Golden Rules of Designing a Brochure - A Brochure Design Company Guide

As digital strategies are dominating the current marketing trends, do you really need a traditional brochure to market your products and services?

Businesses often get confused at this point. Is creating a marketing brochure a wastage of money and effort without any gain? Is it essential for a business or just a fancy item? If it’s essential, are there any strategic tips to design a stunning marketing brochure? Does it need to be creative or have a definite and intuitive structure?

Questions are many but thankfully, we got all the answers! Stick to the end to find the answers to all your doubts and concerns.

Effective Tips to Design a Stunning Marketing Brochure – A Brochure Design Company Speaks

1. Define the Target Audience

You may think that the brochure is all about your business, why does it have to take your audience into account. Well, that’s because, all of your marketing efforts should be directed at your audience’s interest and let us tell you, a marketing brochure is just another promotional material. However, remember that a brochure will produce a long-lasting marketing impact on your business, so you better think long term.

Your marketing brochure should target a specific niche in the market and aim to drive some specific metrics. Your segments can be classified by buying cycle, location, age, income, lifestyle preference, and so on. This step is crucial as it will determine the imagery and messaging of your brochure.

An example will be handy here. A life insurance brochure targeting 25 years old people will look very different from a home insurance brochure dedicated to the 45 years old homeowners.

2. Determine a Metric

We already hinted at this point in the earlier section but it needs more explanation. Before starting out, it’s important to figure out which action will be effective in persuading your targeting audience to take an action. Here are a few instances:

• If you want to compel people to visit your retail store, your brochure needs to showcase a newly launched item, discounted price, or include a coupon that can be redeemed at the store.

• If you are offering a consultation service, your brochure should outline what the clients will learn or gain from the consultation.

• If you have launched an online store and handing out brochures at the retail store, it must contain all the details of the online store, discounted price in the e-store, promo code for the first time users and so on.

As you can see, a brochure can have both immediate and long-term motives. Depending on your requirement, you need to customize the brochure.

3. Create Compelling Messages

Once you have determined the structure of the brochure, start writing the copy. Here’s a quick tip by a professional brochure design company. First, write the entire content you want to publish on the brochure. Then strategize what to present on the front, middle, and the back of the brochure.

Here’s a quick guide on how to strategize the content in the front, middle and back section of the brochure:

• Front Page

This is the part that will compel the readers to turn the page. So make sure to design a stunning front page. You can briefly mention how your service is going to help the customers. You can also evoke people’s curiosity with a question.

Make sure that the write-up is simple, catchy, and short. Also, pay attention to the image on the front page. It can display the product you offer or a lifestyle that your customers can expect after availing your service. It can also feature an abstract concept but make sure that the image syncs with your business nature.

The front page must include the company name (contact details – optional) and the brand logo.

• Middle Page

This is the main brochure content. It should elaborate on your business / products / services. You can also cover the most of the page with images. This strategy is helpful mainly for tourism companies or restaurants. If you offer innovative service or products that users may want to know, explain its details.

Make sure to keep the language simple and maintain a formal tone of language. However, many start-ups prefer to experiment with the informal tone of language. This completely depends on your target audience and the nature of your business.

Write small paragraphs and use catchy headers. Use a reader-friendly font and proper colour so as not to strain the readers’ eyes. A rule of thumb is to use light coloured font on a dark background and a dark coloured font on a light background. You see, it’s all about contrast.

• Back Side of the Brochure

This is the space to feature any remaining information. Make sure to include your contact details (name of the company, address, email ID, and phone number). Add a call to action text to drive people’s attention.

Quick tip – make sure to leave adequate white space so as not to strain people’s eyes. This tip is effective for the entire brochure design.

4. Maintain a Harmony between all Branding Elements

Maintaining harmony across all your branding elements evoke a sense of professionalism. To achieve this, you can use the same brand colour across your website, brochure, business card, product packaging and anything you can think of.

This triggers memorability and the viewers can easily identify distinct elements as the parts of your brand. According to the experts of corporate branding services, this is helpful for brand building in the long run.

5. Use Shapes

Gone are the days of traditional rectangular or square brochures. Companies are experimenting with diverse shapes of brochures. Hearts, triangles, circles – you can pick any shape you want. However, make sure that the shape syncs with your brand identity. A heart shape brochure is nice for a wedding planner but not so cool for a digital marketing agency India.

6. Keep It Simple

Most often, people think that only tricky designs or writings are attractive to people. This is a sheer misconception. Remember, this is a brochure – not a book. The readers are going to take a few seconds or minutes to check it out. You need to grab their attention to rely on your service. If they simply appreciate the innovative design or cannot really make a proper sense of technical jargons or abstract concepts you used in the brochure, your purpose will not be served.

Save creativity for the blogs, keep your brochure simple, easy to understand, and compelling. Use intuitive formats - say, the contact info should be given in the backside of the brochure. This will allow the users to easily find it out during a crisis.

7. Pay Attention to the Materials

So, you got amazing copy, excellent graphics and innovative structure – good for you! But there’s more to be done. Have you checked the material of the brochure? This is an integral part of brochure design and you should never skip this.

A brochure is not only about the looks or information but also about the feel. If the readers come across a pamphlet-like brochure or the one with substandard paper – they are not going to rely on your service. It will look and feel cheap and not reliable. So invest in high-quality materials that instantly offer a sophisticated and professional feel.

Wrapping Up

These 7 handpicked tips will help you to create a stunning and compelling brochure. We hope you have found the ideas useful. Try these!