Make Brochures

There are many different uses for brochures. However, a few common ones are education, basic company or organization overviews, and advertising specific products or services. Even if you need a brochure for a slightly different purpose, many of the same lessons and ideas will apply in most situations. The key is to use simple language and organization to get across a basic idea or advertise a specific product or service. A professionally finished brochure printed on nice paper will go a long way to conveying your company or organization’s professionalism.

Steps

Choosing and Navigating Design Software

1. Look at online reviews. There are many different computer programs for making brochures. Check with social media, social networking, and software review websites. Professional reviews have the advantage of a writer you know has several years of expertise. Social networking sites have the advantage of many peer users comparing ideas and having debates.
   • Freeware is sure to fit into any budget, but it may limit you. For example, the output file may not be in a format that a professional printer could use. Make sure to read the details before deciding on a publishing software.
2. Try out a few programs. You won't be able to settle on the brochure program that you will use just by reading reviews. Download a few, and try out some ideas. You want to look at a few different things.
   • How detailed can you get? You want to be able to customize your brochure.
   • How user friendly is it? You want some options, but not at the cost of having to spend hours on a relatively simple layout.
   • What is the output file? It is best to stay with file types that a professional printer can use. Image files like .jpg, .gif, .pdf., and .tiff are the most common.
3. Check out some templates. All publishing and brochure design programs come with templates. The easiest thing to do is open up a template and let the program show you where to put your title, pictures, etc. This way you can get a hang of the software without losing track of how the brochure will turn out.

Planning the Layout

1. Decide on bifold or trifold. These are the most common brochure formats, and there is a value in keeping people from guessing about what they’re reading. Trifold gives you an opportunity to include more bullet points and photos. However, bifold brochures enable you to provide bigger, eye-catching text and photos.
2. Organize your brochure. Don't be afraid to use headlines and subheads in order to structure your information. Present your information in a more digestible way by structuring it inside headlines and subheaders. Structure your headers and sub-headers so that readers will understand your bottom line even if they don't read the rest of the text.
3. Use up to date information. Brochures from 10 years ago are not the best way to convince potential customers to hire or buy from your company. If you have changed your contact information, printing new brochures looks much better than correcting old ones with a pen. Up to date information makes you look much more professional.
4. Use high quality photos. Your images should be at least 300 DPI (dots per inch) to print clearly and sharply. Images are a marker of quality. It may seem unlikely, but people will judge your establishment or service by the quality of your photos.
   • Don’t inundate your brochure in images. Images can help you sell your product, but too many can be jarring and counterproductive.
5. Spend time on the front cover design. This is the panel that will draw people in to read your brochure. Don’t put your logo or a picture of your building on the front — that’s boring. Put a sharp photo that shows a benefit of your product or someone using your service (with a smile on his or her face!).
6. Choose between printing at home and professionally. Printer technology has made it easy for you to make and print nice brochures from home. If you are unsure whether your printer can do a good enough job, test it out and see how you like the results. You can always take it to a printer if the brochure doesn’t turn out quite sharp enough.
7. Find nice paper. The quality of your brochure speaks volumes about your company or organization. Spending a few extra bucks on a pack of nice paper will convey the quality of your product or service. Pick thicker paper with a glossy finish to show you mean business.

Making Brochures for Your Company or Organization

1. Target a demographic. Though advertising your company, rather than a specific product, requires a less targeted demographic, you should still write your brochure with someone in mind. Some companies have a natural target audience. For example, a piano moving company should write for musicians or companies with pianos that are moving. However, an Italian restaurant will be writing for a more general audience.
2. Write an attention-grabbing headline. You want to entice someone who picked up your brochure to open it and read further. The headline should be general enough to pique his or her interest, while also saying something about what your company or organization does. A simple statement or rhetorical question work well.
   • For example, a bank might write “Who’s keeping an eye on your money?”
   • Or, a music store might write “Come tap your foot with us.”
3. Put down basic information. The point of making a brochure for your company or organization is to tell people who you are and how to get in touch with you. These details need to be featured and easy-to-find. Give the name of your company, when it was founded, what it specializes in, who your clients are (if not the general public), hours of operation, street address, phone number, website, email, and any social media links.
4. Limit how much information you put. Your reader will not likely want to spend more than a minute or two looking at your brochure. Put your most important information up front, and limit how much else you include. This will also help keep you from confusing your reader with industry jargon or specialized information.

