Key Elements in Effective Flyer and Brochure Design

Too often, businesses approach the design of flyers and brochures with a “whatever works” mentality. That’s too bad, because while the right elements can create an effective marketing tool, the wrong elements will remove any hope of effectiveness. What are the key elements you need to know? Here’s a closer look.

Your Headline

Like any other written matter, your brochures and flyers need a good headline. However, it’s not just about the words here. While what your headline says is very, very important, the design is also important. It needs to “pop”. It needs to grab the reader’s eye and encourage them to read on, to get to the meat of the material, rather than just throwing it away.

Your Graphics

Both flyers and brochures use graphic design to appeal to readers. However, these graphic elements are about more than just decoration and creating an eye-catching appearance. They can:

• Tie in with your business’s branding
• Evoke an emotional response in your readers
• Tie in with your service or product offering
• Create a desired mood in your readers

AIDA

Both flyers and brochures should be planned according to AIDA, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. In short, your design and text should:

1. Grab attention – Your design and text should be compelling enough to make a potential reader give it a second look.
2. Interest – Your text and images should be sufficient to create interest in the reader, causing them to read on, rather than stop after the headline.
3. Desire – Your text and graphics should be enough to create a desire within the reader for the product or service being highlighted in your flyer or brochure.
4. Action – You need a call to action in your material. This can be as simple as “Call us at 1-800-BuyStuff”.

Selling

There’s been a shift away from outright selling in many industries, and that’s as it should be. Selling has no place in social media marketing or blog posts. It has only a small place in other areas of your business. However, you can’t afford to cut out the sales angle from your flyers and brochures. You can make the material informational, but it still has to sell them. Remember – no one buys a product because of the company behind it. They buy for what it can do for them, or how it can serve their business needs. It’s about them, and you need to sell to that aspect.

An Overall Goal

What’s the point of your flyer or brochure? It’s not just to give people information about your business. You need to have an actual purpose – what’s the point of your material? Are you announcing a new service and trying to attract early takers? Are you introducing a new product or announcing new pricing, and looking to attract buyers? Know your goal and format your text and graphics to reach that goal.

Flyer and brochure design aren’t rocket science, but creating effective marketing tools does require some specific elements be present.

– Artwork Abode