Last Updated on January 9, 2023 by Packoi Team
This is why you have to create a brochure template that can impress your target market.
In this article, you’ll get useful information that’ll allow you to create the most impressive brochure that’ll catch the attention of your customers and get your business more leads.
Why Do You Need an Impressive Brochure Design?
A good brochure can attract your audience’s attention. Despite the popularity of digital media, a business brochure is still an important part of your marketing strategy. It can help you promote your business, brand, and the products and services that you offer.
When done correctly, it can help your business stand out.
A great-looking brochure has the power to make someone stop and look. Just like your other marketing materials, this can help you get more sales by making people take notice.
If you can put the right information in it, you can convince anyone to take the next step in your business.
But the fact remains that you still need to get them to notice first. That’s only possible if you can make your brochure design impressive enough. Even if you have the most amazing content or images there, it won’t matter if nobody picks up the brochure.
That’s why the first impression matters a lot.
The design of business brochures will also dictate the type of fold that you’ll use. Will you use a roll fold? Double parallel fold? Double gate-fold? French fold? Do you want a bi-fold brochure?
There are many options to choose from. Make sure you have a clear understanding of your market so you’ll know how to design the custom brochure properly.
Elements of an Effective Brochure Template
An effective brochure template doesn’t just happen. It takes planning and careful consideration. This marketing tool can be powerful enough to get more customers to do business with you.
It has to have the right elements in it. You have to make sure that your target market won’t just pick it up. They have to devour every text, image, and detail in that brochure. They need to read it from cover to cover so they get closer to conversion and completed sales.
But again, it doesn’t happen without a plan.
You have to make sure it has the right elements in there.
No matter how you decide to make your brochure look, there are 5 important elements that you should never miss.
Eye-Catching Cover
First impressions matter and the same is true for your brochure. The cover is the one that’ll make your target audience stop and look at what’s inside your brochure.
How can you make it eye-catching?
This requires a deep knowledge of your ideal market.
What would make them stop and look? What are the deepest desires and lifestyle aspirations that you can show them to get them to pick up your brochure?
For instance, your business is furniture. Your target market is homeowners, interior designers, and decorators.
What do these people want to see? They want to see a peaceful and serene-looking home. Make that your cover photo.
Or if your business is selling watches and you target businessmen. Putting the word “POWER” on the cover of the brochure will make them stop to look.
Think about your market as you consider what to put on the cover of your brochure template.
Relevant Information
Once you have the cover photo settled, you need to think about what you’ll put inside the brochure.
It has contain relevant information. Whatever your cover photo promised, the inside of your brochure template will have to deliver.
So if you showed a photo of a beautiful home, make sure the inside of the brochure will show how the reader can make it happen. If you put the word power there, show them how your watch can make them feel it.
This information doesn’t have to be in text only. Give them photos – specifically, photos of your best products. Show the best part of what they can get from your business.
Irresistible Offer
All the information on your brochure template should lead to your irresistible offer. What will you put in the brochure template that’ll make the reader want to take the next step and get your offer?
This is your chance to convince the reader that there’s an opportunity waiting for them and your business is the one who can provide it.
It has to be an irresistible one. Something that’ll make them want to know more about you and your business.
Make them want to get in touch with you.
Convincing CTA
After you have the reader hooked on the contents of your brochure, it’s time to make them take the next step.
This can be done through your CTA or call to action. Make sure it’s clear, simple, and easy to follow.
Sometimes, businesses have a hard time converting leads because the CTA is vague and complicated. Don’t let this happen. Make it so easy and effortless.
For instance, don’t make the customer have to fill out long forms just to do business with you. Don’t force them to subscribe to anything and make sure they have the option to get out of it.
Discuss what they have to do and make sure it’s quick and simple to do.
Complete Contact Information
Finally, your brochure template should have complete contact information. Don’t go through all the trouble working on the cover, content, offer, and CTA without giving the reader a way to get in touch with you.
You’ve worked them up to want to do business with you – only to have nothing to contact you with.
Not only that, make sure that the contact information you’ll provide is complete and constantly monitored. You don’t want a potential customer to contact you and not receive a response.
They won’t wait for you too long. They might move on to your competitor and make you lose a sale. Don’t waste the opportunity by leaving this out of your custom brochures.
10 Ideas for Brochure Templates Based on the Purpose
If you’re trying to find the right brochure template for your business, you have to think about two things, the market, and the purpose.
Every little detail on your brochure will have to satisfy the need of your customers for information. But it also has to deliver the right message.
That means you have to make sure it stays true to its purpose. Otherwise, your brochure will just be misleading. Instead of winning over customers, you might lose them.
The thing is, brochures have different purposes. It helps to have a professional brochure template to help you figure out the best layout to use.
But if you want suggestions, here are 10 ideas that you could use based on the purpose of your brochure.
For Health Care
The healthcare industry requires precision. That is the idea that you should play with when you’re coming up with a design for healthcare brochures.
