case studies
BROCHURES
Get the best results with your brochure
Brochures are expensive, so you need to get them right. There are three (apparently simple) rules to a good brochure: well written text, attractive design, planned distribution.
But first…
A brochure, like any other piece of promotional material is a tool through which you communicate. You have to adapt it to your public, in order for it to work, in order for your public to understand you and respond. Your target audience will influence that way your brochure is written, designed and distributed. Think about it, who are you trying to communicate with through your brochure?
Your brochure will be different if you address your existing costumers, your future ones, your business partners, your employees, your community. It will be different if you address children, professionals within a particular sector, or housewives.
If 95% of your target has daily Internet access, you won’t need to invest your money on printing a brochure, a download-able PDF may be enough. Unless you want to impress them with fancy printing, and then we advise you to use recycled paper.
The beauty of a brochure is that it gives you space to write and show things (unlike a poster or a leaflet / flyer which are very limited in this respect). Through clever writing, inspired design and proper distribution, you can create a material that talks about who you are in detail and can engage and influence your public. However, a brochure is a second stage communication tool; it does not work on its own. It has to be integrated with your other communication efforts, for example:
- posters, leaflets, folders etc (this means your brochure has to follow the same text and design guidelines, in order to integrate with the rest of the printed materials)
- you give it out during meetings or conferences
- you mail it to your existing or prospective customers
- you give it to partners
- you distribute it in your community
So, you have to think things through before investing your money in it, because it has to correlate with your other promotional or informational activities or it will have limited impact. You also have to make sure you have all the distribution details worked out. How will it be delivered? Who is responsible? Is there a sufficient budget? Is your mailing list appropriate and up to date?
Text
If you have never written a promotional text before, you should get outside help (hire a journalist or a copywriter). Text may seem as the easiest part of a brochure (we all know how to read and write). This means that we can easily fall into the DIY (Do It Yourself) trap and produce text that just doesn't work. This will undermine the whole brochure.
Good text should:
- be clear, concise and to the point.
- avoid overcomplicated language - writing simply does not mean you are simple.
- be adapted to the target and emphatic: what type of writing would appeal more to your public?
- not use professional jargon and acronyms (even if your target is in the same business as you)
- if written in another language, a native speaker or a good translator should check your text; no matter what language you are writing in, always proofread at least twice
- motivate people
Design
Hire outside help. Get a professional designer, with experience in printed materials. Doing it in-house usually leads to disappointment.
Good design should:
- use a limited number of complementary colors
- a limited number of matching fonts (two are enough)
- a limited number of font sizes (no more then three or four, if you have footnotes)
- it should be airy and easy on the eye
- it should use professional photos that combine artistic and technical qualities
- it should be simple, yet striking (something you could remember and would like to see again)
In the end, it is a question of taste, but the more you trust your designer, the best results you get. The worst mistake you can make with a good designer is to constantly ask him to make changes (move the text up 3mm, make that blue a deeper hue, I like that photo but can it be bigger etc etc). What you think are minor changes that take seconds, can take hours (because they influence the entire layout of your brochure). They can aggravate your designer and ruin both your brochure and your relationship.
Distribution
There’s no point in consuming time and money on a good brochure, unless it reaches its target audience. Distribution is crucial to success. A brochure can be handed out at meetings, fairs, exhibitions, conferences. It can also be mailed, but you will most likely need to hire a distribution company to prepare a data base of recipients and then send them out. It can be emailed in PDF format. Either way, you need to make a detailed plan that covers most of the copies you printed (you need to keep a few in the office, for yourself). And you need to have someone dedicated to this task, as it requires a lot of work.
How many brochures should you print? Most printers don’t like to produce less then 1,000 copies, because less than that doesn't make economic sense (500 copies costs almost the same as 1,000). So, your target audience needs to be more then 1,000 persons. For small to medium sized businesses, most brochures are printed in three to five thousand numbers. You also need to think how long will it be valid? Most brochures look out of date within a year.
Then you need to think about how will these copies actually leave your office: will you give each of your employees copies to hand out (make sure they don’t stack them under their desks and leave them there)? Will you hand out 1,000 copies to people in your community? Or will you take a few thousand copies to a business fair? You must think through each detail of the distribution plan, and this will influence the number you print.
Brochures are expensive. You need to pay decent money for quality writing, design (and photography), printing and distribution. But they can spread the word about your work and achievements with interested detail and rewarding results.
