What makes a good brochure?
By Alexandra Giles, marketing manager at Origin.
Ensuring we have a great brochure is a vital part of Origin’s marketing approach, as it gives our trade agents the perfect platform from which to sell our products. Having a brochure that showcases everything the Origin Home Range has to offer is an important cog in our marketing armoury, and is something that is too often overlooked by others.
Know your audience. When first thinking about designing your brochure, it is key to think of the audience that you are targeting. How will they view your brochure and what information will they expect to see? Are you going direct to your customers via trade agents or will they simply be looking online? Setting clear and precise objectives will define the route and format your brochure will take, and will allow you to tailor the collateral to the audience’s requirements.
Content is king. Great copy is often undervalued. It needs to be short and sharp, while keeping the reader (buyer) engaged. It has to skirt the line between technical and friendly, while making sure it outlines all the key points and USPs in a clear and concise manner. Creating content is no easy task, and it can take several attempts to get it right. Sometimes explaining what you want to cover to someone else allows you to work out what your key points are going to be, and how best to describe them.
High quality images. While content creation is vital, having a bank of high quality images to support the facts and figures is imperative. Images are the first thing people will look at on a page, so they need to catch the eye, and sell the product in the first two or three seconds. People have a short attention span, so having stunning imagery is imperative to keep them interested. Skimping on imagery will leave your brochure less effective and less efficient.
Align with the brand. Making sure that your brochure fits with your brand is crucial. It would be very easy to create something that just does not feel like your own work. We have top of the range, high-quality, UK manufactured products, so it makes sense for our brochure to reflect this. If your brand is based about beating competitors through cost, then it needs to be reflected in the brochure. Stay true to who you are.
Layout. Plan your brochure on paper before you get to the design stage. Make sure it has a nice flow, that makes sense to the reader. They do not want to be jumping around from point to point and then back again. We take our audience on an Origin journey, through every aspect of what the product offers, and to give them as many relevant details as we can in each section. We start with an explanation of the product, its bespoke nature and how a consumer can build their own dream door or window. Then we talk about our thermal efficiency, the security and the rigorous testing our doors and windows have to go through in order to get to market. Finally, we mention our 20-year guarantee.
Nothing I have said is rocket science, but it all needs to be done perfectly in order to get the best results. We want our potential customers to know everything they need to about the products we have, and allow them to make an informed decision about taking the buying process one step further by speaking to one of our expert partners.
The brochure is a shop window into the company and its products, so make sure it works as hard as possible for you.
