Size Matters

Sales literature is produced to facilitate the sales process and help secure a sale. When working on a new brochure, it’s easy to get bogged down in the design and forget entirely about the size—an equally important factor. If produced too big, your brochure will annoy; too small and it will get lost; too standard and it will be forgotten!

Add to this the print finish—too plush and you will look expensive; too flimsy and you will look cheap; there is lots to consider. The size and finish of your sales literature should be considered from the outset and, when in perfect harmony with the design and copy, will create a killer sales tool.

Making Your Brochure Work Harder

Most businesses have a company brochure, which is used to support sales activities. But how can you ensure that your brochure stands apart from your competitors’?

Brochure content tends to follow a similar format; company bio, mission statement, product or services description…. Here are a few ideas that could help to make your brochure a more powerful sales tool:

Make it a Portfolio

Give real examples of customer problems or issues and demonstrate how you solved them. Show the work and use customer testimonials to back up your claims. This format works well for prospective customers, as it will instil confidence in doing what you say you can do. For existing customers, it’s an opportunity to educate them on products and services they don’t currently use and sowing the seed for future use.

Make it a Magazine

Feature articles that help position your business within your particular industry. Give useful information about new products or services, research on how and why they were developed; tell the story behind its development. Invite complimentary suppliers to feature in it. Pack it with interesting information and highlight forthcoming products/services/events to look out for in next issues etc. A magazine format also gives you an excuse to contact customers and prospects with new editions.

Make it Useful

Make your brochure work for its living. If your business relies on repeat orders then, within the brochure, perhaps you could include a tear-off pad that can be filled in and faxed back to you.

Make it a Reference Source

Within your brochure, include reference charts or tables that are relevant to your industry. For example, if your business is anything to do with the clothing or shoe industry, you could include worldwide clothes and shoe sizes etc.

Make it a Report

This is particularly relevant if your business is within the professional services industry, but can also be applied to the product and consumer services industries. Link your service benefits to findings within the report; for example, if you offer a confidential hotline reporting service, detail latest statistics on company fraud and link in the benefits of setting up a confidential hotline reporting service.

How to Achieve a Killer Brochure

Having worked on more than a hundred different brochure projects, of all shapes and sizes over the last six years, it’s clear that the reasons for producing written materials are frequently misunderstood—and no communication tool is more laden with expectations than a brochure. Viewed as a necessity by most businesses, a brochure is something companies often create without understanding its true purpose.

So, we would like to help our readers focus on exactly what they want to achieve when embarking on the sometimes daunting task of producing a new brochure.

A brochure can do many things. It can tell a story, create an impression, educate consumers, introduce a new product/service or simply act as a reminder that you are there. What a brochure cannot do is sell—people and relationships sell—a page of printed paper folded a few times does not! That said, a brochure can act as vital support to the traditional sales process by persuading customers to think favourably of your business over competitors and is therefore a must-have for most businesses.

As a visual extension of your company, a brochure is an opportunity to put your best foot forward and showcase your product or service. One of the golden rules is; make sure the message in your brochure is consistent with your other marketing tools, i.e. website, advertising etc.

An effective brochure should have:

• A compelling message—something people want to read!
• Clear informative copy—generally less is more. Stick to saying what you do and, most importantly, the benefits you offer.
• Graphics and/or photography that add to the story—people respond first to the visual image and then look for confirmation from the copy.
• A call to action—invite the recipient to do something and contact you—always give clear contact details to make it easy for them.

Once the message or reason for your brochure has been established, you can then move the project forward and work with your designers to produce a killer brochure.

Proofreading—What’s your Goat?

OK, so you’ve written the words and, if you’re a little bit conscientious, you’ve run the spell-checker over them. Is that it? No! The following statement is rumoured to have appeared on a high-profile website: “Our goat is total customer satisfaction”. Hilarious, yes, but is this a credible organisation? Proofreading is vital. If you’re not confident in your own writing or proofing abilities, ask a colleague to help or buy in some expertise. But do it: if you don’t get your words right, what DO you get right?

That Tactile Feel

Promotional material is an important component of any marketing strategy—it reflects your business and customers will often decide whether or not they are going to use a particular product or service simply by the quality of the sales literature. Besides the look of a brochure i.e. the copy, design, photographs etc, another key consideration should be the feel of it! This important aspect is often overlooked, but a well designed brochure can often be spoilt by the choice or quality of the paper stock.

Within the printing industry the paper is always referred to as the ‘stock’. The thicker the stock the better quality your brochure will feel. The cost does not increase significantly when increasing the stock weight, so it is always advisable to request prices and stock samples on various weights, before going to print. There are two types of stock—coated and uncoated. Both give a very different look and finish, so discuss this with your designer/printer. And for that added ‘quality’ feel, consider extra finishing options such as matt or gloss lamination.