An example of a brochure our team produced
"A few years ago I worked for the National Authority for the Protection of Child Rights (NAPCR) as part of an EU funded project. One of my jobs was to produce a brochure NAPCR could present to the European Parliament and other international targets. First thing I did was get the NAPCR secretary of state and his team round a flipchart and ask them "who is this brochure aimed at?" They gave me a list of foreigner target audiences they wanted to deliver it to and we then developed a series of messages for each, most of which can be seen as titles on the inner pages of the brochure. Within an hour we had a strategy.
"For the next week I had to summarise a 10 year reform process, against a historical backdrop of horror, into a few pages and I became defensive about staff trying to edit my text. I was helped enormously by Horia Marusca, the designer and photographer, as he was able to make clear a very complex process that most people in Romania still don't understand -- the relationship of child protection services to other local services. He summarised it nicely in a clear graphic. I also used the key statistics to good effect and you will see that his photos and design basically "make" the brochure. In summary, the 3 key elements are writing, design and photography.
"Fresh from the printers, 5,000 copies were distributed within days. Romania was under a lot of pressure to repeal its laws and to allow foreigners to adopt Romanian children (a process that had been corrupted), but the country was standing firm against a very powerful lobby. Boxes of the brochure were rushed to Brussels and Strasbourg by Romanian diplomats and handed out by sympathetic members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to other MEPs. Immediately the target audience had in their hands a summary of the child welfare reform and several key facts.
"Another important success factor was the fact that we didn't blow our trumpet too much. You can easily over play your hand by over emphasizing a success story, and I was careful to show that there are still lots of problems in child welfare, and we are open to collaboration, but the problem of institutionalisation is well on the way to being resolved. This can be delicate when political figures are involved as they might feel the need to promote themselves, but are often open to reason and can usually realise that such an approach can be counterproductive."
"We got positive feedback from the European Parliament and the brochure can still be found on the website of the National Authority for the Protection of Child Rights. You can see it here
Rupert Wolfe Murray, former international media expert to NAPCR.
Links
The NAPCR Brochure
The NAPCR website
Horia Marusca, our designer and photographer
Other brochures done by our team
For the Oficiul Român pentru Adopţii
The Adoption system in Romania
Technical information for professionals
For a Phare project on Structural Funds (several teaching manuals)
Developing a Structural Funds project
Evaluating and selecting the projects
Financial arrangements
Implementing the projects
Risk evaluation
Get the best results with your brochure
Brochures are expensive, so you need to get them right. There are three (apparently simple) rules to a good brochure: well written text, attractive design, planned distribution.
But first…
A brochure, like any other piece of promotional material is a tool through which you communicate. You have to adapt it to your public, in order for it to work, in order for your public to understand you and respond. Your target audience will influence that way your brochure is written, designed and distributed. Think about it, who are you trying to communicate with through your brochure? Your brochure will be different if you address your existing costumers, your future ones, your business partners, your employees, your community. It will be different if you address children, professionals within a particular sector, or housewives.
If 95% of your target has daily Internet access, you won’t need to invest your money on printing a brochure, a download-able PDF may be enough. Unless you want to impress them with fancy printing, and then we advise you to use recycled paper.
The beauty of a brochure is that it gives you space to write and show things (unlike a poster or a leaflet / flyer which are very limited in this respect). Through clever writing, inspired design and proper distribution, you can create a material that talks about who you are in detail and can engage and influence your public. However, a brochure is a second stage communication tool; it does not work on its own. It has to be integrated with your other communication efforts, for example:
- posters, leaflets, folders etc (this means your brochure has to follow the same text and design guidelines, in order to integrate with the rest of the printed materials)
- you give it out during meetings or conferences
- you mail it to your existing or prospective customers
- you give it to partners
- you distribute it in your community
So, you have to think things through before investing your money in it, because it has to correlate with your other promotional or informational activities or it will have limited impact. You also have to make sure you have all the distribution details worked out. How will it be delivered? Who is responsible? Is there a sufficient budget? Is your mailing list appropriate and up to date?
Text
If you have never written a promotional text before, you should get outside help (hire a journalist or a copywriter). Text may seem as the easiest part of a brochure (we all know how to read and write). This means that we can easily fall into the DIY (Do It Yourself) trap and produce text that just doesn't work. This will undermine the whole brochure.
Good text should:
- be clear, concise and to the point.
- avoid overcomplicated language - writing simply does not mean you are simple.
- be adapted to the target and emphatic: what type of writing would appeal more to your public?
- not use professional jargon and acronyms (even if your target is in the same business as you)
- if written in another language, a native speaker or a good translator should check your text; no matter what language you are writing in, always proofread at least twice
- motivate people
Design
Hire outside help. Get a professional designer, with experience in printed materials. Doing it in-house usually leads to disappointment.
