E-Class #39: Marketing Materials – Brochures

Checkpoint:

• You have written some killer content for a newsletter that is going to interest and engage your target audience.
• You have created your first newsletter, or made improvements to your existing newsletter based on the process in the last E-Class.
• You have a distribution plan for your newsletter that fits with your clients needs.

What is a brochure supposed to do, anyways?

Every business seems to have some kind of brochure. Some are short, others long. Some are covered in copy, others let the photos do the talking. Each seems to serve a different purpose. So what is a brochure supposed to do for your company? And how can you make sure that I actually does what you need it to do?

Well, the answer is sort of the same as everything else in your collateral toolkit. You need to get the person reading the brochure to take the action you want them to take. Brochures can act as lead generators, stimulators, follow-up pieces and direct mail materials. Usually, you want the reader to contact you, buy something from you and tell their friends about you.

At the very least, you want the reader to remember you or keep the brochure so that when it is time to make a purchase they’ll remember your business.

In this E-Class we will cover:

• The role of brochures within your marketing collateral
• The types of brochures you need in your business
• How to create an effective brochure that delivers results
• How to design a brochure that will get noticed

Your brochure should enhance your marketing collateral, and support your sales team.

I like to call your brochure the big kahuna of your marketing toolkit. Next to your website, it has the largest amount of space available for copy and images. Plus, since they’re usually printed double sided at a high quality, they’re also the most expensive to produce.

Since your brochure is part of your overall marketing collateral package, it will need to work with and support the other items you have created, like business cards, ads, website, direct mail, catalogues and product spec sheets.

For example, if you’re beginning a specific advertising campaign, you’ll need a brochure with a consistent message, look and feel. A continuation of the content in your advertisements. The same goes for direct mail – the brochure should continue where the direct mail left off, and answer any questions that the direct mail piece may have raised.

Alternatively, if your brochure is a simple lead generator, you’ll need to use your website to provide supporting information and a strong telemarketing strategy to handle inquiries.

So, my point is that your brochure is part of a family of sales tools, and as such it may have to serve different purposes at different times. You may need to create more than one brochure to meet the needs of your business.

There are several different types of brochures you could potentially use in your business.

One size doesn’t fit all! You don’t have to commit to a single brochure for your products or services. Instead, create a new brochure to accomplish a new goal, or for a few different points in the sale process.

Here are some ideas for types of brochures:

• Leave-behind brochures. You’d use this brochure after making a sales presentation, or meeting a potential customer. It reinforces the points you made in your presentation, and provides directions on how to find more information.
• Follow up brochure. This form of brochure would act as a continuation to a direct mail piece or advertisement. It is more information rich, and delivered in response to a request for more information. Often customers are very inclined to purchase, and are looking for details to support their decision.
• Point-of-sale brochures. A selection of brochures at your point of sale will provide a customer an opportunity to gain more information on an item that they are not purchasing, but may be interested in. For example, most banks have an array of brochures in their branches.
• Informational brochures. For products and services that have a long list of features and benefits, a detailed information brochure will be required to educate the customer completely. You may need to create one brochure for each product or service.
• Lead generation brochures. Designed to get a new customers attention, and spark their interest in your product or service. This type of brochure is light on content, heavy on imagery, and has a strong call to action or incentive.
• Sales support brochures. Similar to leave-behinds but you use this type as a selling aid through a sales pitch.

With several brochures for your business, you’ll have more choice and greater ability to match the marketing collateral with the needs of the prospect.

Now, are you ready to get started creating your brochures? Here’s how you can craft a brochure that gets results.

Here is a step-by-step process for creating brochures. If you have decided to create two brochures with two different purposes, you will need to go through the process for each brochure.

1. Decide what the purpose of the brochure is.

Now that you know how many different purposes a brochure can be created for, decide what your brochure needs to achieve. This will need to fit with your overall marketing and business objectives, and be consistent with your marketing message.

Do you need to:

• Generate leads?
• Follow-up a sales presentation?
• Promote a specific product or service?
• Announce a new product or service?
• Follow up a direct mail campaign?
• Educate customers on a new product line?
• Increase awareness of your company?
• Drive traffic to your business?