PDF Explained

We’ve all heard of PDF and many of us use this file format on a daily basis (it is even used by the government for electronic document exchange!). But what exactly is a PDF and why is it so commonly used?

Adobe Portable Document format (PDF) has become very popular for proofing artwork and reducing paperwork, as a PDF can be viewed on-screen and/or printed for maximum flexibility. A PDF is a universal document format that keeps type, colours, images and layout true to the application that created it. It’s a useful tool for sending information across different platforms and applications as anyone anywhere can open a PDF file, using the free Adobe Reader software:

Download: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.phpl

To create a PDF, you need Adobe Distiller, which is part of the Adobe Acrobat suite.

Printing Explained

Printing is an age-old process, which has become more complex over time. To help our readers, we’re going to explain the basics of the different processes involved in printing literature.

There are two printing processes, litho and digital. A digital press works similarly to a large colour photocopier and although it is very cost effective for small quantities, the quality is limited.

Litho printing produces a much higher quality print, which works by breaking down a 300dpi resolution digital file into a series of dots. The dots are then made into plates, which pick up the ink and print.

Pantone Colours

The Pantone Matching System is the industry standard for colour. Printing in pantone colours is only applicable for 1 or 2 colour literature, and therefore is ideally suited to stationery, business cards, leaflets, simple brochures etc. It is the cheapest option as it’s generally done on a smaller press as only 1 or 2 plates are required.

4 Colour Printing or CMYK

This is the only choice for producing the high quality, full colour output, required for brochures, newsletters, magazines, posters etc. The process uses 4 basic colour plates—Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, which when printed over the top of each other create different colours.

It is more difficult to replicate a pantone colour match using this process, as colours are mixed from the four basic colours above.

Certain pantone colours do not convert well into a CMYK mix with, for example, orange and green being notoriously difficult.

‘Special’ or ‘Spot’ Colour Process

This process is a combination of the two processes above. Full Colour or CMYK printing process, plus one other Pantone Colour, this is also known as a 5-colour process.

It is the most expensive process, but is useful for matching an exact pantone colour, whilst still achieving a full colour output i.e. to match a company logo or corporate colour.

Understanding the print process should help you make informed decisions, that will deliver better value for your money—something we always like to help our customers with!

Online Photo Libraries—Where to Start!

On-line photo libraries are a great resource for material to illustrate your sales literature, website, advertising and more. They offer literally thousands of images, from architecture to zebras. All possibilities are catered for.

Photo libraries are particularly useful if your company doesn’t sell a tangible product, leaving you without the option of using product photography. Lifestyle or atmospheric images are popular, as they can be used to set the scene and communicate positive messages about your company.

Rights Managed or Royalty Free?

Photo libraries are really easy to use, simply type in your keyword to the search box and browse through the selection it brings up. Before choosing your image, you will also need to decide whether you want Rights Managed or Royalty Free. This will have a bearing on the cost and use of the image.

Royalty Free

Images are priced on the size and resolution of the image. You pay a one off fee and, once purchased, can use it as many times as you wish. When you order your image you will be presented with a range of sizes—the bigger the image, the higher the price.

Pros

The one off fee means the image can be used for multiple projects without paying additional fees.

Cons

There are fewer images to choose from and you may find your competitor is already using the same image.

Rights Managed

Images tend to be more sophisticated in their composition. The fee for using a rights managed image is calculated from several factors including print run, size, placement, duration of use and geographic distribution. Once purchased you will only be able to use the image as per the license agreement you’ve set up (heavy fines are imposed if you breach the license).

Pros

There is more choice, the images are more sophisticated and there is less chance of your competitor using the same image.

Cons

The image can be very expensive and only used once.

Photo libraries vs. commissioned photography?

Before making a decision on photography, you should clearly define the key messages you need to communicate through the imagery. Once defined, you can make a decision between what’s available through photo libraries or commissioning your own photography. There’s no doubt that photo libraries are a fantastic resource, but they are only valuable if you find the right image to fulfill your needs. Photography is an investment, therefore you need to make sure it delivers value—don’t just purchase it because it looks nice… Think about what it’s saying about your company, product or service.

Take a look for yourself:

Here is a selection of some of the best on-line photo libraries:

• www.creatas.com
• creative.gettyimages.com
• www.alamy.com

The Power of a Good Photograph

As humans, we are all programmed to react to what we see. When we look at a page or screen, pictures make the first and biggest impression. By the time we move onto the text, we have already formed an opinion on what we are looking at.