In today’s digitalization age, offline marketing is often done just to have it in the mix. For a lot of businesses, however, it can be a very effective way to drive new customers. The brochure remains one of the cornerstones of a well implemented offline campaign, especially for local businesses.
They are a great method for keeping customers updated on what’s happening with your business, events, or sales and discounts. If you’d like to include brochures into your marketing efforts, the key is to make them look professional, beautiful, and modern. They must have a nice design, but also be packed with enough information – not too much and not too little.
Creating brochures might take a while and may mean hiring the services of design companies and that can often be expensive for small businesses. Thankfully, there are many online services like My Creative Shop that make it easy to design these without any particular skill. You can also easily find brochure templates on these sites and once you choose one to your liking, you can build a brochure by plugging in your photos and information.
You don’t have to be too creative to do this, but a good eye for aesthetics will definitely help.
Here are some tips for how to create a great brochure that your clients won’t immediately toss in the bin.
Clean Design
The trends indicate a shift towards minimalist design. Clutter is to be avoided in order to make it easy to find information. It’s easy to customize a clean design and you can play around with the elements to create the perfect brochure for your business.
You can play around with sizes and shapes, but ideally keep it clean. The clean design is perfect for when you want to look professional and not have too many distractions for your audience. They are very flexible and can be used for many different brochure types. Minimalism is becoming more popular with home design, and it should be your choice with brochures as well.
A clean design also means keeping it minimalistic when it comes to writing. Using short sentences that get the point across quickly are the best way to capture the attention of busy readers. Your paragraphs should also be just a few sentences long. Bullet points make it easy for the reader to find and summarize information. In this world of cluttered websites and being bombarded with data at all times, a simple, clean and uncluttered look will go a long way towards creating a great brochure.
Images
An image can say a thousand words, and if you choose the wrong ones, those words won’t matter. Make sure that you choose the right pictures for your brochure. They should be attractive to the eye, but also provide context for the printed information that accompanies it. It is usually a good idea to have a professional take photographs for you, or you can choose some from an online photo purchasing website.
Keep Your Customers In Mind
You should already be keeping detailed customer demographics records to improve your marketing. If not, you should start immediately. You need to know what makes your customers tick, and why they choose you. That way, you can tailor your messages to your ideal customers. This means understanding what problems they have, and how you can solve them. You don’t have a lot of space to get into details on a brochure, so you need to get to the point and make your case. Your design should reflect the needs of your clients, and provide you a platform to highlight the services and products in which they might be interested.
Have A “Call To Action”
While you always want to convey information clearly, it’s also vital that your audience knows what you want them to do. Otherwise, you’re just giving them information with no context. Always include a call to action. This will get the reader to visit your website, order a product through your business reply envelope, or come to your storefront for a visit. Whatever it is you want them to do, make it very clear to the audience. Otherwise, there’s a good chance that they will read your brochure and quickly toss it in the recycling bin.
Don’t Get Cute With Fonts
The average reader has spent enough time online reading text that they are used to certain things. If you start experimenting too much with fonts, it can be confusing or hard to read for the audience. Choose a font that’s professional and easy to read so that your information comes across. Usually, a sans-serif font is a good choice. Make sure that titles are bolded or underlined so that they stand out and readers can quickly find the information they are looking for.
When building your business, you need to take any opportunity for effective marketing. Even in the age of digitalization, a brochure can be a powerful tool to reach potential customers. Make sure that your brochure design reflects your brand personality, and includes all the elements that will make it stand out in the pile of mail that everyone gets and often ignores.