Making Brochures for a Product or Service

1. Talk about how your product will help the customer. It is a good idea to give some basic information about the product or service. However, it can take up a lot of space if you list every detail about it. Stick to the basics of what it is and how your customer can use it.
   • For example, instead of listing every specification of your new car, give the basics: miles per gallon, price, lease rates, etc.
2. Write for a very specific audience or demographic. Be even more specific than you would for a basic brochure advertising your company. For example, if you sell cars, target families for your new minivan. You can’t write ad copy that makes your product appeal to everyone in the world, so limit it to those who would might opt for your product or service.
3. Keep it simple. It is tempting to list a lot of technical details or use jargon, but you want your reader to be able to quickly get the message. Use short sentences and stay away from big words. Tell the reader what it is, why it stands out from the competition, and get him or her hooked with creative copy.
4. Include illustrations to help explain. Imagery is not only necessary for you to explain what a product is or how it works, but can help sell it. Nice photos showing satisfied customers reinforce the positive things you are saying about it. However, you can include too many photos, which may distract the reader from the information you provide.
   • Try overlaying text on simple, sparse photos. This way, you can add a photo without having to sacrifice necessary text.
5. List any terms and conditions. While you shouldn’t get too detailed with your product or service, there may be important stipulations you want to mention up front. For example, advertising 0.0%APR on a bank loan sounds nice, but if it is only valid the first year of service, that should be mentioned.

Making an Educational Brochure

1. Decide on a target or general audience. This will help you craft your sentences for a certain reader. It will also help you decide how much knowledge of the subject your reader should already have. If the brochure is for school, you shouldn’t have to alter your language much for your classmates to understand.
   • Consider English reading capabilities. If you are targeting people whose native tongue is not English, make your language clearer than you normally would.
   • You may be, for instance, targeting people who are already diagnosed with a disease, and you are educating them about further treatment methods. You won’t need to explain the basics of the disease, unless your approach is radically different from other methods.
2. Make the purpose clear. The reader shouldn’t be wondering what to do after reading the brochure, if anything. There is nothing wrong with simply educating your readers. However, if you suggest further action, make that clear.
   • For example, you may be writing a brochure about the dangers of smoke inhalation. Put down symptoms of common lung diseases, and encourage readers to see a doctor if they have any of them.
3. Leave plenty of white space. Educational brochures should be 40-50% white space to make them easier to read. You probably have a lot of information you want to include, but brochures aren’t books. They should give basic details about a topic in hopes of getting a reader to seek more information.
4. Ask and answer questions. An effect format for educational brochures is asking basic questions that you will answer. This guides the reader to the information you want to provide, keeping him or her from wondering what the purpose is. Simply stating the answer also makes it easy for him or her to understand the lesson or conclusion.
   • For example, a brochure on smoke inhalation might begin with “What are the symptoms of smoke inhalation?” Then you should list the symptoms. You might then ask “When should I see a doctor?” Listing the most dangerous symptoms is a way of guiding the reader to determining whether or not to see a doctor.

Sources and Citations

See also

• Politely Deal with Telemarketers
• Use Social Media to Market Your Business
• Understand Marketing
• Become a Social Media Marketer
• Promote Your Business
• Write Brochures
• Find Chinese Distributors
• Use the Internet to Promote Your Business
• Write a Basic Advertising Plan
• Learn CPA Marketing

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What links here

• Make Brochures on Microsoft Word
• Design Brochures
• Print Brochures