What you need to know to write a successful brochure
By: Kelly Robbins
Writing brochures can be a fun, easy and highly profitable addition to your copywriting services.
Let's take a look at 'brochure writing 101' and some of the common things that should be in every brochure and tips for creating them:
- The front page should sell, not just have the company name and address. You need to sell the reader on opening and reading the brochure. The front page is a great place to start demonstrating the company benefits.
- Before you start writing, know where your client is in the sales process and where you want the reader to go. Brochures are often used more towards the front of the sales cycle both for business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) selling. Questions to ask:
- Is this your prospects first exposure to your company?
- Are you selling or introducing a new or specific product line?
- Is your goal to create confidence in your company and create a sense of trust?
- Know your reader. This is true for all copywriting you do, but especially difficult for brochures. I find companies create brochures as a 'catch all' for their sales force and marketing team to use as a leave behind. Because there is not one specific audience the copy tends to be bland and impersonal. The writing tends to revert to 'corporate speak' and that does not allow for connection with the reader - ultimately making the brochure worthless as a selling tool. Be conscious to connect with the reader.
- Keep in mind what other promotional materials accompany the brochure. Is this brochure being handed out all by itself, or are there accompanying materials? You don't want to waste space by repeating information that's in other marketing materials.
- Use bolding and subheadings to clearly break the text into readable sections. People read a brochure similar to a book (besides peeking at the back before opening). Your copywriting should walk them through the brochure page by page.
- Use bullets and numbers to clearly break down benefits and processes. Bullets and numbers make content easy to read and force you to express the company's benefits into a few words.
- Put something important in the brochure so the reader will keep it. Some good tips, a map -- anything helpful that's worth keeping.
- Talk to one key person in your copy - not everyone that could be reading it.
- Talk about benefits and what the product will do for the reader - not just the features.
About the author
Kelly Robbins, founder of The Copywriting Institute, is the author of Powerful Interviewing Techniques for Healthcare Marketers and The Healthcare Copywriters Toolkit. Kelly Robbins is an award winning healthcare copywriter and marketing coach/consultant. Publisher of "The Copywriting Connection", Kelly helps writers and marketers learn to write phenomenal copy. Contact Kelly to receive her free report, "Six things every copywriter MUST know to make high profits in copywriting fast!" at www.TheCopywritingInstitute.com or 303-460-0285.
© 2008, The Copywriting Institute
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