Getting the Word out with Brochures
Brochures are more popular today more than ever. Despite the popularity of the internet, businesses still trust on brochures to promote their products and services. They still rely on professional brochures to get message delivered to their prospects in the fastest and most effective manner. Today, nothing can quite beat a colorful, well designed brochure when it comes to promoting products or services. In today’s increasingly electronic world, brochures are still the best way to get marketing messages into the hands of decision makers without resulting to spamming.
Before you go about your brochure creation project, ask yourself the following questions first:
• Who are your target customers?
• How will you reach them through your brochures?
• Will you be handing out brochures one time or would it be a long term distribution?
• What message would you want to deliver to your prospects? Is it educational, special offer, sales, or product awareness?
• How would you want your brochure to look like?
If you answer these questions before creating your brochure, you will save time, effort, and money in the long run. The biggest question you now have to answer before going ahead with your brochure project is to know why you need a brochure. There are other forms of marketing materials that you can use to reach your target customers, but why opt for brochures? There are actually several reasons for that. Here are some of them:
• If your target customers cannot be easily reached by phone or in person. Say you sell medicines to some kind of rare disease which happens to afflict residents of some far flung town. There are no available telephone lines there, and getting to that town would take you days. Sending your brochures to that area would be much easier and would likely to get people to respond to your business.
• When it is better to send ahead printed materials to prospects before making a personal visit. It would be much easier for you to make a sale in that disease infected town if you send your materials ahead.
• When your target audience are too obsessed with the electronic noise happening around, making it difficult for mass media to reach them. But they are likely to pick up materials at hotel lobbies and other distribution points.
• When your products or services are too technical or involves difficult details that would require in-depth understanding before making a decision.
• When your business would likely make a sale is you leave a material after a visit with your prospect to reiterate key points.
• When your products need prospects to consult with other people such as their adviser, associate, partner, or spouse before making a decision.
When your need falls to one or several of the reasons enumerated, then it’s high time you produce your own brochure printing. There key elements you need to keep in mind when designing your brochure. Among these are:
Color choice. Although black and white brochures are cheap to produce, they don’t actually produce the same impact as color brochures. This is why it’s still best to produce brochure in two- or four-color if you can’t afford yet full color printing.
Paper use. As much as possible, use high quality paper to prolong the life span of your brochures. Stay away from flimsy and feeble paper materials to avoid giving your target customers a weak business image.
Message. Keep your content short, clear, and direct to the point. Provide detailed product description and company information. Be sure to provide updated and correct contact information to encourage prospects to contact you right away.
If you follow all the suggestions mentioned above, you greatly increase your chance of producing a profitable brochure. So, start on your brochure project today with these key points in mind.