Good brochures can be powerful advertising tools that help persuade prospects to do business with you. Here are some of the benefits of brochures, their disadvantages and a 9-step process for creating your brochure.
Benefits of Brochures
These days, brochures and information packets are a requirement for any type of legitimate business. Let’s look at a few of the benefits of brochures.
- Credibility – Very few businesses today operate without some type of brochure describing their services. In a world where anyone can spend $50 on letterhead and business cards, a brochure proves you are in business and are more than a fly-by-night operation.
- Save time – It would be too time consuming for you to type up individual letters to every prospect that showed interest in your offering. The solution is to collect your basic information into a single brochure that prospects can take with them and read at their leisure.
- Reinforce advertising and direct mail programs – They are a handy way to tell prospects the essentials of your business including how your service works, what your solutions will do for prospects, and how prospects can take the next step in working with you.
A good sales brochure does more than explain and inform. It also persuades. It translates your facts and features into customer benefits and sells your services.
Facts about Brochures
While brochures have many benefits, they also have a number of disadvantages. For example,
- Brochures can close the sale. – Brochures can be effective at generating interest in your products and services, but unless you are selling a low-cost product, they rarely will close the sale for you.
- Brochures are not expensive to print. – If you anticipate changes in the future, printing up a few hundred copies doesn’t make much sense. In most cases, you benefit from economies-of-scale with printers, so the more you order, the less each cost-per-brochure is. It can be tempting to print up more than you need to take advantage of the cost savings.
- Brochures are not expensive to change. – Despite your proofreading efforts, occasionally a typo will go unnoticed until the brochure has been printed. If you want to reprint the brochures, you have to shell out more money to get them fixed.
- Some prospects will ask for a brochure when they want you to go away – When a prospect asks you to send information or leave it behind, often they are doing so to get rid of you. Asking for a brochure is a polite way of telling you they aren’t interested.
For small-businesses, sometimes creating a presentation folder is a better alternative to a brochure. With a presentation folder, you can assemble flyers, data sheets, articles, and case studies that are most relevant to your prospects without the high cost of printing up generic brochures.
9 Steps to Creating A Great Brochure
If you have decided that a brochure is right for you, here is a simple step-by-step process for creating your brochure. Read more about it HERE