The purpose of the brochure may be determined by where the brochure will be distributed, and who will be reading it.

How will people receive the piece?

• During a sales presentation?
• In your store?
• In a complementary business’ store?
• With a complementary product?
• Through the mail?
• Online?

2. Define your target audience, or market segment.

Once you’re clear on why you’re creating the brochure, and where you’re going to distribute it, you need to clearly define who will be receiving it.

This should be an easy step, since you’ve already done your market research, and know your market segments. This group of people may be further segmented, depending on where you will be distributing the brochure, and in what context.

For example, if you’re using the brochure as a follow-up piece for a direct mail campaign, your audience will be the group of people who received the direct mailing and called your business for more information. In this case, they’re already interested in what you have to offer, so your brochure would be heavily benefits focused and also provide enough information for your customer to make a decision.

As with any marketing piece, the people you are trying to reach will dictate what kind of language you choose to use, what you say, and how you design your brochure. Make sure you’re specific about your audience, and the rest should fall into place.

3. Create the content for your brochure with its purpose and target audience in mind.

Your brochure is an opportunity for you to showcase the copywriting skills you have been cultivating over the last few weeks since all the same concepts apply. You need to be working to hit your audience’s emotional triggers and inspiring their purchase motivations. You need to use friendly, colloquial language that your audience can relate to. If you need a refresher, make sure you work through the copywriting E-Class before you sit down to write your brochure. Here are some additional tips:

Use headlines and sub headlines throughout your copy.

The majority of your readers will skim your copy before they choose to read it, so write your headlines and sub headlines so that skimmers will get the message.

Remember what you’ve learned about writing headlines, and review the headlines E-Class if you need a refresher.

Focus on unique points and benefits.

No matter what purpose the brochure is serving, it needs to be focused on customer benefits and supported with product or service features. The content needs to resonate with their problems and needs, and describe how your product or service will make their life easier.

Try to avoid long lists of products and services. Once a customer is convinced that your company is the answer to their problems, they’ll take action and visit your website for a full list. Tell them why they need to buy from your business. Why you’re different and better and more unique than the competition.

Highlight what makes your business and it’s offering unique, and what that means to the customer’s experience. Identify what may be unusual about your business, and why it matters to the reader.

Include all important and relevant information.

While your brochure may be fulfilling a specific purpose, it should always include complete sales information. This is everything your customer or prospect needs to take action, including your full contact information, a description of your business and your marketing message.

You don’t need to include everything about your business and each product or service you sell, but enough so that the reader gets the complete story of your business and knows why they should buy from you.

Decide on a theme for each brochure.

To create unity within your brochure, decide on a theme for each one you write. This could be your marketing message, or your point of difference. It could be a specific product or service, or the announcement of something new in your business or product line. It could be a special offer, or a season.

Then, make sure that all of your content relates to and supports the theme. It will give the brochure a cohesive feel, and a stronger impact. Most people remember themes or concepts more than individual facts or statements. You have a much better chance of communicating your message to your reader when it’s a broad message with many supporting elements.

The theme doesn’t have to be grand or complicated, just a reason to connect the information you include in your brochure. A random collection of points about your business isn’t going to stick in the reader’s memory.

Include a call to action and a clear incentive.

Again, just like other marketing materials you create, you need to answer the question: What do you want the reader to do and why should they do it? Make it easy for them to take action, and if you can provide an incentive, do it.

You can do this with your powerful offer, or guarantee. Maybe the first 100 callers receive a free item, or if they mention the brochure they get 10% off their purchase. Don’t assume that asking them to contact you is enough to actually get them to pick up the phone.

Since brochures are not read in an exact order, it is effective to ask for the action several times within the brochure so no matter which page they see, they’ll know what to do.

4. Design your brochure so it gets noticed and read.

Now you’ve got some killer content that is going to get your readers to take action. All that’s left is to package the content in a way that grabs attention and makes an effective use of your marketing budget.

TIP: Collect brochures from other companies, [especially your competitors.] What do you like and why? Why does their brochure design work?

Choose high quality production.