Remember, this brochure is meant to make patients trust the healthcare facility and the services it offers.
It has to be clean, clear, and concise in terms of the information that it’ll offer. Use bullet points so you can go straight to the point in explaining the medical services offered. Include details like the physical location, packages, pricing, and even the operating hours of the medical facility.
To get a clean look, opt for straight lines and cut photos into squares or rectangles. Use wide margins. Design it with noticeable white space between the content elements.
For Retail
A retail brochure is meant to encourage potential customers to buy. This is why the main content of this brochure template should revolve around the product they sell.
Since a brochure is smaller than a catalog, you need to choose only the best and most popular products. Make sure you use high-quality photos so they can showcase the products well.
Don’t forget to provide the readers with enough information. That includes the price, store locations, etc.
You should also provide a link to your website – or at least an online catalog. That way, if people like what they see in your brochure, they’ll know where to go for the complete list of your product or service offers.
For Finance
Financial brochures are a bit like those in the healthcare business. It has to be clear with the information they provide. That’s why using bullet points to explain financial products and services is the best approach.
Make sure to use clean fonts to ensure that it looks like a professional brochure. You want potential clients to take the business seriously. You also want them to put their trust in you so make sure you give the complete company details.
Like all brochure designs, you have to use photos. It has to look professional and not too colorful. Stick to a color scheme of grey, blue, and white.
For Food and Beverage
Restaurant brochures focus on food and beverages. You want it to pique the visual interest of potential customers so it entices the rest of their senses.
That means when it comes to the brochure design, you want it to be colorful. You should use high-quality images that make the food look really appetizing.
But apart from that, you also want to focus on the menu items. Put it all there – or at least, the best ones that you have.
Usually, the ones looking at brochures are those that plan to take home food to eat and beverages to drink.
That means you have to create a high-quality brochure that people who want to order out can appreciate. If the menu has group meals or catering packages, include that as well.
End it with your contact details and delivery information so people will know how to get in touch.
For Event Marketing
This type of business brochure is typically given away at expos and trade shows.
The main purpose of this brochure is to get potential customers interested in the business. It has to give pertinent information without revealing everything.
Why? Because you want the reader to call and ask for more information. When that happens, it’s your chance to do your sales pitch.
This is why you should look for a specific brochure design template that’ll represent the business well. It has to show your brand personality and company information.
For Personal Care
Business brochures promoting personal care should focus on great photos. It has to promote rest, relaxation, and beauty. That should be the design inspiration for the visual elements of the brochure.
It should give potential customers a taste of what they’ll get when they buy a product or avail of the service you offer.
Don’t forget about the prices. Give enough information especially when you’re offering services like spa treatments and the like. You want people to know the value of what they’re getting.
For travel
Brochure design templates for travel require two important details. The first is beautiful photos and the second is vacation packages.
You want people to feel encouraged to travel and avail of the packages you offer. It has to be affordable enough to gain the interest of your potential customers.
It’s important to use very high-quality images so you can promote the beauty of the location you’re advertising – as well as entice travelers to choose your business to arrange their holidays.
For Politics
Design tips for politically inclined brochures can be a bit challenging. This isn’t something that can be generic.
It has to be custom brochures that focus on the politician being promoted. The brochure design should indicate their platforms and how they plan to improve the community that they’ll be assigned to preside over.
This is all about information. If there are photos to be used, it’s usually just a photo of the politician with some pictures of them interacting with their constituents.
The focal point would be the politician, specifically their name and what government position they’re running for.
For Public Relations
If it’s meant for public relations, the brochure design should be informative and all about the company. It has to provide real stories about current news and events that a business is involved in. That means the layout of these business brochure templates will contain a lot of text.
This is a great opportunity to talk about any advocacies that the company promotes. The goal is to paint the company in a positive light – while keeping true to its brand personality.
6 Content Ideas for Brochures
Apart from the visual elements, it’s important to include the right content in the design process. You need to consider the amount of text in the layout of the brochure templates.
When looking for content ideas that’ll impress your market, make sure you align them with how you want to use the brochure. Here are some ideas based on that.
For Direct Marketing
Direct marketing means the company markets its product and services directly to the customers. If you’re using a brochure, that means you’ll give it to potential customers through direct mail. It has to be handed out to the customer directly.
If this is the strategy that you’ve chosen, make sure that you provide your complete contact details. That way, if the customer becomes interested, they’ll know how to get in touch so they can do business with you.
For Sales
If the brochure is supposed to be marketing material to help your sales team get more customers, you’ll need to ask your team about their opinion.
What do they need to be in the brochure to help them land a sale?
Ask them about the typical questions they get from their customers. Make sure these questions are answered by the brochure.
While the brochure won’t be used as the main presentation in the sales pitch, it can be given to the potential customer in case they can’t decide to say yes to a sale during the meeting.
For FAQs
Most business brochure templates should answer the common questions of customers about a business and its offer.
