Three Ways to Make Your Company Brochure More Effective

Happy New Year to my friends and clients in Greater Boston and beyond! If you plan to produce a company brochure in 2006, this blog post is sure to help you.

First, let me pose a simple question:

When you get a typical brochure, what do you usually do with it? If you’re like many people, you tuck it away someplace where you’ll never see it again or you throw it away immediately. Rarely do you keep it front and center. Why? It’s because most brochures are boring, self-serving to the company they try to promote and contain useless information that doesn’t support a buying decision.

Most brochures are ineffective because the people that create them don’t understand the true purpose of a brochure, which is to support a sales presentation rather than to make a sale directly. A good brochure serves as an adjunct to your other sales materials and bolsters your credibility and your brand.

Front panel

The biggest mistake people make when designing a brochure is not having a compelling front panel. The front panel is like a headline in other marketing materials. It’s the ad for your brochure. It’s what makes a reader open the brochure.

Most brochures I’ve seen use the company name and logo on the front panel, perhaps with the company’s tagline. Please understand that your company name is NOT a headline! If you want people to open your brochure and read it you MUST give them a good reason. Many company taglines try to be cute or humorous, or are so vague you don’t really know what the benefits of working with the company are. Relying strictly on your company name, logo and tagline to get people to read further is the brochure kiss of death.

What works much better is to use a compelling headline in much the same way you would in any other ad. For example, “Inside… 7 Reasons Why You Should Call the XYZ Company Before Your Competitors Do.” Or you could ask a question: “Which of these 7 costly mistakes do you make when selecting an X company? Find out inside!” The main purpose of the front panel is to get people to open the brochure and read it. A good headline will do that.

Initial Inside View

Depending on how your brochure is laid out, people may see two inside panels or the back panel and one inside panel when they open your brochure. It’s absolutely critical that you address the issues you talked about on the front panel in the initial inside view. In other words, if you promised “7 Reasons Why…” you MUST have a panel header that says, “7 Reasons Why…”

You should avoid using long paragraphs. Instead, use short paragraphs with sub-headlines and bullets whenever possible. This is because people usually skim sales copy first and then focus on items that get their attention. If your benefits are buried in a long paragraph, they will likely be missed.

Whatever you do, avoid stating biographical details about your company and its personnel unless you can tie those details to specific benefits that are important to your target market. For example, the fact that you have a PhD in sociology is meaningless unless it relates to what you’re doing now. If you belong to an industry association, make sure you state why that’s relevant to your audience.

Back Panel

The third component of your brochure is the back panel. This is what people see when your brochure is placed face down. Your back panel should contain some kind of call to action, meaning a valid reason why people should contact you immediately. This could be an offer of a free report, consultation or trial of your product or service. Your phone number, address and a map to your location if appropriate should be easy to see and read.

Remember, a brochure is like a silent sales assistant. It should reinforce your more personalized sales messages and provide useful, relevant information that gives more reasons to buy from you.

If you want a constructive review of your current brochure or would would like assistance developing a new one, call Ben Edwards today at (617) 670-1888, ext. 1 to arrange for a complimentary 30-minute phone consultation.