business economic

Why produce a brochure

Brochures have an important role to play in promoting your company. They are generally used to provide additional information on your business, products or services that supports your other marketing activities. When you are about to start creating a brochure it is important to consider all your marketing activities and how the brochure will fit in the mix. How the brochure fits with your other marketing material Your brochure can be used to support your other marketing activities in several ways, you can:

Leave the brochure with potential customers after meetings.
Include your brochure with direct mail advertising to provide supplemental information on your organisation.
Send your brochure in response to requests for more information on your organisation. How

your brochure will be used will help you decide what information to include in your brochure. For example, if your brochure will be included with direct mail advert for a specific service you offer, you may want your brochure to include more information about your company and how you work. The direct mail will provide information on the service you offer and the benefits for potential customer, and your brochure will provide information illustrating your company's track record, how you work and generally reassure the client that you are able to handle this type of work.

Not all brochures are the same

Brochures come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, from a simple two-fold design to elaborate pocket folders containing multiple pages and insert sheets. Your organisation may have one brochure or one brochure for each product. The brochure may provide additional information on your organisation or a specific product. The type of brochure that is best for your organisation will depend on the nature of the information, your budget for creating the brochure and how it will be distributed. For example if your brochure will be mailed out to prospective clients then a large brochure printed on quality card is likely to increase your postage costs. While if this brochure is for handing to potential customers at tradeshows and after meetings then the postage costs will not be an issue. So it is important to focus on how you will use your brochure, the best layout and weight of paper to use.
What information to include
When you have decided where your brochure fits with your other marketing material and decided on how it will look regarding size and paper quality, then you can start to focus on the information that it will contain.
Consider the audience. Who will be reading the brochure? Careful analyse your target market and imagine the types of question the people viewing your brochure are likely to have. Decide if the other marketing material will answer their questions sufficiently or is additional material required. This will give you an idea of the information that you want to include in the brochure.
Structure the information in the brochure based on the audience analysis. Take your audience on a journey, as they read your brochure the information should shift from brief descriptions to more detailed information. When doing this consider how people will read your brochure. Most people briefly skim the front and back, before giving the middle a quick glance. They then assess if it is worth reading further. The main things that get read are the titles. Therefore make your titles brief and benefit oriented. The title should inform the reader what information they will get from reading the section and arouse their curiosity.
Use visuals for clarity, for example, illustrate your points with charts, graphs illustrations or photos.
Use an informal writing style, talk to the reader using "you", this makes it more interesting for the reader and gives the impression you are talking directly to them. Use mostly active voice. To do this, when you write a sentence start with the subject, follow with the verb and end with the action. For example "The business employs twenty engineers". Use passive voice occasionally to stop the writing style from becoming boring but keep the ratio of active sentences to passive sentences high. Passive voice is best used when you want to place more emphasis on the action. "Twenty engineers are employed by the business".
Review before printing
When you have completed the brochure it is wise to review your work yourself by reading the text aloud to be sure it makes sense. Check for spelling mistakes, especially ones the spell checker misses like form instead of from. In addition check for: Accuracy to ensure all the information is correct. Clarity the language and explanations are unambiguous and easy to understand. Organisation to ensure the information is ordered logically Visual effectiveness
When you have done this get someone else to check it over for the same things to make sure you have not missed anything.

Jon Weld - http://www.yourvirtualteam.co.uk

Your Virtual Team offers a combination of web design, technical writing and virtual administration solutions.

For more information contact info@yourvirtualteam.co.uk

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