When promoting your brand, there are tons of marketing tactics to consider. An old-school classic is a brochure. There’s something personal that comes with being handed a brochure, making it hard to ignore the information on it as it is handed to you. You might have a lot of questions about where brochures should fall in your marketing mix, let alone the how to make a professional brochure. Below we’ll dive into the benefits of brochures, how to make a brochure, brochure design ideas and templates, and things to consider when printing them.
What Is a Brochure?
In the technical sense of things, a brochure is an informative piece of paper that can be folded and is often used for advertising purposes. They are often distributed in tourist areas, at conferences, or by mail. Most companies prefer to hand them out directly to the recipient, however lately e-brochures have also gained popularity due to their easy distribution.
The most popular types of brochures are bifold brochures, a single piece of paper folded in half, but you may also encounter trifold brochures. Z-fold and even c-fold brochures are quite popular as well.
These may sound confusing, but they are all variations on how the brochure paper is folded. While this may sound trivial now, the actual fold of your brochure is incredibly important to keep in mind when designing a brochure. Keep this in mind when picking a brochure template.
From a marketing standpoint, a brochure is so much more than an informative piece of folded paper. These promotional documents can represent the face and heart of a company or product. The information in a brochure can help attract (or repel) potential customers and help them get familiar with the product in a unique way compared to other marketing methods.
4 Benefits of Using Brochures
So why would you want to use brochures for promotional purposes? Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a brand marketer, the answer is quite simple. Brochures are a charming method of communicating information about your business to potential customers. However, there’s much more to it than just that, which is why we have outlined the below four benefits of using brochures to promote your brand.
1) Easy Distribution
One of the key aspects of advertising is to promote your brand among your target audience. And with brochures, reaching a targeted or wide audience is easier than ever. There are several ways to distribute brochures. Probably the most popular method of distributing brochures is to personally hand them out. However, not everyone has the time to do this or the means to hire others to do so.
Alternatively, you can easily mail brochures to entire neighborhoods with low effort. This aspect can be easily handled without active participation from your side but includes postage fees.
You can also consider leaving brochures at coffee shops, community centers, etc where your target audience frequents. Imagine how many people visit these places on a daily basis, now imagine all these people learning about your brand. Just be sure to get permission from the manager before leaving your brochure.
2) Information Sharing
One of the greatest benefits of using brochures is the ability to cover a lot of information about a product, service or a brand in a relatively small space. Think about it – most ads or posters use very limited text. On the other hand, brochures don’t have any strict limits when it comes to the size of the text or the tone of it. The combination of eye-catching design elements and text can turn your promotional material into an easy, enjoyable read.
3) Cost Effective
All types of ads require you to spend money and brochures are no exception. What makes them stand out most is how cost effective they are compared to some other traditional advertising methods.
Ask your printer if they have a bulk discount for printing brochures. When it comes to distribution, this can be very cheap (or free) if you choose to go with more passive methods, allowing you to focus your marketing budget elsewhere.
4) Personal Connection
There’s something almost magical about getting handed a brochure specifically targeted at you. When put together correctly, the text and design elements can tell a story that will make a random passerby connect with your product or service on a personal level.
Best Practices for Brochure Design
As you can see, when designed and distributed correctly, brochures can work their magic into consumer minds and lead them straight to your business. But how do you make a brochure that’s eye-catching?
Ask yourself the following questions when creating your brochure:
Who Is Your Audience?
With any brochure design you need to ask yourself the question, who is your audience? Once you figure out who you are targeting with the brochure, the designing process will become much easier.
Thoughtful design stems from a thorough understanding of the audience who receives it. So, study your audience. Understand their needs, preferences, and pet peeves.
What Are You Trying to Convey?
What is the brochure about? You should know the answer to this question before you start working on the design. Try writing down the text first, then think of the visual elements as compliments to it. The design should support, not overshadow the tone of the written copy.
What Do You Want Them To Do?
Now that you have your target audience identified and copy written, you should also figure out what you want them to do with it. Your brochure should have a call to action. Whether you want people to sign up for a class, visit your shop, or use your promo code, the desired action should be clear for your reader.
Information to Ask a Client Before Creating a Brochure Design
Before you start designing a brochure, there are few important things you should ask yourself or your client. Without these details, you may end up creating a brochure that doesn’t hit the mark.
Logo
Whether it is a product, brand or a service, there’s almost always a logo involved. Before you start working on the brochure, ask your client to share a high resolution version of their logo.
Make sure to get the logo before picking a color palette, as they may have specific brand colors that you need to use. The rest of the brochure may come together quickly once you have their brand guidelines. Be sure to select a font that compliments the logo well.
Images
While brochures contain a lot of text, it is important to add variety to the mix with images and other visual elements. Ask the client to give high quality images that showcase the product or the service that the brochure will promote. If they don’t have images, consider using stock images that are cleared for commercial use.
Text
The written copy on the brochure is probably the most important aspect of it. While the design and overall visual elements will make people want to read it, the text is what may transform a random passerby into a first time customer. As a designer, you don’t have to write the text, but you can give directions when it comes to the word count.
Contact Information
Contact details may or may not already be included in the copy of the brochure. If not, suggest that the client share contact details or find a way to include them in the design elements, like including social media icons. People should be able to contact the company or find them through an address if they have questions or want more information.
Once you have all the necessary information from your client, it’s time to start designing your brochure.
Guidelines for Including Images in Brochures
As we mentioned earlier, it’s always good practice to include visual elements in your brochure design, especially in the form of images. The process is easier than you might think, but there are certain guidelines that you should follow to create a charming brochure.
Compliment the Text
It’s a good design practice to study the text that will be included in your brochure before putting it into a brochure template. This also applies to formatting images. It’s very important to position complementary images next to appropriate paragraphs. For example, if the text talks about a specific spa service, consider adding a supporting image of the service somewhere near the relevant text.
Brochure Folds
Decide what paper folds you’re working with. Knowing whether you’re using a bifold or trifold brochure will play an important role when including images in your design. Take into account where the paper will fold, knowing how it will fold and unfold before positioning the images. Make sure that the images are not located in the folds of the brochure, as this will distort them.
Image Quality
You should only use high resolution images in your brochure designs. Despite the fact that brochures are small compared to other types of advertising methods, it’s still important to use high resolution images. You don’t want the product you are advertising to be associated with something of poor quality.
Ensure the Best Printing Quality for your Brochure
If you’re in a situation where your client is not able to provide you with high quality images, then consider using an image upscale tool. Picsart’s Image Upscale tool enables you to instantly increase the quality of any image. All you have to do is:
Step 1) Open the Image Upscale tool on the Picsart desktop editing experience and upload the image you want to enhance.
Step 2) Select the size you need like your photo to be upscaled to and click the check mark to apply it.
Step 3) Click Download to save your photo.
That’s it! Now, it’s time to get to work. We hope all this helps you plan, design, and create the perfect brochure for all of your marketing needs.
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