{Don Debelak’s new book, Turning Your Invention into Cash is now available on Amazon for $3.49. Go to Amazon.com and enter inventions Don Debelak to purchase. From the author of Entrepreneur Magazine’s Bringing Your Product to Market.}

Inventors Winning Brochures and Flyers

Flyers and brochures are the most common form of advertising and can be pretty cost effective considering how much face-to-face time they get with your potential customers. They’re great educational tools. Although they’re not typically sales pieces, they whet someone’s thirst for more information on your product or company. The main objective is a call to action. You want to drive people to visit a website or to call a number to order your products. Keeping your branding in mind while using the same design principles that go into designing all advertising materials (color, typography, composition, photo/ illustration use and the overall style/ concept) will develop your flyers and brochures to proclaim your products as unique, important, breakthrough and interesting. The following basic steps will make sure you don’t forget anything.

Before I go further, I should first mention stock layout websites that offer pre-designed brochures where you can plug your information into. They look decent and have consistent designs among different formats where the brochure has a matching newsletter, postcard, etc. The problem is these do nothing for your brand and can end up looking half done. They’re not exclusive, so other people will be using your same look. Unless you’re a very low budget beginner looking to settle for less, then work with a designer to build something individual.

Step 1: Research

This should be the first step for all advertising and design. Look at a variety of brochures of all types to see what works best. The Internet is a great place to find examples. Also research design styles, concepts and themes that could tie your branding in with your information. This is how your brochures will take on a more unique personality.

Step 2: Decide the Brochure’s Goal

Will you be sending them out to buyers to persuade them to purchase your products? Will you be a tradeshow vendor introducing your new product? Are you advertising directly to the consumer? You’ll need to utilize a couple different types of brochures throughout your career. Your first brochure is generally used to introduce your product or company with key points to generate interest. For further information, you’ll also need the “Reader’s Digest” version filled with a lot more copy and possibly more pages—it’s everything that needs to be known about the product. If you only have one product or one product type, you should keep your materials completely product centered since unnecessary company information could confuse or bore readers. Multiple products may benefit from a company brochure that teaches the mission, ideals and then displays the products that complement them. The purpose of your brochure will determine everything that goes into it from headlines and copy to the images and overall design.

Step 3: Organize Imagery

A brochure’s main focus should be photos, illustration and/ or graphs, charts, etc.—they tell more in a shorter amount of time. If your product is still in the works, have it professionally illustrated. If you have a prototype or manufactured piece, high quality product photography is a must. It’s usually a good idea to show the product in its natural setting or in use. A cooking product should be photographed in a kitchen or being used by a cook. These images need to do the best possible job representing and demonstrating your product. Use a professional whenever possible. Photos taken yourself aren’t usually the best option unless you really know a lot about lighting and photography. Even then, the photos usually benefit from digital color correction and enhancement.

Supporting images are also a bonus. If your product category is law enforcement, then a photo or graphic of a police officer quickly and efficiently communicates this to the reader. Royalty-free stock photo/ illustration websites offer inexpensive imagery for purchase while most designers subscribe to them. Stock can be generic, but 100s of millions of images are available. They could even be manipulated and used more creatively. Avoid images that look too much like amateur clipart. Stay consistent with one style because mixing too many conflicting illustration types or photos will junk up the look.

Step 4: Write Headlines

They’re important because they break up and categorize body copy for easier reading. Writing them first helps outline the brochure. If you want to portray a more unique personality, then get creative with headlines and copy. With an extreme sports product, instead of “Product Benefits”, consider “Crazy Sweet Because…” It may be a great way to stand out by conveying this branding.

Step 5: Write the Body Copy

Writing for your brochure should come naturally. Stay clear of jargon, writing from the reader’s point of view. Take this article for example. The audience is mostly inventors, so I’ve written it from your point of view. Consider all questions your audience may have and answer them clearly. Stay brief without compromising any important information. Bulleted lists are nice when appropriate. Convey product benefits more so than features. Make it well known why anybody would want to purchase your product.

Step 6: Choose a Printer

The list of printers is extensive. Printing on your home printer will look too unprofessional, so check around for pricing and options. Many online shops provide inexpensive printing as long as you stick with their stock papers, templates and quantities. Otherwise a local shop lets you print just a few at a time without shipping costs plus you’ll have more freedom with paper options. Ask your designer for recommendations. You’ll want to consider the use of bleeds—they cost just a little more because the edges are cut off to make color and photos appear printed all the way to the edge for a more professionally finished look. Otherwise you’ll need a white margin around the entire page.

Step 7: Choose Paper

Paper choices are extensive too, so don’t automatically go for the glossy brochure paper. Glossy papers look higher quality and do a better job with photos, but a different option could look more unique. Consider textured papers, colored papers, thicker papers or lighter papers. A textured linen paper may provide a level of class to complement your product or a bright yellow paper may add some deserved zest.

Step 8: Design the Cover

It’s best to design the cover first since it’ll determine the look of the rest of the pages. There should be no or very little copy besides a title or headline. It should be dominant with strong imagery and graphics whether it’s the product itself or something that makes its category obvious. Two-sided flyers could utilize one side as the cover while one-sided flyers should have one large, prevalent image and title or headline before the body copy.

Step 9: Design the Inside Pages

Based on the cover’s look, there should be a consistency in fonts, graphics and colors that flow throughout the brochure in a way that makes sense and makes it easy to read. Everything should be there for a reason, supporting your product and brand.

Step 10: PDF Brochures

You should always have them for emailing or posting on websites for people to download. It’s not always as easy as converting your existing brochure into a PDF file, so some adjustment to the layout, etc. may be needed to optimize it for on-screen viewing. People read brochures in order of how they unfold it, so consider that with your PDFs.

 

Some optional ways to help your brochures stand out (if you have the budget) are unordinary shapes and folds besides the traditional bi-fold or tri-fold brochures. An environmentally friendly product could be in the shape of a leaf, for instance. A printer with access to die-cutting could do this. You could also cut them yourself, but that becomes time consuming. Other specialty techniques such as gold/ silver foils, embossing, stamping, letterpress printing or spot varnishing can produce beautiful work, but there’s always the added cost.

One thing to never forget is to proof read your work and triple check everything. Mistakes can be costly. If you want your brochure to direct sales, then use your branding and do the necessary planning to figure out how to advertise your products as cutting edge and meaningful. The best products out there would fail if they weren’t introduced and explained well enough. You’ve worked hard on your products, so don’t sell yourself short with clumsy advertising.

Do you need web content?  Don Debelak, who has written 15 books published by major publishers such as McGraw Hill and Entrepreneur Press is currently writing web content.  Check out more information at:

https://onestopinventionshop.net/web-content-writing-services

 Don Debelak offers affordable patent work. Check out http://patentsbydondebelak.com/