Customers love when businesses have printed materials to share. Whether you are a real estate agent or flower shop owner, the power of a good brochure that delivers your message with vivid visual impact cannot be overestimated. A marketing brochure can boost your sales efforts instantly, and by creating those materials in-house, you can save both time and money.
Why create a brochure in-house?
There are some great benefits for small businesses that print materials in-house. Not only does using high-quality printers like OfficeJets make it easy to save big with in-house marketing materials, but more control can be used when customizing content. Businesses can take extra care in developing a brochure that builds loyalty, understanding and potentially reaches new audiences.
If you’re not too sure about developing a brochure for your audience without a design professional, here are a few tips to develop a clear, focused message that will visually appeal to you target readers:
· Study your audience: Understand who your target reader is and craft a message that reflects their demographic, likes, dislikes and individual category, whether that is stay-at-home moms or Chicago baseball fans.
· Plan your message: Use insights from your customers, employees, and salespeople to create a message that is clear, concise and gives a “call to action” for the readers.
· Compile your artwork: Pictures and illustrations are almost always the first thing readers look at in brochures, so make sure all visuals reflect your business’ culture and are consistent with the theme of the content. Digital cameras can be used to take professional-looking shots and sites like Wylio.com have free images for download.
With your established brochure content in place, many websites and types of software like Adobe InDesign offer professional-looking brochure templates that you can download, easily personalize, and then print yourself. Here are tips when using brochure templates:
· Editing headlines and copy: An easy way to catch typos when you’re done adding text is to read the text and headlines out loud. Ask someone else to read it too.
· Communicate with color: Experiment with color by changing them to match the message of your business. It’s best to limit the number of colors to two or three, and choose complimentary colors that go with the hue and lightness of your art.
· Add photos and artwork: Before adding your artwork to the brochure template, remember to touch up, crop or improve your images using your favorite photo- or imaging-editing software before inserting the image into the template.
· Save your work: Brochure files can be quite large once you have added your image files. If you make several brochures to target different audiences, consider making a backup on CD to save your hard drive space. Also, be sure to save your document every few minutes to prevent disasters in the event the computer crashes or the power suddenly goes out.
· Choose the right paper: Spend time going over your paper options to really bring your brochure to life.
· Check brochure on paper: Producing a “proof” on plain paper first, allows you to check your picture placement and color. It also helps you practice your two-sided printing directions and saves the valuable specialty paper you’ll use for the final brochure. Here are more guidelines for flawless prints:
o Use plain paper and draft mode for your proof copy.
o Follow Microsoft Word directions for two-sided printing.
o Try marking the top of the paper before your print, to help you visualize how both sides of paper flow through the printer.
o Have someone proof again.
o Use highest-quality setting when printing your final brochures.
o To avoid ink smears, set the pages aside to dry completely in between printing on the front and back.
o To extend the physical life of your brochures, store them in a dark, dry place.
With the above tools, technology and tips, any business can create professional and impactful brochures to increase sales, customers and credibility. For more information about HP’s print offerings, you can visit here.