Good design should:
- use a limited number of complementary colors
- a limited number of matching fonts (two are enough)
- a limited number of font sizes (no more then three or four, if you have footnotes)
- it should be airy and easy on the eye
- it should use professional photos that combine artistic and technical qualities
- it should be simple, yet striking (something you could remember and would like to see again)
In the end, it is a question of taste, but the more you trust your designer, the best results you get. The worst mistake you can make with a good designer is to constantly ask him to make changes (move the text up 3mm, make that blue a deeper hue, I like that photo but can it be bigger etc etc). What you think are minor changes that take seconds, can take hours (because they influence the entire layout of your brochure). They can aggravate your designer and ruin both your brochure and your relationship.
Distribution
There’s no point in consuming time and money on a good brochure, unless it reaches its target audience. Distribution is crucial to success. A brochure can be handed out at meetings, fairs, exhibitions, conferences. It can also be mailed, but you will most likely need to hire a distribution company to prepare a data base of recipients and then send them out. It can be emailed in PDF format. Either way, you need to make a detailed plan that covers most of the copies you printed (you need to keep a few in the office, for yourself). And you need to have someone dedicated to this task, as it requires a lot of work.How many brochures should you print? Most printers don’t like to produce less then 1,000 copies, because less than that doesn't make economic sense (500 copies costs almost the same as 1,000). So, your target audience needs to be more then 1,000 persons. For small to medium sized businesses, most brochures are printed in three to five thousand numbers. You also need to think how long will it be valid? Most brochures look out of date within a year.
Then you need to think about how will these copies actually leave your office: will you give each of your employees copies to hand out (make sure they don’t stack them under their desks and leave them there)? Will you hand out 1,000 copies to people in your community? Or will you take a few thousand copies to a business fair? You must think through each detail of the distribution plan, and this will influence the number you print.
Brochures are expensive. You need to pay decent money for quality writing, design (and photography), printing and distribution. But they can spread the word about your work and achievements with interested detail and rewarding results.
An example of a brochure our team produced
"A few years ago I worked for the National Authority for the Protection of Child Rights (NAPCR) as part of an EU funded project. One of my jobs was to produce a brochure NAPCR could present to the European Parliament and other international targets. First thing I did was get the NAPCR secretary of state and his team round a flipchart and ask them "who is this brochure aimed at?" They gave me a list of foreigner target audiences they wanted to deliver it to and we then developed a series of messages for each, most of which can be seen as titles on the inner pages of the brochure. Within an hour we had a strategy.
"For the next week I had to summarise a 10 year reform process, against a historical backdrop of horror, into a few pages and I became defensive about staff trying to edit my text. I was helped enormously by Horia Marusca, the designer and photographer, as he was able to make clear a very complex process that most people in Romania still don't understand -- the relationship of child protection services to other local services. He summarised it nicely in a clear graphic. I also used the key statistics to good effect and you will see that his photos and design basically "make" the brochure. In summary, the 3 key elements are writing, design and photography.
"Fresh from the printers, 5,000 copies were distributed within days. Romania was under a lot of pressure to repeal its laws and to allow foreigners to adopt Romanian children (a process that had been corrupted), but the country was standing firm against a very powerful lobby. Boxes of the brochure were rushed to Brussels and Strasbourg by Romanian diplomats and handed out by sympathetic members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to other MEPs. Immediately the target audience had in their hands a summary of the child welfare reform and several key facts.
"Another important success factor was the fact that we didn't blow our trumpet too much. You can easily over play your hand by over emphasizing a success story, and I was careful to show that there are still lots of problems in child welfare, and we are open to collaboration, but the problem of institutionalisation is well on the way to being resolved. This can be delicate when political figures are involved as they might feel the need to promote themselves, but are often open to reason and can usually realise that such an approach can be counterproductive."
"We got positive feedback from the European Parliament and the brochure can still be found on the website of the National Authority for the Protection of Child Rights. You can see it here
Rupert Wolfe Murray, former international media expert to NAPCR.
Links
The NAPCR Brochure
The NAPCR website
Horia Marusca, our designer and photographer
Other brochures done by our team
For the Oficiul Român pentru Adopţii
The Adoption system in Romania
Technical information for professionals
For a Phare project on Structural Funds (several teaching manuals)
Developing a Structural Funds project
Evaluating and selecting the projects
Financial arrangements
Implementing the projects
Risk evaluation
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