Are your brochures hitting the right target?

We all need to market to keep customers interested in our companies and to also bring in revenue. When times are tough a lot of companies trim their marketing budgets and then wonder why their sales are continuing to go downhill. Trimming your marketing budget should be the one thing you need to avoid at all costs. You need to continue to market with postcards and brochures in order to build up a strong following and to peak the interest of your customers and potential customers. What happens if you send out a bunch of brochures and you do not notice a response? It's time to go back to the drawing board and consider a few things that could be stalling your brochures from working properly.

Design
What does the brochure look like? Is it too colorful and too busy? A brochure that is filled with a lot of text isn't going to get customers looking at it and paying any sort of attention to it. You need a brochure that is informative but one that isn't going to overwhelm the customers. Brochures are marketing tools but they are usually given after a customer has contacted the company. Brochures are follow-up items that you want to send out after you mail out postcards and other marketing pieces. Because of this, you can include more information in it but only include enough to spark interest and drive people back to your website or to call you for more information. By doing this you will be able to generate the right type of response and to get quality leads and contacts for your company. Hire a good designer that has an eye for what looks good. One of the things they may tell you is that white space is vital. It really is because it draws the eye to the information that you need your customers to review.

Emotional Appeal
A great way to make a brochure stand out is by using emotional appeal. When a person is able to make a connection with the brochure, they will have a desire to call your company and to learn more about it. They will also have a desire to spread the word to their friends about your company. Use engaging words and even consider partnering with a charity that you have a lot of interest and respect for. This is a great way to help out your charity and to also build up a good reputation and customer base as people will respect you for your charitable work. Just be careful about using charity to market as it could backfire and make customers upset with you.

First Impression
Remember that your brochure has to make an impression. You only get once chance to make a good impression so if the brochures are a few days late on meeting your mailing deadline don't worry about it as long as you are spending more time making the brochure stand out and look impressive. Provide your customers with value right away if you want them to respond to it and to pass it onto their friends. Do not make the brochure too salesy as you really want it to be more of an informative marketing piece. Make the brochure personable and try to show your customers that you are a company that works on building relationships by offering value to their customers.

Readability
Is the brochure readable? You need a brochure that is simple to understand and uses engaging words that will spark attention from the customer. To do this, look at social media sites to see what your customers are responding to because it will help you see how to write effectively.