This is one query that I even have been asked a lot of times by my clients. It is a really difficult query to reply since the completion of a brochure depends upon a lot of aspects. Some of the aspects are under the control of the promoting agency while others are under the control of the client. For instance, how briskly the promoting agency prepares the copy and design will rely on its workload at that time of time. On the opposite hand, promoting agencies are depending on the clients when it comes to how briskly they’ll get approvals at various stages of the brochure development process to enable them to take the following step. We have taken weeks in addition to months to develop a brochure. We have also done it in a few days. A few times we have now even developed the brochure in 4-5 hours. There are too many variables involved in the event of a brochure for anyone to predict the time required to design and print a brochure. I feel that it is best to allow a minimum of 4-5 weeks to develop a brochure. However, on this book I even have tried to suggest a procedure for different steps involved in the event of the promoting and promotional material, which if adopted, will reduce the time involved in the event of the promoting and promotional material including brochures. For instance, within the chapter titled “Body Copy,” I even have suggested the right way to get the copy developed and approved within the shortest possible time.
Some Tips 1. Don’t expect the moon: Have you ever heard the expression, “Don’t send a boy to do a person’s job?” Well, don’t expect your brochure alone to make the sale for you. The purpose of a brochure is to teach the client about your organization and products. It’s objective can also be to encourage the client to get involved with you if he has interest in doing business with you. There are some small ticket items that could be sold with a unsolicited mail brochure. However, don’t try to attain all the pieces with the brochure.
2. Make it easy and direct: I even have mentioned a lot of times on this book that keeping the communication with the audience easy and direct is critical as time is in brief supply. If the brochure is just too long or it just isn’t clear, the potential customer will avoid reading it.
3. Use positive words: Always assume that the client will eventually buy the services or products. Don’t use the words “if” and “possibly” which invite the opportunity of a negative response from the client.
4. Use “You” often: Use the word “you” somewhat than “our customers.” You need to assume that the brochure is being read by your prospective customer. It is best to deal with him in a private manner.
5. No open-ended questions: Never ask open-ended questions in a brochure. Make sure you phrase all questions in such a way that the reply can only be “YES”.
6. Use friendly tone: You want your brochure to sound and look skilled. You can accomplish this without using “stiff phrasing” or a proper tone. While developing your brochure, pretend that you just are talking to your customer as his friend. The copy in your brochure should represent a dialogue between friends. Your brochure shouldn’t read like a textbook.
7. Keep the paragraphs short: The thumb rule when you are writing an essay or a book is that the peak of the paragraph shouldn’t be greater than the width of the paragraph. However, in a brochure the paragraphs must be as short as possible.
8. Do not indent paragraphs which have an area between them: You only need one design indicator to point the start of a recent paragraph.
9.Do not start sentences with numbers: “20% of all policemen are from north India” just isn’t the proper way. Correct way of stating the identical thing can be, “Twenty percent of all policemen are from north India.”
10. Underline / Uppercase: Do not use underline or all caps as a option to stress some extent. Use daring or italics as an alternative.
11. Standalone document: Always prepare your brochures in order that they contain enough information to operate as a stand alone document. Even when you routinely mail your brochures with a covering letter, likelihood is that they are going to part company. So don’t depend on details within the letter to cover for details you’ve got omitted out of your brochure.
12. Contact details: Always, I repeat at all times, include your organisation’s name, telephone numbers, postal and email addresses prominently in your brochures so that individuals curious about your services and products can easily contact you.
13. A basic rule of design is repetition: Repeating elements throughout a brochure gives it strength and elegance. A quick option to use repetition is to scale back the variety of fonts to at least one or two or use same column size throughout the document. Also, format every headings and sub-headings the identical way.
14. Heading Space: Add some additional space before each heading and shut up the space between the heading and the next paragraph. This makes a visible connection between the heading and the paragraph it pertains to.
15. Ensure smooth flow: In general, people read left to right and top to bottom. So make certain that the knowledge in your brochure follows this flow. In a typical two-fold brochure, the reader expects to view the quilt first, after which the three inside panels. Finally, they’ll turn the brochure over and skim the fifth and sixth panels. Include the fundamental information you ought to get across to your reader on the primary three panels inside the quilt. Relegate contact information and other information to the 2 back panels.
16. Date: If you include time-sensitive data (prices, for instance), make certain you let the reader know the applicable date(s).
17. Visuals: Visuals work splendidly in brochures. Visuals must be related to the knowledge inside and/or to your concept or idea. Make sure that your visuals are clear and really convey the meaning you are attempting to get across. The sort of visuals you employ might be influenced by the best way the brochure goes to be distributed. Visuals should be daring and eye-catching to draw the eye of the reader if the brochure goes to be placed in a display rack as a Point-of-sale Brochure. On the opposite hand, a Leave Behind Brochure can use subtle visuals.
18. Logo: Your company logo should appear on the brochure at the suitable places. Apart from the back page where the name and address of the corporate appears, most brochures have the corporate logo on the quilt page also.
19. Proofing: Check, double-check and triple-check your brochure for any errors-be it fonts, grammar or punctuation before sending it for printing.
20. Bullets: Use bullets to convey crucial information. Long wordy descriptions bore people and they’ll stop reading your brochure.
21. Contents: Include only relevant information.
22. Special Offers: It is best to assign the duty of constructing the actual offer to the “salesperson” or the covering letter. Otherwise, if the offer changes, you’ll have to make changes to the brochure leading to unnecessary additional expense.
23. Quick Read: The brochure must be easy to read. This could be achieved by keeping the written matter to the minimum to effectively convey your story. Include only absolutely essential technical information.
24. Captions: Always use captions under the images in your brochure. Research has shown that after the headlines, readers like reading the captions first before happening to read or scan the remainder of the brochure.
