Businesses rely on brochures as the first line to communicate their products or services. However, according to Shannon Cherry, APR, many don’t find them as successful because they underestimate the skills and resources needed to publish compelling and effective materials.
“Most people forget that a brochure is important because it represents you to the world and reflects your image,” says Cherry, president of Cherry Communications, a marketing and public relations firm that helps businesses, entrepreneurs and and nonprofit organizations.
“But the best brochures do more than impress,” he says. “Effective copy and design can intrigue, inform, convince and capture the client’s business just like an effective salesperson does. Brochure effectiveness is tied to an audience-appropriate marketing strategy that drives the design process.”
Cherry shares the following list of top ten tips that can help your brochure do its best:
1. Keep headlines short. According to studies, headlines with less than ten words get more readers.
2. Focus your headline on your target audience. Show an image of your target group and make sure the title has the description of the group. For example: If you’re targeting moms, use a headline like “Moms Know Best.”
3. Keep lines of text at a comfortable length. Body text lines should never be shorter than the font size or longer than twice the font size.
4. Keep paragraphs, especially opening paragraphs, short. Maybe even an award.
5. Use graphic dingbats that include bullets, hyphens, and asterisks to break up text.
6. Use subheadings to engage the reader. Next to the cover, the subheads are the most read elements of a brochure.
7. Set subtitles in a different style.
8. Avoid typographical excess by using too many CAPITAL LETTERS, italics and bold.
9. Limit yourself to no more than three different fonts in a brochure.
10. If you use photos with people in them, make sure their heads are at least the size of a dime.
