5 Tips for Creating a Powerful Brochure

A professional-looking, brochure can be a power horse for your sales force. Even if you don’t have a sales force, a brochure can help you sell your product or service in a more effective way than a sales letter or flyer can. Sales letters and flyers have their place in marketing plans, but brochures are wear you get to flaunt your stuff.

Here are some tips for creating a powerful brochure that is sure to bring in sales.

1. Don’t expect your brochure to do all the selling for you. Your brochure should be a component of your marketing plan; a brochure shouldn’t be your marketing plan itself. You still need to meet with the customer and sell your product – don’t expect your brochures to bring in leads, educate consumers and close the sale for you too! If you try to do all that with a brochure, your brochure will end up cluttered and unfocused. Pick one function for your brochure and focus on that for all of your graphics, photos and text.

2. Don’t be afraid of getting detailed. Depending on whose blog you read, your brochure could run too long or too short. I say, it depends on the brochure’s function. A brochure that is designed to introduce a product to prospects can definitely be too long. That kind of brochure needs short, snappy prose. An informational brochure, one that was requested by a current customer trying to find more info, needs to be long. A short informational brochure is like a shot in the foot – pointless and painful. The customer won’t get the info she’s looking for and you have to deal with the pain of losing her to a competitor. Knowing the function of your brochure before you design and write it will help you determine the right length.

3. Talk to the customer. People liked to be talked to. Reading about your product in the third-person is boring. I’ve used a lot “you” in this blog post. Makes it seem more like a conversation, yes? That’s what your brochure needs to do too. Tell people about your product’s benefits by using “you” to include the reader. “Do you need a stronger detergent?” “Do you have a hard time getting out stains?” That sounds much more engaging than “Stains are hard to get out.” Include the reader as much as possible and where it makes sense. Don’t force it where it won’t go.

4. Use power words. Words like “free,” “save” and “secret” get people’s attention.  They even make a dog’s ears perk up. Okay, maybe not, but that’s how people respond to power words. If you aren’t sure what words are power words, just enter that phrase into Google to get thousands of Web sites with power words.

5. Use plenty of white space. Don’t cram your design elements and text on your brochure. People’s eyes need some rest time. White space, or space empty of text and graphics, gives eyes a chance to rest. Always err on the side of too much white space rather than not enough.