Brochures That Stay on the Desk!
Eight Tricks to Creating a More Effective Brochure

By Dale W. Hutchings
Published: October 2007

Need a brochure for your business? Something that will help increase your bottom line, but you don’t know where to begin? With Halloween being this month, here are eight suggested tricks to help you create more effective brochures for your business. The treat for you will be a sweeter bottom line by having a brochure that produces for you greater responses.

Trick #1 Know The Brochure’s Purpose. The primary goal of your brochure should be for the reader to take some kind of action. Therefore, the brochure should be designed so that people are motivated to do something - e.g., call for an appointment, order a particular product or service, contact your company for more information, etc. There are numerous ways to get people to make that phone call or place that order. Read on for some answers.

Trick#2 Benefits! Benefits! Benefits! Throughout the brochure, don’t spend a lot of time telling readers about the features of your product or service. Instead, concentrate on benefits. What are the most important things it will do for them? What is the most important problem your product or service can resolve for them? If your product or service has many benefits for consumers, narrow them down to no more than a handful. Don’t burden the reader with too much copy. Just hit the major benefits.

Trick#3 Be Short, Concise & To The Point. Between what comes to us everyday in our mailboxes, over the Internet, on TV, radio, in newspapers and magazines, we are bombarded with unsolicited information. As a result, people will not take the time to read lengthy marketing messages. Therefore, the brochure should be written in simple, easy-to-read language that quickly gets to the point. In a nutshell: copy that provides the reader with an educational, benefit-oriented message.

Trick #4 Use Interesting, Eye-Catching Images. People today are more visually-oriented than at any time in history. Therefore, throughout the brochure make use of interesting, eye-appealing pictures or line art whenever you can to help break up the copy, as well as give the brochure an attractive, “balanced” appearance. Furthermore, show action whenever possible. (e.g. Don’t show merely a headshot of an individual, show that person in action – discussing an issue at a job site, having a meeting with clients in a conference room, talking to a group of people at a seminar, etc.)

Trick #5 Give Them Reason(s) To Act Now. As I mentioned earlier, the brochure should be written in such a way that it encourages a reader to take immediate action. If you don’t give him or her at least one good reason to take action now, whatever interest an individual might have had in your product or service will diminish quickly and disappear. Some of the common offers to get potential customers motivated to buy a product are special discounts valid only before a certain date, or offers of a free gift for purchases made before a specific date, or rebates for a purchase by a specific date. Other incentives include informing potential customers the products being offered are of limited quantity or customers should buy now because prices will be increasing.

Trick #6 Make It Easy To Act (Reply). Be sure your business’s name, physical address, phone number and e-mail are prominent in the brochure. If you have a website, include that address, too. If possible, think about getting a toll-free 800 number, especially if you are looking for business beyond your immediate area.

Another option is to have a business reply card, which can be inserted into your brochure, that potential customers can quickly fill out and mail back to you. Do whatever it takes to make the job of responding as easy as possible.

Trick #7 Design Brochures So They Are Easy To Use. Often businesses think they will create more attention for their business if they produce over-sized brochures. In reality, what happens is that these oversized brochures cause more problems than they do produce results. Try to limit your brochures to a size that will fit easily in a brochure rack or a number ten business envelope for mailing. Such a size will also cut down greatly on your mailing costs. You’ll also find a rack size brochure much more likely to be picked up at a trade show than brochures with a larger format. Unless you have a bag readily available for the big brochures, oversized brochures quickly become a nuisance to carry around at industry trade shows and conferences.

Trick #8 Make Brochures Look Professional. If you know next to nothing about writing or designing, then spend the money to hire a professional copywriter and/or a graphic artist to help you with this project. Whatever the investment, it will be well worth it. Personally, I recommend that you hire a team: both a good writer as well as good artist. The result will be a high quality, eye-appealing collateral piece you’ll be proud of and one that will attract greater attention with potential customers.

About the Author
Dale W. Hutchings, APR, specializes in “out-of-the-box” marketing and has more than 30 years of Public Relations, Marketing and Advertising experience. Since 2001 he has had his own practice with a heavy focus on marketing consultation and copywriting for a wide variety of advertising mediums. For more information on his services visit www.dalewhutchings.com or contact him via e-mail at: hutch7@verizon.net.