by Alyice
Edrich
http://thedabblingmum.com
©
2008
When you look at marketing brochures what do you see?
Don't know what
a marketing brochure is? Have you ever picked up a brochure
or pamphlet about a new destination, hotel, amusement park, or other entertainment
business? Those are all marketing brochures and each one is designed to inform
and entice you into visiting their place of business or making a purchase.
Brochures
are great sales tools—if done right! Brochures help sell your product or
service with informative information—enough that the reader knows about your
business, but not too wordy that you lose the reader.
Your
brochure doesn't have to be fancy or expensive, but it should look professional—after
all, it's a reflection on your business. Your brochure should be free of grammatical
errors, smudge marks, faded lettering, poorly photographed objects or people,
and it should follow many of these points:
- Address a target group
or niche market
- Be more than just sales cop— informative
-
One large graphic on your cover, versus lots of smaller graphics
-
Graphics strategically placed within your brochure to recap—visual—what
was said in print
- A photo with a person using your product or service—for
greater impact
- A caption under your photos to bring home the caption's
point
- A side box that recaps important information you want to stand
out
- Quotations (or bold marks) around key points
- Bullet
Points to draw readers to important information, fast
- Headlines and
Sub-headlines
- Testimonies from real-life users
- List
your guarantees
- Use 12 point font unless caption, side box, or headlines
-
Printed on special paper:
Highly Opaque, matte, heavyweight presentation paper—
35
lb., 6.8 mil, 96 bright, 8 1/2"x11"
Once
you've designed your brochure, you'll need to print it on high quality paper.
If you'll be printing the brochure yourself, don't use everyday printer paper
because you can't print on both sides without having the copy bleed through to
the other side. Use a premium matter presentation or brochure paper. It is more
expensive, but it looks crisper, cleaner, and more professional.
You
could take your hard copy down to a copy store and have several hundred copies
made, but the quality will be poor. If you can't afford a printer who uses a printing
press, find a copy store who can take your brochure on disk and run several hundred
copies off the master.
Once you've printed your brochures
and are satisfied with the quality, deliver your brochures to prospective clients/customers
by passing them out at craft fairs, business expos, with paid orders (you never
know whom your client might give your brochure to), and wherever you go. You can
also leave a few in hotel rooms and other public forums.
