Your Comprehensive Guide to Quality Brochure Creation

When it comes to marketing a managed service provider’s assorted benefits, a good brochure is something that you certainly want to have at the ready. However, “good” is an important factor to keep in mind. You need to be sure that the brochures you distribute are able to frame your services and your company in a good light.

We’ve put together a guide to help ensure this happens, diving into both the content that makes up the brochure, as well as how effectively it is presented.

Why Should I Pay So Much Attention to My Brochures?

This is a fair question, and one we should address before diving into how this attention should be paid. Whether you’re talking about the content that the brochure contains, or the format of the brochure itself, it is important to remember that a brochure is more than just a brochure.

A brochure is a reflection of your company, and its capability to effectively deliver on its promises.

Proving this is as simple as running through a quick thought experiment. Let’s say you received a few brochures in the mail, each offering a service that (wouldn’t you know it) you’re in the market for. Both brochures offer more or less the same service, at pretty comparable rates, but one brochure is printed on common printer paper and is covered in typos and formatting errors, while the other is easy to read and printed on a higher quality cardstock.

Which company would you be more likely to reach out to? Probably the one that went through the effort of making their brochure look as nice and professional as they could, right? After all, if they put that much effort into a brochure, they’d probably put a lot of effort into taking care of your needs, too.

While you probably wouldn’t consciously think through that logic, a properly-produced brochure will simply do its job more effectively and leave a more positive impression on your contact. Even if it isn’t enough to get them to reach out, it will likely lead them back to your website to be even more impressed… right where you want them to be.

There Are Two Parts to Making an Effective Brochure

First, you have the content that the brochure is meant to distribute. At the end of the day, all the brochure is—is a vehicle to get your marketing message to your prospects. In order to catch their attention and whet their interest, the message needs to be presented properly.

Secondly, you need to also consider how impressive the vehicle is, to continue the analogy. As we established, an unprofessional-looking brochure will reflect poorly on your company, as your prospects will see it as representative of your business’ services as well. Emphasizing the quality of the brochure will require you to go about making it meet various criteria.

To ensure that your brochures perform as they should, we wanted to run through some best practices that will help you excel in both regards.

Writing a Compelling Brochure

Here are some basic rules to follow when writing your brochure copy that will help to increase its potency amongst your audience.

• Identify Who Your Audience Is. Who is it that this brochure is meant to communicate with, and what problem can the service described in the brochure help them to solve? Figuring out the pain points that this audience frequently suffers from will help you plan out a brochure that better addresses them.

• Draw the Attention with Bullets and Formatting Changes. Regardless of how much effort you put into your brochures, most people are going to skim through them for the information they’re looking for. Help them out by using the formatting of your text to draw their eye to the most important information and selling points.

• Focus on Benefits. While the processes that shape your services may be fascinating to you, chances are that your audience simply doesn’t care. At the very least, a brochure isn’t the place to brag about them. In your brochures, you instead need to focus on the prospect’s priorities: the issue they’re experiencing, and (most importantly) how it can be fixed. Coming up with a list of benefits for each topic beforehand can make writing a brochure that much easier, as you can sprinkle these points into your formatted text.

• Motivate Them to Act. At the end of your copy, you need to lead your audience to the next step—reaching out to you. In addition to giving them your contact information in a call-to-action, don’t be afraid to sweeten the pot a little. Give them an offer that they (cliche as it is) can’t refuse, or offer a guarantee that takes away any risk their actions may have.

Of course, you should also make sure that your copy is written correctly (no typos allowed) and effectively gets your message across. Don’t hesitate to write a few versions and use the strongest elements from each.

Creating an Attractive Brochure

Once you know what the brochure is going to say, you need to draw the attention of the people it needs to say it to. That means there are some design practices to keep in mind.

• Design Your Brochure with the Reader in Mind. First of all, who is it that this brochure is targeting? While prospects will need a lot of information to get them to reach out, any brochures going to existing clients can focus more on offers and other perks.

• Use Your Design and Layout to Engage the Reader. Putting it bluntly, an unprofessional-looking brochure is going to alienate its recipient, not convince them to work with you. Making sure that fonts aren’t illegible due to size or complexity and that the content flows in a sensible way that the reader can follow will make your brochure more likely to be read.

• Make Sure All Images Are High Quality. The right image can have a huge impact on the success of a brochure, but the opposite is, unfortunately, true as well. Confirming that all images will print well when your brochure is produced will help prevent what should be an engaging element from becoming a turn-off for your audience. A blurry or pixelated image is sure to distract from the content you’re trying to share.

• Format Your Brochure to Be Read. Similarly, a brochure that is pigmented in such a way that the text is hard to distinguish from the background or has too much text crammed into an area isn’t going to be as effective as you want it to be. Make sure that your brochures are functionally easy to read, as this allows your prospect to focus on the message you’re sharing.

Finally, Make Sure You Put Your Brochures to Proper Use

Now that your brochures are created, it’s time to get them in the hands of your intended audience. One of the biggest benefits of marketing brochures is how effective they can be in so many different scenarios. Any way you can get one into the hands of a prospect is another opportunity to give them a tangible reminder of what you can do for them. 

Include some with your other outbound marketing efforts by including them in the envelope along with a letter, and post downloadable versions of them on your website for a bit of SEO-supported inbound traffic. Link to them in your marketing emails or distribute them at events you attend. Give them to any prospects who inquire about the services that an MSP offers… your opportunities to get the word out are really only limited by what you can think of.

Admittedly, This is a Lot… But We’re Here to Help

The fact of the matter is that you have a business to run, with employees who are already busy enough with their work responsibilities… plus, there’s also the chance that you may lack the skill sets in your business to create brochures that meet the standards above. Not to worry… that’s what we’re here for.

Our team is capable of producing brochures that meet all of the above criteria, and we are more than happy to work with you to develop effective marketing materials (including brochures) that you’ll be proud to represent your company with.

So, what are you waiting for? Give us a call at 888-546-4384 today to get started, or let us know you want to talk about your marketing!