What to Remember When Designing Your Business Letterhead
How to Design a Brochure That's Worth Reading
Believe it or not, brochures can still be an enormously effective marketing tool in the digital age! While we’re surrounded every minute of every day by screens flashing colourful ads, there’s something classic and reliable about a brochure in a window display or on a coffee table. Below, we offer five handy tips to ensure your brochure stands out and inspires action.
Clearly define the objective of your brochure
At the heart of any successful brochure design is a clearly defined purpose and intent. Knowing what you want your brochure to accomplish will make every other design decision easier. What role will this brochure play in the larger brand strategy for your business, organisation, or event? Will its objective be to educate, improve brand awareness, generate leads, or some other common brochure goal?
Make your objective explicit before beginning the hard work of designing your brochure and ask yourself before finalising every creative choice whether the decision will further that objective.
Put the needs of your readers first
Even the most creatively designed brochure will fall flat if it doesn’t appeal to your readers’ values and preferences. From writing tone to colour palette to image selection, keep your target audience at the front of your mind.
Think about how your brochure will stand out from your competitors without losing what makes your competitors’ brochures successful. Also, keep your readers’ expectations in mind. A business that is known for high levels of professionalism, for example—such as law or finance—likely won’t benefit from bright colours and playful fonts.
MAKE YOUR BROCHURE EASY TO NAVIGATION AND SKIM
You only have a few seconds (if that) to make an impression and grab your readers’ attention, so your brochure needs to pop! Don’t just think about how you’ll structure the information in your brochure; think about how to make the design as intuitive as possible.
Some readers will stop to read every word of your brochure, but most will skim it for the most relevant information. If you don’t appeal to those skimmers, you risk losing a large portion of your audience. Concise, informative, and attention-grabbing headlines and infographics, in a logical order, are a great way to let readers find the most important information without having to dig for it. If they like what they see, they’ll be more likely to continue reading.
Think visually
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that a brochure packed with blocks of detailed text will most effectively communicate your message. Less is often more with brochure design. You should think about what readers will see when they open your brochure. Too much text can be intimidating. Too little can seem like a waste of their time.
A brochure offers very limited space to communicate an important point. A classic bi-fold brochure gives you only four columns to communicate everything you want to convey. What’s more, that space is doing double-duty: communicating your message and grabbing your readers’ attention. A successful brochure will include many elements that accomplish both.
Include a call to action and offer a path to conversion
Most businesses who make brochures part of their marketing strategy hope to turn interested readers into leads and, eventually, paying customers. However, readers can only advance through the conversion funnel if they know what you offer and how to buy it! Explicitly invite your readers to take the desired action—don’t leave it to them to decipher your intent.
Even if your goal is merely to educate or advocate, you can still provide a call to action that invites readers to do their part and explain what they can do to make a difference.
Print the perfect brochure at Repro Graphics
Finally, remember what elements work best in your brochure, so that you can include them in your next one! With a variety of paper stock to choose from and high-quality printing services available, Repro Graphics is your top choice for brochure printing on Auckland’s North Shore. Contact us today to learn more about our brochure printing options.
