Was there ever a brochure that made a positive impression on you upon receiving it? Various businesses have given away countless pamphlets yet most, if not all of these, are not engaging enough to grab the attention of people and to convince them to purchase the products and services offered them. These brochures either give potential customers information overload or are just plain rubbish regarding details and design. Now, unless your brochure is alluring enough that it will convince someone to check it out and read it, your content will mean nothing no matter how great it is in reality.
To keep people from throwing away your hard work, here are ten useful tips to turn a boring or even relatively good brochure into a great one that will capture your target audience’s attention.
Be clear about the purpose of your brochure
When designing your brochure, you have to keep in mind what the material might mean to your potential customers. The needs of your clients must be of utmost priority and these should define the objectives for your brochure. Most of the time people want a brochure to know just enough about a product and service to help them decide if they should buy or not. Materials have to be informative obviously, but they also need to be inviting and able to provide what clients expect from the pamphlet.
Simplicity is key
A simple design has the potential to be astonishingly effective without being dull and uninteresting. Sometimes integrating a clean and simple typeface with brief details, a right title, and plain background can make your brochure straightforward and fascinating without being too bold. Your brochure design will exude a particular character depending on the overall combination of the typeface, color, and material you use.
Go beyond the pamphlet
Going for a simple approach doesn’t mean you should be less creative. In fact, some materials are ingenious for being simple yet out of the box. You can do away with the usual flat and trite pamphlets that are nothing more than just another insubstantial piece of paper that joins the pile of thousands that consumers have paid no mind. Step away from that and go for engaging brochures by creating interactive and three-dimensional materials. Doing so will likely generate a lasting impression on your readers and might just lead to proactive steps from them.
Technical points don’t always make a win
Business owners often find it difficult to turn their message easy to understand by the public. Sometimes we forget that not all people understand the terms we’re so used to using on a daily basis. Unless your intended recipients of the brochure are individuals who come from the industry you’re in, then it is best if you seek a professional copywriter to help you with the translation, so you produce a copy that the layman understands. But if you’re trying to draw prospect clients to your business, here’s a word to the wise - do not flood them with jargon.
First impressions matter
As mentioned earlier, brochures provide consumers a first look at your business, campaign, or products. This first glimpse creates an impression on your would-be customers. Hence, it is but fitting to create a good first impression rather than give up the opportunity to gather more clients. To put it plainly, if your organization is into charity programs, you wouldn’t want brochures that spell luxury from corner to corner except, maybe when you’re doing business with a royal foundation. And going back to putting clients first, you also have to remember to fit your designs with your customers’ background and the kind of business they do.
Be wise and keep it concise
Again, you shouldn’t be trying to overload your clients with the kind of information they cannot even process. It is problematic for graphic designers when you present them with text that could pass for a novel regarding length. It would be impossible to fit everything in the small panes of a brochure. What you would want is an easy-to-digest and compelling material that will give your readers just the information they need to make a decision whether to buy your products or not. You will have to decide which points to keep and which are not as important that it’s okay not to include them in your brochure.
Working your graphics
Brochures can be attention-grabbing and entertaining when their visual elements play with the paper or whichever material makes them up. Some incorporate shapes into their design and thus become the folds or pages containing the information consumers need. Turning your graphics into functional elements will make your brochure cohesive and even more appealing.
Go to your drawing board
If you’re a designer, it’s always a very good idea to begin your brochure design with a bit of drawing and sketching of ideas you can work with. Try also to brainstorm with everyone else on your team and include your clients in every step of the process if you can. Doing so is so much better than designing on your own only to find that neither of the concepts you came up with resonates with your client.
Improve your work by keeping only what works
Sometimes it’s not a good idea to do something radically different from what you’re used to doing, especially if the design is only to get your business noticed. After all, bad publicity is not what you would want to get even if it’s still publicity. Based on your previous experience, try to stick with design elements that make your brochure useful in getting client action. Don’t throw away the aspects responsible for sound design.
Good photos are good elements
A lot of people deal with information visually. Hence, using good and high-definition photos will make your brochure not just more attractive but also easier to process. Opt for pictures that do not appear as cheap stock images. Aside from making sure, you have the license to use the photos, also ensure that you use photographs that are appropriate for the kind of information you’re sharing.