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 required to publish engaging 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 public relations and marketing firm that helps businesses, entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizations of profit to be heard.
“But the best brochures do more than impress,” he says. “Effective copy and design can intrigue, inform, convince, and capture client 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 make your brochure look 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 a picture of your target group and make sure the title has the description of the group. For example: if you are targeting moms, use a title like “Moms Know Best.”
3. Keep lines of text at a comfortable length. Lines of body text should never be shorter than the font size or longer than twice the font size.
4. Keep paragraphs, especially opening paragraphs, short. Maybe even a prize.
5. Use graphic dingbats that include bullets, dashes, and asterisks to break up your text.
6. Use subheadings to engage the reader. Next to the cover, the subheadings are the most read elements of a brochure.
7. Set subtitles in a different style.
8. Avoid typographical excess by using too much 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.