Brochures remain one of the most effective marketing mediums available to businesses. This is because people appreciate having good quality, tactile information and are willing to spend longer looking at a brochure than they would reading a digital advertisement or similar. The benefits for your business are that you can provide more information through a brochure and really communicate to the customer what your brand’s about.
However, it should go without saying that a brochure needs to be of a high standard to keep a reader’s attention, and that comes down to the quality of the writing – or copy – they find within it. So following a couple of best practices will help you greatly in making the most of the marketing opportunity that a brochure provides.
1. Don’t use too many words on the cover
The first goal in writing a good brochure is to make the reader want to look inside it. Much like a good book cover design, a brochure cover should be heavily visual, have minimal text, and immediately give the audience a good impression about the brand. Additionally, use the cover to create a compelling call to action (CTA) – for example, you could put in large, bold letters that there’s an exclusive offer or coupon inside.
The trick is understanding the balance between minimalism and compelling content. A brochure that’s too cluttered isn’t aesthetically pleasing enough to grab attention, but a brochure that’s too minimalist doesn’t give people a reason to open it.
2. Be descriptive and compelling with product or service descriptions
You’re probably writing a brochure to sell something or, more likely, you’re using it to show customers the range of products you have available. In the past, it was common to simply outline the features of a product and assume the consumer would figure out if that product was right for them.
However, best practice is changing. Instead of telling people what’s in a product or included as part of a service, you need to explain to them why it’s good for them to generate interest. Let’s say you’re selling coffee beans from all over the world. Rather than simply listing details such as what country a coffee bean comes from and how strong the taste is, you could describe the experience of drinking a coffee made from that bean to the reader. For example, “This bean brews a highly aromatic cup of coffee that’s the perfect pick-me-up on a cold, overcast morning” is much more effective than “This bean comes from Columbia, strength 3/5.”
3. Add value to the brochure to make it worth keeping
The greatest value that a brochure has over other forms of marketing is that it can last for a very long time and be passed around from one person to the next. This means its potential reach is so much more than one set of eyeballs, and it can be a long-term reminder of your brand. However, to achieve that, you need to give people a reason to hold on to the brochure and share it around.
Adding useful information that’s independent of the products or services you’re selling is a great way to do that. For example, if you’re sending out a brochure for a local butcher or fruit market, add unique and interesting recipes that the consumer will want to cook repeatedly. You could also do some research and find interesting information or statistics that people will want to refer to in the future. The more informative you make your brochure, the more effective it will be in selling your products or services over the long-term.
4. Find experts to contribute
Chances are that if a person’s going to grab and open your brochure, they probably have a passing knowledge of the industry you operate in. Celebrity pull and stories from customers still count for a lot, so if you can find a well-known expert who can contribute to your brochure in some way, or a customer that’s willing to provide a testimonial, use it.
For example, have a wine critic review a couple of bottles in your bottle shop and include that in the brochure, or if you’re providing a gardening service, ask your client with the best garden to provide a testimonial and grab some great photos of the garden.
5. Make it easy to shop directly off the brochure
Finally, make sure there are plenty of ways to use the brochure to shop immediately. You can provide a phone number and email address, but also consider making use of QR codes so people with mobile phones can immediately be taken to a shopping website (even better if each QR code leads directly to the respective product page). The easier you can make shopping via the brochure, the more sales you’ll receive.
Create the perfect brochure!
Done well, each brochure you produce can result in months, if not years, of sales, and can even become something that people look forward to receiving – think about how popular the IKEA catalogue is. Given this, it’s worth getting your brochure design and copy all up to the maximum standard as quickly as possible.
MVP Print is an Australian owned and operated company that designs and prints quality printed products. If you’re looking to create a brochure for your company but aren’t sure how to get started, contact MVP Print today.
