Keeping it in the family – developing a suite of brochures

One of the key things about branding is maintaining a consistent message. This is especially true of your printed collateral items. If you work in a marketing department, you’ve probably created a brochure or two. You may have created many. 

Brochures and flyers are often developed over time as needs arise. Yours probably all have the same basic look and feel. Or maybe they don’t. There could be a good reason for this, but chances are your suite of brochures has been developed by different people and different creative agencies over a long period of time.

Perhaps it’s time to add another task to your 2011 "to do" list: Review brochures.

Every organisation is different, so only you will be able to make a judgment call on your sales collateral. However, here are a few things to think about if you’re conducting a brochure review:

Who will be reading your brochures, and what information will they expect to see?

Do customers need technical details in order to make a purchasing decision, or do they simply require confidence that your company is a good operator. Ensure you pitch technical information at the right level for your reader. Consider their gender too. Men and women will value different pieces of information in different ways. Ensure your brochures are user friendly. Remember it’s effectively a sales pitch on paper and you want to create a good impression.

Consistent look and feel

We all know that cross selling and upselling to existing customers is the easiest way to grow your business. So you need to ensure that your product brochures look like they come from the same company. They need to contain the same branding message about your business no-matter what the brochure is about. This includes imagery, colour schemes and style of writing. It may be worth investing in a five colour print process to ensure your logo always comes out in a consistent PMS colour, especially if you will be presenting several brochures together. Blue, in particular, is a difficult colour to reproduce consistently in a four colour print process.

Develop a family tree

When reviewing your brochure suite, it’s useful to think about how your group of brochures will represent your whole company. You can think about it a little like a family tree. You might start with a corporate profile as a high level overview of your organisation and its products. Then you might have the next tier of more product or market specific brochures, followed by a series of single page technical flyers on individual products. Think carefully about your needs as an organisation. You will also have to consider any rules for adding to your series of brochures if your product range expands. Many organisations use colour coded brochures to differentiate their various products or market sectors.

Many businesses are reducing their reliance on brochures as a marketing tool, preferring to provide online information for customers. However, there’s still very much a place for brochures in today’s digital world. Many companies still use them extensively.

CraftWrite would be happy to assist in improving or creating brochure copy for your organisation. Contact jill@craftwrite.com.au for an obligation-free estimate.