketing arsenal is always incomplete.
Today I am sharing some tips on creating a killer and impactful brochure. I have learned these over the years and I hope these could be of some help to my readers when they create their next brochures or redesign the existing ones.
Brainstorm with marketing team
Before creating a brochure, it is important to have a brainstorming session with your marketing team. If you do not have a marketing team, you can involve your business partner and any other people in your business who work with the customer.
Brainstorming brings out great ideas that can be used to structure the brochure and often its copy too.
Know your target audience
While brainstorming and doing anything else related to your brochure design, always keep your audience in mind. It is a good idea to classify your audience on the basis of age, education, gender, interests etc.
Classifying the audience helps your select the right kind of copy and pictures that would have maximum impact on them.
Study competition brochures
If possible, get some brochures of your competition and study them for the kind of pictures, copy, any statistical data, certifications etc. displayed by them.
Identify the good and bad points about their brochures. Utilize their good points and be cautious not to include their average or bad elements in yours.
Your budget
It is important that you decide a budget for your brochure design activity and resist the urge to get as many brochures designed for as little amount as possible.
The printers generally talk of thousands of prints at a time as the price per peice comes down. But you should remember that printing a large number of brochures does not mean large number of sales.
Sales will only happen when a prospect gets impressed and convinced after reading your brochure.
For this, you have to allocate your budget wisely towards the ingredients that go into creating a killer brochure.Ingredients like a good copy, good graphics and layout are paramount to overall quality and convertibility of a brochure.
You may want to go for less prints initially and when you get results, you wont mind getting more printed.
Define the Purpose of brochure
One important thing is to define the purpose of your brochure. Are you creating this brochure to sell a product, or to tell your customers about your company, or to detail the features of a product or service?
Do not try to mix everything into one brochure. This is a big mistake most businesses make and the brochure looks like a half baked tool for every purpose.
Always have a clear purpose for creating the brochure and stick to that purpose throughout the brochure. This will ensure better results irrespective of whatever the objective was.
Inside the brochure
Now lets see what should come inside the brochure. First, your brochure should have an attention grabbing headline. This is important as many people will not read the brochure from start to end. They will just glance over it and make a decision.
Headlines are the first things that could strike a chord. Second thing that counts on a brochure are the images. If your images are relevant, attractive and high resolution, they will do the subtle task of convincing the reader.
Third thing is to have statements that push the reader to take an action. These statements could be a big difference between a sleeping and a selling brochure. Assuming that your reader is convinced about your product or services, you need to tell them what to do next. Action statements like “Call Now” or “Fill out this form” help the reader get in touch with you.
Fourth thing is an easy response system for the customer to get in touch with you. Most often it is the phone, but if you need more information from the customer, you may need to have a small form on the brochure or an easily memorable web address where they could fill the form and get back to you.
I would also advocate the importance of professional copy writing as it could take your brochure to the next level. You do not want your readers to think of you as just another company or event. Investing in copy writing has mostly delivered better results than doing it in house.
If you are in a business where you could display some good credentials like any certificates of recognition or industry memberships, do not forget to include those. These recognitions and memberships often add that extra weight to the brochure making it appear authentic and genuine.
The last thing on a brochure is generally the contact details. Make sure you provide proper contact details along with your phone number, email id, web address and a map if you are in a business that requires your customers to visit you.
Brochure is an important ingredient of your sales process. Make sure it does not become a missing link between you and your customers. Go ahead and re-examine your brochure and if it really passes all of the above tests, you are on the right path. If not, then you know what to do.