But there are custom brochures that take on the format of a Q&A. This could be a great option for brochure templates. That way, your customers can get the vital information that they need.
Think about the common objections that customers have in their minds that make them hesitate. Use your brochure to overcome these objections by providing a clear FAQ section in the brochure template.
For Guidance
Brochure templates can also come in the form of a how-to guide. It can serve as highly educational material that can help your customers even after making a purchase with you.
So if a customer buys a product, include a brochure to give them tips on how to use the product properly.
Or it could simply provide valuable information that’ll help your market deal with a problem that they’re struggling with.
Use the brochure to add knowledge to your customers. Empowering them could increase their respect and trust for your brand. That’s always a good thing.
For Reviews
What is a powerful way to win over your target market? Give them testimonials. Use the brochure as an opportunity to spread customer reviews.
Have your current clients give you a review and get a photo from them. When you include a photo of the customer, it makes the testimonial all the more believable. It adds credibility that can convince other people to give your business a chance.
Of course, the brochure should include information about your brand and business. And the contact details so the customer can complete a sale with you.
For Waiting Areas
Where do you usually see brochures? You can see them in waiting areas or on coffee tables in business establishments.
You can keep that in mind when you’re thinking about brochure design templates. It’ll be lying where people waiting are feeling bored. Make sure the cover of the brochure is interesting enough that people will pick it up.
The design assets have to be intriguing enough so people will choose to read it from cover to cover. A great example is in waiting areas in the airport. If you’ll put travel brochures there, make sure you put impressive photos and vacation packages there. Since there’s usually no one there to do a sales pitch, make sure the brochure is capable of selling itself. Make the reader want to start planning their next vacation based on what they read in the brochure.
How to Write Content for Your Brochure
It’s not just designed skills that’ll make a business brochure effective. It has to have the right content. Remember, this brochure is meant to provide information about your business. It has to shed light on what your products or services are all about.
You have to give your customers the information that’ll help them decide if they’ll continue to patronize your brand or not.
Your custom brochure should have the details to push them in the direction that’ll get you more sales.
Here are helpful tips that you can use to write the best content for your business brochure.
Decide on the Main Message
Start by asking yourself this question: what is the main message that I want my custom brochures to have?
Think about that for a second. Obviously, you want it to push your customers to do business with you. But there are many types of content to do that.
You could directly tell them to buy from you. Or you can choose to make your business brochure educational.
You can even use it as event invitations if you have an upcoming activity to promote your company.
Choose what message you want to put out there because that’ll help you easily customize templates for your brochure.
Stick to the Brand Narrative
Custom brochures can be as creative as you want – but make sure your content will stick to your brand narrative. Think about that during the design process of your brochure templates.
What this does is create consistency. Your customers will know what to expect from you because your brand narrative doesn’t change. It’s also familiar to them. That’s always a good thing when you’re trying to earn the loyalty of your target market.
How do you create this type of content?
Well, if you’re brand narrative is fun and humorous, keep that tone in your brochures. If it’s simple and elegant go with that. Or if you have a vibrant and energetic narrative, that’s what your customers should feel when they read your brochures.
Make Your Copy Timeless
This is a cost-efficient tip that’ll allow you to use your brochures for a very long time.
Make sure your content is timeless. Don’t include references to current events or trends.
By doing this, there won’t be any need to update it – at least, for a very long time.
Of course, this is only applicable to generic brochures. Those that include information about the company that won’t change.
Check for Grammar and Spelling Errors
Finally, make sure your brochures are free from grammar, spelling, or typo errors. Even if your brochure looks visually amazing, if the reader sees errors in the content, that won’t impress them. It won’t look professional at all.
So read the content several times and have someone else go through it as well. Change any errors so you don’t have to waste time and money on printing brochures that’ll only embarrass your company.
Tips when Choosing the Image
Do you need a graphic designer to make your brochures look like it has a professional design? Not really.
You just have to learn how to choose the right images for your brochure.
When you’re doing this, it’s important to remember that the images will define the layout of the brochure. It’ll also help you decide how the folded brochures will look like.
How do you envision the paper fold? Parallel folds can come in different lengths and widths. Will you do a double parallel fold or a roll fold?
If you want big photos, you’ll have to consider that as you think about the custom size of your business brochures.
Another thing you have to consider is whether you’ll get free images for your custom brochures or not. There’s nothing wrong with stock photography if your budget can afford original ones taken by a professional photographer. Just make sure you’re getting the images from the right source.
Are You Ready to Impress Your Customers with Your Brochure?
It’s time to impress your customers with your business brochures. But the only way to do that is to create a brochure template that’ll give you an amazing design, incredible content, and visually appealing images.
While there are free brochure templates to choose from, you can make the effort to create a unique design for your brochures.
If you need help with this, we at Packoi Printing can lend our expertise. We can talk about what’s possible for your business brochure.
If you’re ready to work on this, share with us your ideas. We’ll give you a quotation in no time.