How to Craft the perfect Brochure your Clients will LOVE to Read and Buy From

How to Craft the Perfect Brochure your Clients Will Love to Read and Buy From

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espite all the amazing advancements in technology, I still don’t think you can beat putting a piece of paper in someone’s hand as a means of communication. For one, unlike social media and email, you have their complete and undivided attention. So how can you maximise this advantage?

What to include in a lab brochure With any marketing piece you put together, be it a flyer, a brochure, a webpage, a sales letter or an advert, the first question you should ask yourself is what do you want it to do? What is the desired outcome? What action do you want the reader to take?

The key is to be as specific as possible, not just some vague notion of wanting new clients. Don’t try and be all things to all people. There’s no use in just writing a list of everything you do and hoping some of it might appeal to the reader. For a start, that’s boring and it’s what everyone else does.

My advice is to go for the lowest hanging fruit.

What is your biggest profit generator? If that service or product is bringing in the most money, it’s probably because you’re good at it/it’s a great product, and it’s what people want, so concentrate on that - it’ll be the easiest thing to sell and it’ll bring in the most money.

Once you have someone as a client, then you can start offering them your other products and services.

It’s no coincidence I spend the majority of my time advertising Talladium Tilite alloy. It’s a fantastic product, an easy sell, and everyone who tries it LOVES it. Once they recognise the quality of Talladium goods and are buying Tilite regularly, it’s easier to introduce

Contents What to include in a lab brochure ......................1 What do you want your readers to do? ..............1 Structure and content ...........................................1 Using images ..........................................................1 Layout .....................................................................2 Fonts .......................................................................2 Attention, Interest, Desire, Action ......................2 Copywriting techniques .......................................3 Your Marketing Checklist ....................................3

There are a few simple rules of brochure design, which if you apply them to your marketing will increase your response rate dramatically other products.

What do you want your readers to do?

Once you’ve decided which product or service you’re going to concentrate on, you’ll need to decide what action you want the reader to take. And then tell them exactly what to do. Do you want them to call you, visit a web page, send you an email, drop in to the lab? And what will they get for doing so? You need to give people a reason to act. What’ll they get in return?

Information? A sample? A report? What is going to make them contact you?

The first step to writing your brochure is to decide what your biggest profit generator is and come up with a suitable call to action to encourage someone to contact you about it.

Structure and content Now let’s look at the structure and content of your brochure.

When is ugly a good thing?

Well, apparently ugly men are more fertile, but that’s not what I’m referring to here.

The answer in this case is when you’re designing a brochure, leaflet or advert.

Don’t try and make things look too pretty. Funnily enough, ugly tends to work better. The less like an ad it looks and the more like something people are used to reading for information, like a newspaper or a book, the higher the response rate. People see something that looks like an ad and immediately their brain registers it as an ad and becomes more resistant to it.

Using images So what layout should you use? In the western

world, we read from left to right. Put any image in you are producing copy to be viewed on a screen, on the top right hand corner of the front page, or across your website, for example, you may prefer to use a the top of the whole page. If you are using an image sans serif font, the more modern looking fonts with across the top of the whole page, the headline should no curly bits, like Arial, Calibri or Tahoma, however go underneath the image, otherwise reading gravity as phone screens and monitors get better, I no longer will cause the headline to be missed. think this is so relevant. I, myself use a serif font on ALWAYS have a caption under every image. my website as I think readability is easier.

Captions should sum up the entire offer as it is the For printed materials, the recommended font size is most read thing on the page other than the headline. 11 point with a 13 point leading (space between lines).

The headline should grab attention and outline the However, do bear in mind the age of your audience. If main points you want to make. they are a little older, you may want to go up to 12 or The best images to use are people’s faces, looking 13. out from the page. Women’s Black type on a white page faces draw attention from ALWAYS gives the best result. men and women, men’s faces Never reverse this. White text attract men’s eyes (strange, on a dark or black surface is but true). Think about your extremely hard to read. Never target audience. It could well have writing over the top of a be a photo of you looking at photo or picture, it’s virtually the camera will have the most impossible to read. impact. Try not to use the Of course, if you say any of stock photos that everyone this to a graphic designer, they “Is this the recipe for the perfect else uses. Your brochure will chat up line? Well, actually it will scoff at you and tell you it just end up looking like every needs to be pleasing to the eye, probably would apply, but in this other dental lab brochure. but they are just basing this on case, I’m referring to the marketing their own opinion (and not on Layout framework known as the AIDA any study or actual fact!)

