6 Steps to Designing a Brochure

By Stuart Ayling Have you ever decided you need a brochure or other piece of printed marketing material? This could happen after you see a brochure from another business (maybe a competitor) and you think a??I need one of those tooa??.Usually the first thing you will do is visualise what it will look like. How big? The colours? Where will you put your logo?Stop right there! Colours and size of the brochure should be among the last things you consider.If you want to create truly effective brochures and marketing material, follow these six steps.1. Define Your Purpose.Why should your prospect choose your business? What is their problem? What action do you want the reader to take? You need to have a distinct purpose for your brochure. Focus the content on answering the key questions your prospects will have.2. Define your AudienceHand-in-hand with Defining Your Purpose, you need to have a clear picture of who your audience will be. Segment the market to make sense of the different types of clients a?? try to picture the type of person you are writing for. Identify what they need to know. Understand what else they are reading. That is, review samples of competitor communications for style and content.3. How Will Your Customers Use Your Brochure?Is your brochure to introduce a new service? Is it to provide technical data? Is it to generate sales via a a??fax back' order form? Remember to focus on the action you want readers to take. The content and design should support that objective.4. What Is The Message?Make sure the text (also called the a??copy') of your brochure uses strong sentences, that are easy to read. Avoid using clich??s like: a??Latest equipmenta??; a??Highly trained staffa??; a??xx Years of experiencea??. Focus on the benefits you can provide. And make sure you use an attention-grabbing headline. Headlines can make or break a brochure.5. Which Format?The size of the brochure must be sufficient to communicate your message. Clearly this will vary from business to business. Common sizes are A4 (nearly US letter size); A5 (half of A4); DL (common business letter size); or as a stand alone insert, sometimes with multiple pages.These page sizes can be folded to create multiple panels, such as folding an A4 page using a tri-fold to create a DL sized finished item.6. What Will It Look Like?Now you can consider the paper stock, colours, type styles (fonts) used, and the use of a??white space' to make the brochure easy to scan and understand. Never use more than 3 different font styles, and keep the size at 10pt or above. Be aware that using reversed text (like white words against a dark background) can be difficult for people to read.Remember - The ultimate outcome of your brochure is to get people to take the action you desire. Design your brochure to achieve that purpose.Stuart Ayling runs Marketing Nous, an Australasian marketing consultancy that specialises in marketing for service businesses. He helps clients to improve their marketing tactics, attract more clients, and increase revenue. For additional marketing resources, including Stuart's popular monthly newsletter, visit his web site at www.marketingnous.com.au