Twelve Do’s and Don’ts for
Crafting a Brochure That’s Remembered
It doesn’t matter what your
industry, whether you’re a custom injection plastic molding maker or an
airplane charter Chicago provider, downloadable brochures are essential for
your small business marketing. Not only do “brochures let you showcase your
business—your products or services and your purpose,” as Sarah Jacobsson
Purewall of PCWorld points out, but they’re also a key resource for targeting
clients offline. The fact is, as many as “21% of Americans have never visited a
website, sent an email or used a search engine,” says Lorraine Thompson at
MarketCopywriter Blog. “Many more use the Internet infrequently. For these
consumers, online browsing requires dusting off and booting a PC and conjuring
correct search terms.”
Unfortunately, simply
knowing the potential value of a brochure isn’t enough to make sure it’s
effective—in fact, 99% of small businesses still do them wrong! Why is this?
What are the keys to effective brochure design? How can you turn yours into a
powerful marketing tool?
Below, check out these 12
do’s and don’ts for creating a small business brochure that’s truly useful.
OVERALL
DO Think Strategically. A
brochure that communicates effectively doesn’t happen by accident—it requires
planning and foresight. So to start the design process, ask yourself, how do we
want people to use the brochure? What do we want them to DO after they read it?
What do we want them to REMEMBER? Your brochure should have a specific purpose,
whether that’s:
Informational: To give when clients ask
about your company or product
Supplemental: To leave with clients after a
meting or sales pitch
Point of Sale: Available for clients to
read in waiting room or in line
Direct Mail: Sent to prospects as part of
mail marketing campaign
Sales Support: To aid in sales pitch or
presentation
DO Focus Your Goals. A
brochure with too many goals—say, to sell people on the company, sell people on
the products, describe features, give details of huge product lines, etc.—comes
across as confusing and unmemorable. Pushing too many messages is the surest
way to communicate none. Choose instead to target the purpose of your brochure
one just one, maybe two, goals.
DO Identify Your Target
Audience. Who is your brochure for? What tone and style would appeal to them?
It’s vital that you know whom you’re writing to because, as an article from Top
Design Mag instructs, you want to “use an appropriate language for the target
audience and give them exactly what they want to know. If for example the
brochure is dedicated to children, [it] is not recommended to use a very
complicated vocabulary or a trivial font. Try to send the message through
images and colors.”
DESIGN
DON’T Be Hard to Follow.
Poor layouts and overdone designs can make your brochure hard to read and
information hard to prioritize. Help potential clients see what’s important by
structuring your information in a clean, organized layout that doesn’t overdo
images, graphics, text or detail. Through balanced components, you can help
clarify your message and communicate better to readers.
DO Select High-Quality
Graphics. Nothing makes it harder to take a company seriously than amateurish
graphics. Give your brochure a professional edge with high-quality, attractive
images and graphics—and if you’re stuck for sources, check out royalty-free
images from Fotolia!
DON’T Combine Too Many
Fonts. Cluttering your brochure with too many fonts will muddy your message.
Stick to one or two fonts—three at most—in order to keep your content clear.
And when selecting those fonts, look for options that are simple: the kind that
feel easy on the eyes, that don’t make it hard to make out letters and aren’t
so quirky or creative that they would distract the reader.
DO Be Selective about
Colors. Just like combining too many graphics or fonts will complicate your
brochure, so too an overuse of colors can create a look that’s unprofessional,
hard to follow and confusing. While using color is good, try to stick to two or
three colors for your main color scheme, with slight variations to each.
CONTENT
DO Write a Meaningful
Headline. “On average, five times as many people will read your headline as
will read your body copy,” says Andrew Pritchard of Inspire Consulting.
“Therefore your headline had better say something meaningful.” The headline
should grab your readers’ attention and direct them to your main point. That
way, even if the headline were the only thing a reader noticed, he or she would
still get the gist of what you’re communicating.
DON’T Be Too Wordy. Here’s
the truth: nobody’s going to read huge chunks of text in a brochure. Wordiness
not only is hard on the eyes—it’s hard on the short attention spans and
fast-moving lifestyles of today’s consumers. Simplify your content to be
concise and easy to understand so that readers can grasp your message quickly.
DON’T Get Too Technical. A
brochure is not a manual and it shouldn’t have the technical detail or in-depth
instruction that a manual would. Avoid flooding readers with too much info and
try instead to give a big-picture view.
DO Provide Valuable Contact
Info. Because a brochure is longer than a business card, it gives you the
opportunity to provide contacts with more than your phone number and email
address—as Sarah Jacobsson Purewal suggests at PC World, “Instead of including
only your usual social media handles for Twitter and Facebook, for instance,
consider adding a link to your Yelp page.”
DO Include a Call to Action.
Your call to action should make it easy and enticing for the reader to fulfill
your goals for them—whether that means calling to set up an appointment,
visiting your website, placing an order or subscribing to your newsletter. As
Melissa Croweis says at Entrepreneur.com, “Don’t assume your audience will be
moved to contact you or purchase your product or services after they read your
well-crafted brochure.” The call to action is the extra push that, for many
readers, makes the difference between simply reading your brochure and acting
upon it.
