What is a brochure and why do we still need it?
A brochure is a printed and handout material, which briefly conveys information about the company, person, business proposal or event. You can often see brochures at conferences, on office shelves and café tables as well as in crowded or queued places.
Creating a perfect brochure that generates clients can often be challenging even for experienced graphic designers. This is because not only designer is responsible for the outcome, but also you.
Below are 15 tips on how to make the most effective brochures.
1. Define the purpose
To produce an appealing brochure designer must clearly understand its purpose. Therefore, it is up to you to give all necessary information, probably a buyer persona sketch and definitely give an outline of this brochure goal. Is it an invitation to a newly launched product or maybe a business event? Underline the objective.
Your designer can create an image that will induce positive emotions that you need only when he sees the whole picture.
2. Understand your target audience
Like in any business, to be successful you need to know who your potential customers are. Brochures are means of communicative design. It means that they can speak to the audience in a way.
Diagnose the needs of your target customers and reflect them in your brochure. If you don’t know how to do it, just ask them. You need to carefully research the market to come up with the most appealing image. For example if your target market is C-level executives, then you know that you can’t rely on dark and blue colors. They won’t notice you among others. What they will notice is something appealing to them!
3. Stand out
In such a dense market, clearly you need to stand out among others. You may probably think that such a competition makes it almost impossible. Everyone tries to stand out too. Nevertheless, it is a thought that you should not give way. Just brace up and do your best.
The design of a brochure must be recognizable and unique.
4. Organize your fonts
Sometimes when working on a project designer or a client get too carried away with experimenting with fonts. They like this one and that one, and probably two more. But, it is essential to find a common font that you will apply everywhere, from brochures to your corporate mail. You need to be organized in everything you do.
5. Use less words
Brevity is the soul of wit. The task of a brochure is to tell more information with fewer words. Gladly, you can apply many other techniques like icons, textures and images.
6. Avoid being complex
Use simple words. “Complex sentence construction and tortuous phraseology” won’t add you any charm. This will only make your information harder to percept and hence your brochure will go into trash.
7. Pay attention to what your readers like
Simple and appealing design is actually based on a profound research. A good designer always assigns priority to target audience patterns and not to his own wishes. Knowing the preferences of a target market allows incorporating beneficial elements.
8. Offer solutions
Identify what is your brochure about from the very headline. Initially, the client looks for a solution to his problem, and then chooses who will solve it. Don’t load people with information about your company in a brochure. First, offer them a solution to their problem.
9. Incorporate a CTA
No matter how much time and effort you have spent over the design of your brochure if it doesn’t call people to action, it is useless. Try to motivate your readers to get in touch with you. Provide them with your contacts.
10. Remember color patterns
Opinions differ and it is a fact. The most challenging thing for a designer is to put aside his own preferences and design according to what people like. Colors are like fonts – need to be organized and incorporated into everything concerning your business.
11. Choose textures
A brochure is like a handshake. It needs to be firm and confident. Choose only high quality paper. You also can use textures to add some charm. Lame paper can ruin your whole work, so as first impression about you.
12. Use images
Add beautiful images to your brochure to make it visually attractive for readers. Experiment with intriguing or fun image messaging. Remember, that images can communicate potential market better than words.
13. Add social
If you have some social media business or corporate accounts, you must definitely add them to your brochure. This may build trust between your brand and your customers.
14. Let people choose
Sometimes designers come up with several designs for one brochure and can’t choose one. Well, we have good news – you don’t have to. There is no written rule that all brochures must look the same. The more variants you’ve got, more people you can attract.
15. Make it “strong”
A brochure is something that undergoes a lot of stress. Make it able to survive rain, wind, hands and other external frictions without loss of colors or content.
Why you cannot treat brochures as remnants of the past?
A brochure is a presentation that can rise visual, emotional, intellectual and even tactile appeal of a potential client. Do not neglect such a powerful weapon.
A well thought and amazingly designed brochure becomes an integral part of any effective marketing strategy.
With such a brochure, a person can get to know your proposal. One can instantly subconsciously decide whether to like you or not. Positive visual perception will leave good impression, and high-quality texture paper can create a sense of valuable interaction with you. Moreover, if your future client doesn’t have time to get acquainted with you right now, he can always do it later without significant loss of information.