Creating an effective marketing brochure: these tips will help

What better way to circulate information about your product or service to potential customers in Warwickshire than printing a brochure?

A brochure contains detail a flyer or poster simply does not have space for. It’s your opportunity for a longer sell. It is a perfect marketing and sales tool – which is why you need to make sure you get it right. Producing brochures is something our team of printers, designers and copywriters do pretty much on a daily basis. But, if it is your first time creating a brochure here are some things we think you should bear in mind.

What do you want a brochure for?

They are lovely things to have but they also need to bring home the bacon. To make sure your gleaming new brochure hits the spot decide early on what you are using it for. Is it:
– point of sale
– direct mail
– sales team support
– events
This will help you decide which content and information is relevant for your brochure. Basically, you need to do some planning.

Who is your brochure for?

Very much related to our first point. Decide early on who you are talking to. You might be going for as broad a sweep as possible, and that is fine, but what sort of knowledge will your readers have? Is this for the trade; are they expert in the same field as you? Or are you introducing them to a concept or a product? Your predicted audience should impact the content of your brochure as well as the language and tone you use.

Hit them with the cover page

The front cover needs to be standout. Our advice is keep it simple. Limit text to a knock-out headline and maybe a short strapline. The back cover is also crucial. Think about using it to promote action or maybe feature some of your partners to illustrate your credibility from the word go.

Bring your brand to the party

Your marketing materials and particularly a brochure should be easily recognisable as your brand. It should reflect your colour palette and your font selection. All your marketing materials should work around a core theme. Ensure you discuss that with the person designing your brochure.
In terms of fonts a good rule of thumb is no more than 2-3 fonts or font sizes per page. Don’t be tempted to go too fancy with your fonts. Keep it simple. Check it can be easily read. Proceed with caution; the simpler the better.

How many words in a brochure?

Obviously, this depends on what size brochure you are looking at. If you are considering something like a tri-fold pamphlet, then aim for around 400 words in total. If you are going for an A4 booklet, then clearly you can fit in a whole lot more text.
But here’s the thing: the more words you cram into your brochure the less likely a potential customer is going to want to read them. If you make it too word-heavy readers are likely to give up before they get to the good stuff. In terms of text, less is more. Find the simplest way to say things.
Your designer will nearly always find a clever way to squeeze all you want to say into your brochure. But, try to limit any urges you have to write War and Peace.

Make it easy on the eye

Our eyes scan a page for interesting snippets. Blocks of text are not easy on the eye and some readers will give up pretty quickly when faced with reams of text. Make sure there is plenty of white space on every page. Use some of these techniques:
– side bars
– bullet points
– infographics
– charts
Not everything needs to be presented in word form. Bet that list above was a doddle to take in, right? Sometimes the best way to get the message across, loud and clear, is in an infographic. It means your brochure becomes skimmable. That might sound like a negative but actually you want the reader to browse through as much as possible straight away. They can go back over the detail later if they like what they see.

Keep it real with case studies

Real life stories and examples are a clever way to keep a reader’s interest. They illustrate how something works. They allow your product or service to become relatable. Readers may stop to think ‘that could be me/my business’. Source as many case studies as you can for your brochure.

Inspire action

A really good brochure is a taster of what you have on offer. It should be tantalising enough to inspire some sort of action in your reader. A brochure has really earned its keep if it encourages your potential customers to take things a step further. For example, they could visit your website or sign up for a newsletter.
A great way of doing this is to include a QR code in your brochure. You can feature it inside and on the back page. By simply scanning the code with a smart phone readers can be taken to a landing page, website or point of sale.

Make it a keeper

A stunning printed brochure can be more than just a one-off marketing tool. If you are clever with your content and offer valuable information it can become a point of reference. Printed materials have potential for a deeper impact on customers because they have opportunity to stay in the home.

Proof it twice

Make sure at least one other pair of eyes reads your brochure content before it goes to print. When you think there cannot possibly be any typos – think again. Nothing dents your credibility and ruins all your hard work like a mistake.

Prontaprint in Coventry, Leamington Spa and Stratford-upon-Avon can offer you the full range of services to help you deliver a brochure that truly represents your business or organisation. We are not just printers. Our experienced marketers and copywriters can provide on-target content and marketing advice and our designers can pull together a brochure that will really stand out in a crowd.