It’s no secret that brochures are great pieces of marketing and sales collateral.
They’re concise, colorful, and helpful. People like browsing through them, and more often than not, a brochure will either stick around on someone’s desk or be passed around – thus increasing your word-of-mouth reach.
But, as you can imagine, not all brochures are created equal. That is to say, not all of them work. You don’t want to waste money creating a brochure that doesn’t do its job, after all; that’s a waste of time and money.
Here is a simple guide to creating winning brochures that work, using the power of digital printing.
Define Your Brochure By Your Customer
A brochure that is bland, vague, and general is a failed brochure. Brochures aren’t intended to be everything to everyone. The best brochures are written to a specific audience for a specific purpose.
For example, let’s say you want to put your info in the hands of decision-makers at the executive level. Your brochure should be targeted toward those executives and written and designed in a way that is appealing to people at that level – not middle managers or lower-level targets.
Sample ways to define your brochure include occupation, industry, job role, education, age, income, and intent – what you believe your customers are looking for.
Less Is Sometimes More
When designing a brochure, we have a tendency to want to say everything we possibly can and cram it all into what is really a small space.
You have to fight against that tendency, especially today, considering today’s trends are toward modern, streamlined looks with lots of white space. Less, sometimes, is more; focusing on the critical key messages and finding a few choice words to describe them, along with a captivating image or two, is the best way to outline a point.
Focus On Your Key Message
Every brochure should have one key message – and only one.
You may want to educate someone on a particular program. You may want to highlight a particular line of products. You may want to encourage them to call your sales reps. You may want to tell the story of how your company was founded.
No matter what your purpose is, you should have just one purpose for your brochure. They need to be super targeted. If you have something additional to say, create another brochure for that message. That way, you can tailor your encounter by choosing the right brochure for the right moment.
Cohesion and Themes Are Everything
Finally, when it comes to the actual design of the brochure, you need a coherent theme.
Digital printing is all about having a branded theme – a visual story, so to speak – and sticking with it. Make sure your design is consistent. Use visual elements to direct a person smoothly through the brochure, from the front cover to the inside panels and to the back. Focus on fewer images versus more images when possible. And be sure to feature calls-to-action in a very visible way.
You can follow these principles to create stronger brochures and make digital printing masterpieces that deliver the right amount of information to the right user at the right time.
Contact DMS to learn more about how our digital printing processes create better brochures for our valued customers.