If you don’t invest in your business, why should anyone else? Produce your brochure on high quality paper, in vivid color, and have it professionally folded. An impressive-looking brochure will travel further than a homemade one – from one client’s hands to another’s.

If you’re worried about budget constraints, talk to your printer about cost-friendly options. Here are some ideas to get you started if you need to pinch a few pennies:

• Print the outside in color, and the inside in black and white.
• Use one or two colors instead of the full spectrum.
• Design your product brochures so that one side is consistent, and have that side produced in bulk. The second side can be printed in-house, specific to each product.
• Print in digital color instead of offset.
• Buy your own paper in bulk instead of paying the printer’s markup.

Use the front cover to trigger your target’s emotional hot buttons.

The most important page or panel of your brochure is the front one. The design for this page works just like an advertisement. You have seconds to grab attention and incite interest, and you can use a combination of words and images to do this.

Tell the reader why they should care on the front page. If you choose a strong headline or benefit statement, make sure it’s clearly readable and in a bold color. Your company logo is not interesting or compelling enough to do this, so treat it secondary to attention-grabbing copy.

The bottom line: if your cover doesn’t get the reader to open the brochure, the rest of your efforts are wasted.

Build a mock-up to make sure your design works

If you’re designing the brochure yourself, make sure you create some accurate mock-ups as you work. What looks good on the screen may not work once it is printed and folded. You want to make sure that content is centered or properly justified once it is produced.

When you’re close to finished, do a mock-up on the actual paper you plan on using, and make edits to your work on the hard copy.

It is also a good idea to consult with your printer if you have built in any unique cuts or folds since this may incur extra costs or prove too difficult to execute in high volumes. You’ll also get a better understanding of the capabilities of their machines, and it may spark a creative idea.

Organize your content to maximize impact.

The nature of brochure design is that your copy will not be read in any specific order. Of course, the cover will likely be seen first, but the rest is a bit unpredictable. So, your best defense is to make sure that each page or panel includes customer benefits, persuasive copy and a call to action.

That said, most brochures follow some kind of hierarchy. The front panel grabs the reader’s attention. The back panel (centre on the back page if you’re producing a standard tri-fold, six-panel brochure) usually includes company contact information, and a summary of benefits and call to action.

When the brochure is opened, your readers will see the center panels all at once. Be careful not to overwhelm them with text, and include some graphics and images to break up the copy. Use bullets and lists heavily as most people will skim brochures before deciding to read them fully.

For content that needs to be featured or highlighted, use graphic boxes, and put them at the top of the page. This includes FAQ items and testimonials.

Choose good, interesting, relevant photography that supports your messaging.

If you use images of your products or services in your brochure, make sure they’re professionally taken in good lighting. If you take them yourself, try to use natural light, or sunlight, and that they’re clearly in focus.

Professional photography makes a difference, so if you can afford it get a pro to take and retouch your graphics.

You can also use professional stock photography, like www.istockphoto.com, and benefit from professional quality at a fraction of the price. If you choose to go this route, however, make sure that the photo is relevant to your product or service. Irrelevant images – especially stock images – may cheapen the look and feel of your brochure and won’t do anything to enhance you message.

Lastly, remember these basic design rules:

• Stick to two typefaces, and strictly limit your use of bold, capitalization, underline, etc. By emphasizing everything, you emphasize nothing. Keep your font layout simple in your brochure design.
• Use white space in your brochure design. Crowded copy is hard to read. Your photos will lose impact, and the ad will appear out of balance if you don’t use enough white space in your brochure design.
• Write short sentences and use bulleted lists to communicate key points.
• Stay consistent with your other marketing pieces. Use a consistent logo, color scheme and font. If your brochure is your first professionally designed piece, slowly update the rest of your materials.

Remember to revitalize your brochures on an ongoing basis that is appropriate for your business and budget.

Brochures go stale, so remember to keep yours fresh and relevant. If your business is seasonal, consider creating a new one each year. If you have limited budget for brochures, consider getting one side produced at a professional printer, and then printing the inside yourself. This will allow you to change the content without incurring new design and printing costs.

Up next is a good look at what makes a business card effective (and keepable!). These little cards can say a lot about your business – as well as about you as a professional.

Until next time!