Unless you create your The next few paragraphs formula. own artwork, you’ll have to are probably going to bore A = Attention fight over the above points you senseless but are very I = Interest with whoever is designing important. In a study by Colin D = Desire your leaflet. If you care at all Wheildon, the results of which A = Action about your response rate, tell are outlined in his excellent You should use this formula to them to buy a copy of Colin book, “Type & Layout: Are Wheildon’s book and stick to You Communicating Or Just structure everything you write.” the brief.

Making Pretty Shapes”, the readability of a marketing Attention, Interest, Desire, Action piece, i.e. the likelihood of something actually being read and understood was heavily affected by the Is this the recipe for the perfect chat up line? following factors.

Well, actually it probably would apply.

Body copy should be fully justified (aligned on both But, in this case I’m referring to the marketing sides). Fully justified text has a 67% chance of being framework known as the AIDA formula. understood, left aligned has a comprehension level of just 38% and right aligned text, just 10%. Centred text A = Attention, I = Interest, D = Desire, A = Action should only be used for headlines and subheadings.

Indent the first line of each paragraph. This lets the You should use this formula to structure everything eye know you are starting a new paragraph and gives you write. Let’s break each part down step-by-step. it something to aim for.

Attention

Fonts

The headline is the main way to attract the attention Font-wise, in most cases use a serif font. This means of your reader. The best way to grab someone’s fonts with curly bit on the end of each letter, like this attention is to promise to solve a problem you know one, Minion Pro, Times New Roman or Georgia. If they’re experiencing or show them how can get 2

something they want.

Remember the only purpose of a headline is to get the reader to read the first sentence. The only purpose of the first line is to get them to read the second and so on.

The headline and lead paragraph are the two most important areas to capturing your prospect’s attention.

Your Marketing Checklist Here’s a checklist of 12 elements you should include when writing an ad or brochure, 5 of which are essential: 1. A compelling headline (mandatory).

2. A reason for writing or advertising, other than just you wanting more business (mandatory).

3. An offer — the reason to respond (mandatory).

4. A reason to respond NOW (mandatory).

5. A method of responding (mandatory).

6. A compelling first few lines.

7. Compelling body copy.

8. Logically progressive subheadings.

9. One or more pictures, always with a caption!

10. A guarantee (which is sometimes included with the offer).

11. Post-scripts.

12. Testimonials.

Interest Once you have their attention, you’ll need to hold their interest. Show you understand how the problem makes them feel, maybe use a story from your own experience to show this. This is why concentrating on one particularly problem rather than generalising is so much more powerful: you can really get into the specifics of it, and remind them just how annoying the problem is.

Desire

Once you’ve got their interest, show them you’ve got the solution to their problem, and you’re the best person for them to go to for it. If you have social proof i.e. testimonials from happy clients, (preferably with accompanying photos) be sure to include these. You want to make sure they want to have their problem solved by you, and not by one of your competitors.

Try and remove any doubt from their minds that your Even if you’re part of a company, write the letter solution is the best – a guarantee is a good way to from an individual, and write it to an individual. So reduce the risk for them. use ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ and ‘us’, and when you are writing Action imagine you’re writing to just one person and refer to Perhaps the most important of all, because if they them as ‘you’. Using their name in the copy is an even don’t do this, then everything else has been a waste more powerful way to connect.

Use lists and bullet points. They’re very effective in of time, is to get the prospect to take ACTION. Quite getting a lot of information packed into a very small simply you have to tell them how to get what they now desire. Be specific about exactly what they have to do space. Use them to list the benefits of your product or to get their hands on this solution. Tell them how to service though, not just the features.

Try not to be dull. Rather than explaining a do it, where to go, and when (NOW, preferably!)

And that’s it, that’s the AIDA formula. Learn it off long, boring procedure, use a story form your own by heart and structure everything you write around it. life instead to illustrate the point. The reader will remember it better and possibly be able to relate it to Copyrighting techniques to make your an event in his own life.

And finally, always address the problem, don’t talk writing more compelling about your solution until the end. Remind them first The most important tip I can give you when writing of how annoying the problem is, give examples of how copy for any marketing material is to write how you it affects them, before showing you have the ability to speak. make it go away.

Use the simplest language you can and use But of course, knowing all this is as about as useful contractions and apostrophes as you would when as a chocolate teapot, if you don’t actually do anything talking to a colleague. There’s no need to produce with the knowledge. something that reads like a text book, it’ll make you DO THIS NOW: Look at the current literature you sound boring and pompous. You won’t believe what are sending out and use this guide to improve it. You’ll a difference it’ll make to your relationship with the be able to see the difference straight away. reader.

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