Brochure and Flyer Design Tips

Outside of business cards, brochures and flyers are perhaps the most—used printed marketing materials - and for good reason. Brochure printing and flyer printing are both efficient, economical and offer plenty of room to boldly state your clients' messages. They can also be distributed almost anywhere - on racks, in mailboxes, on windows and on countertops anywhere. The key to achieving a solid return on investment through these versatile marketing mediums is in intelligent design. Here are a few brochure and flyer design tips to keep in mind the next time you sit down at the drawing table (or in front of the computer):

1. Make it stand out from the crowd

Make sure the brochure or flyer is attractive and eye-catching, especially if the customers will be responsible for picking it up themselves. You can achieve this through bold colors, thought-provoking images and stunning word-play. Remember that the front of your brochures and flyers is the first thing your prospects see, so make them unique, bold and interesting enough to motivate customers to pick them up.

2. Ensure the brochure or flyer is easy to read

Even if you grab customers' attention with an appealing design, they won't want to wade through long, dense paragraphs. Customers want to get to the point — and fast. Use large, clean headlines in a sans serif font, and put larger chunks of text in a serif font. Bullet points are a great way to emphasize key ideas without taking up a lot of space, and you're not limited to bland black dots — try making a neat, relevant graphic to use as your bullet points. Checkmarks, dollar signs, colored balls, animal silhouettes and other graphics can add aesthetic appeal to your bullet points and, when done correctly, can serve to draw extra attention to top-selling pitches. Remember to use plenty of white space, and try using drop shadows to make your brochure and flyer designs really pop off the page.

3. Use incentives

One of the best ways to get the most out of your marketing dollars is to add value to your brochures and flyers through coupons, free giveaways or other great offers you can incorporate into your brochure and flyer designs. Even better, make the discount or free offer redeemable only if the promo piece is brought in to the store (or a special code is entered on a website) so you can effectively track your success stats.

4. Know your audience

When determining the tone of your brochure or flyer, you need to keep in mind the type of audience who will be reading it. If you are trying to gain new clients, the brochure should be catchy and exciting, but not pushy. If you are focusing on maintaining current clients, use text and images that convey a tone of friendship, trust and appreciation for their business. Regardless of the audience, your flyer and brochure text, images and graphics should work together to demonstrate the benefits to the customer without droning on about your company. Unless the brochure or flyer is very formal, use the words "you" and "your" rather than "we," "us," "our" and "I." This lets the customer know that they come first and creates familiarity.

5. Emphasize powerful words

Whether you're writing the text or it's coming from a professional copywriter, make sure to highlight power words and phrases that grab the attention of clients. This could include the following: New Free Save Now Easy Proven Amazing Love Discovery Results Health Guarantee Keep these tips in mind when creating a brochure or flyer and you will have a better chance of it getting read instead of being thrown away or ignored. A smart design coupled with easy-to-read, well-written text will gain attention and bring more clients to your door.