How to create a business-building brochure

Best-practice tips for crafting the perfect send-ahead or leave-behind

Now that the web is here, brochures are a thing of the past. Right?

Wrong. In many circumstances, they’re not only helpful, but downright mandatory. “Send me your brochure.” “Leave me your brochure.” It’s a common request. What would you rather your response be: 1) Proudly hand over something you’re confident will close the deal? or 2) Humbly confess, “Uh… we don’t have one”?

So let’s proceed.

Now if you already do have a website you’re proud of, you’ll have a lot of good material you can leverage for a brochure. But it’s not apples-to-apples. A website has no sexy center spread, no flaps that can cleverly (and literally) help your story unfold, no instant feel of the weight of the paper stock, no sheen of the varnish, and so on. Similarly, a brochure has no hyperlinks. So bear that in mind as you proceed.

If you don’t have a great website, not to worry. You can still create a great brochure. And you can pretty much apply the previous paragraph in reverse: Once you’re done, you’ll be able to leverage a lot, but not all, of your new brochure’s content for your eventually-updated website.

Here, then, are some tips—some will be more obvious than others:

Consider the audience. Sure, you’re making a brochure for your company, but your prospect only cares about what you’ll do for them. So first (and we’ve said this zillions of times before) know who you’re addressing. How broad of an audience? How narrow? This is actually an area where brochures have a edge over websites: Sometimes (and remember, this is your call), it’s simpler and more effective to create two brochures: one, say, for dealers, and another, say, for end-user retail customers. You can gang up the jobs together on press so the difference in the printing budget is negligible (or nil), and end up with some really good focused stuff.

Another tried-and-true way to do this: Inserts/tabs. Picture a nice presentation jacket with your logo on it. Open it up, and there are pockets inside. What goes in those pockets? Any combination of stuff you want. So (re-using the previous example), you could have one set of inserts for dealers, and another set for end-user retail clients. This wheel was invented a long time ago, but it doesn’t make it any less useful today.

Consider the story. That’s probably not a word you thought you’d encounter in an article about creating a brochure. But it’s actually what will hold your whole brochure together. It has—literally and figuratively—an opening, a middle, and a closing. Think of it this way: If you were the prospective customer, what would you want to get out of this brochure? And how much time would you ideally be willing to invest in reading it/finding the information you seek?

If you answer those questions honestly, you’re well on your way to not only crafting the story of the brochure, but closing in on its ideal format (which we’ll discuss in a minute). Here’s a simplified way to sketch out the “plot” of your story: 1) Prospective client is in distress/has a problem/has a need. 2) You/your company enters as the superhero, prepared to solve the problem/make the client’s life better. 3) You provide just enough information to cement your credibility/show how you would tackle the problem. Just enough… but not all.

Remember: No matter how good it is, a brochure is never an end unto itself. You can win all the awards you want for its design and copy, but what you really want is more business. A brochure, then, is never a “closer.” You are. The brochure is there to get your phone to ring—and then save you and the prospect time during that call which you would have otherwise spent covering the basics. In that regard, a brochure can be very similar (in its intent) to a website.

Find the format. Of course your budget is limited. Whose isn’t? (If you have a good lead in that regard, send them our way.) But if you’ve already followed the steps above, you won’t do more—or less—than you need. If you’re selling million-dollar products or services, your brochure better look like a million bucks. If your market position is high-end, then look high-end. Bigger isn’t always better. And there are plenty of standard formats to choose, not to mention an unlimited variety of ways to go custom.

As noted above, there are presentation jackets. There’s the classic tri-fold brochure, which has a cover, a fold-over flap which is revealed when the cover is opened; it, in turn, reveals the inner center panel and inner far-right panel when opened. (The “back cover’ is actually the back of the inner center panel.) A tri-fold also has its own “psychology.” The reader will read the cover. They’ll open it and see it’s a trifold. Meaning, they’ll spend about two seconds on that fold-over flap before popping the whole thing open. That’s not a problem; that’s an opportunity. You can easily do a 1-2-3 narrative this way: 1) A teaser question posed on the cover via the headline; 2) A real brief follow-up headline, on the fold-over flap, that partially answers the cover headline’s question; and 3) the “meat” of the story in the big three-panel spread that’s revealed once the fold-over flap is opened.

This is laborious to describe, but take a sheet of paper and fold it in thirds (as if you were preparing a letter for an envelope), and you’ll see it easily. Scribble all over it: it’s your first layout!

Consider the relative importance. Unlike a website, you have limited space here. And, truly, limited time: Your prospect probably wants to devote minutes, not hours, to reading about you. So weigh what’s vital vs. what’s trivial, and dump the latter. Of course, hew to your mandatories, such as phone number, web address, logo, disclaimers, trademark info, etc.

Write the headlines. If your structure is good, the intent of the headlines and subheads that appear throughout your brochure should be very easy to figure. Not that writing them will be. See any of our previous posts, such as this one or this one, to help you get those creative juices flowing.

Save the body copy for last. Remember that most readers subvocalize (i.e., they “hear” themselves speaking your text inside their head as they read). So “talk” your copy, and read it aloud. If it helps to simply record your talking and then transcribe it as a rough first draft, that’s fine. Whatever works for you. The trick is to 1) hew to the story you’ve crafted and 2) make the language elegant and not clunky.

Consider getting help. Very few people sit around writing brochures all day. (Which, frankly, is a good thing.) But that means you may not get much practice at it, making it harder than it should or could be. To get the right words (not to mention the ideal look), consider enlisting help. The results will be the best you can get, and the investment will pay strong dividends. Contact us and let’s get a quote in your hands. 

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