6 Key Tips for Writing a Marketing Brochure That Doesn't Suck

Contrary to popular opinion, print advertising is not dead. Many people still look at billboards, pick up brochures, and look at posters in their day-to-day activities.

This is especially true for certain industries, like hospitality, for example. A study by Bentley University showed that 85% of people learn of a new attraction or business in the industry by picking up a brochure.

So, if you’re looking into how to write a brochure, you’re not off your marketing game. In this article, we’ll review how to use brochures for marketing your business in the digital age. We’ll also highlight a tool that makes writing a brochure less rigorous.

How to use brochures for marketing your business in 2023

Still unsure how brochures can fit into your marketing strategy? Here are five ways you can use brochures (print and digital) to market your business:

• Point-of-sale marketing: Having your brochure at the point-of-sale in brick-and-mortar stores where your target audience is likely to frequent
• Direct mail: Sending your brochure to customers in the mail (or via email) after they request more information about your product or service 
• Sales support tool: You can include brochures to highlight the wider range of your services with customers after they’ve purchased your product or as a freebie after they’ve paid for a service
• Distributed at events: Brochures are the perfect marketing tool to distribute to potential customers at trade shows or industry events
• Printable asset or lead magnet: A well-designed, informative digital brochure (e.g. industry reports) can make a useful lead magnet or printable for potential customers while growing your mailing list

How to write a powerful brochure for digital or print (step by step)

Now that you know what a stellar brochure can do for your business, we’ll show you how to write a brochure that draws customers in.

Decide the goal of your brochure

Basic marketing frameworks like AIDA teach us that customers go through several stages before they’re ready to purchase. Where would your brochure be meeting your target audience? For example, do you want your brochure to draw attention, foster interest, stoke their desire, or finally move them to action? LucidPress uses theirs as a lead magnet to draw attention.

Knowing what you want your brochure to accomplish will help you decide on the content and layout. Higher in the funnel, you might focus on educating your audience, perhaps sharing useful case studies or industry information. But moving them to sell would require providing direct solution-based information targeting their pain points.

Make an outline

As with any piece of content, start with a robust outline. Depending on the number of pages (brochures can be anywhere from 3 to 32 pages), decide what you’d like to share with readers and how in-depth your resource will be.

To keep you on track, designate the cover and back cover pages for your headline/subheading and call-to-action (CTA) respectively. Then you can focus on information to be covered between both of those pages.

Write content

Business brochures do not have to be boring. Even if your digital brochure is a collection of stats and annual reports, you can make your content engaging for your target audience. And often, engaging content means conversions. Use the following tips to make your content appealing:

• Use skimmable content: Avoid long walls of text and instead break up text walls with images, bullet points, or infographics.

• Vary your fonts: Keep things just interesting enough by using 2-3 fonts and/or font sizes on a given page. This can also help to establish a visual hierarchy, making your text more readable.

• Include “call-out boxes”: These are text boxes in a bold highlight color to stand out from the rest of your text. Call-out boxes show off vital information about your brand or tips your customers will find beneficial.

Use impactful visuals

Visuals draw readers in and can provide text breaks for the hurried, skimming reader. Of course, pictures and illustrations are top-tier visuals to include but don’t forget infographics. Venngage reports that they grew their traffic and revenue by 400% just by using infographics.

Besides pictures and infographics, your brochure design and text placement can either make or break the visuals. Use complementary colors, readable fonts, and avoid cluttering text — use white space where possible — throughout the brochure.

Add a call-to-action

This takes us back to the goal of your brochure copy. Want to get readers to visit your website and see your offerings? Add a QR code to your back cover page. Trying to grow your social media following? Then, be sure to add your handles with the relevant icons. 

Make it easy for potential clients to take a specific action by including any necessary relevant information.

If you want readers to hold on to your brochure until a later time when they’re further down the sales funnel, make it useful to them. You can include a content publication checklist, for example, if you run a content marketing service. Or add a map with the top camping spots in the state, if your brand focuses on outdoor gear. 

In either case, be sure to leave contact information, testimonials, pricing, and your website information so readers can get in touch when they’re ready.

Print in high-quality

We know the world has gone digital, but many people still hold on to print advertisements — especially when you give them a reason! First, though, be sure to proofread your brochure. Typos hit harder on physical documents that can travel far and wide.

Finally, make your brochure easy to hold on to by using high-quality gloss paper. Many printing companies have eye-catching, effective brochure templates to match a variety of design needs. Ensure that whichever page size or layout you use, your brochure can withstand wear and tear until your reader is ready to take the next step.

How Jasper can help you create your next brochure

If creating brochures is a big part of your role as a content marketer, you’re likely in the market for a tool to lighten your load. Our top writing assistant tool is Jasper. Jasper has over 52 highly customizable templates for copywriting, scriptwriting, and writing long-form content. This tool can make all kinds of writing easier and quicker while producing relevant, high-quality content. 

Here are three ways Jasper can help you with brochure creation:

Brainstorming headlines

Headlines are critical for your brochure’s cover page. They should provide enough information to whet your readers’ appetites and generate enough interest and desire in your product. If you’re feeling creative fatigue after creating dozens of headlines, Jasper’s Perfect Headline template can bear the burden.

Input the necessary information and set the tool to generate as many as 10 or more outputs in one go. And then do it again for even more options. Here’s a sample of headlines Jasper generated for our fictional agro-tourism resort.

Outlining

As useful as it is for your writing, outlining can be a pain. It requires a ton of research and organization. Jasper also has a template to make the process less tedious. The Blog Post Outline template is designed to fulfill all your outlining needs — even if you’re outlining a book!

Here’s how it works to generate a brochure for Sani Farms.

We don’t know about you, but we can easily see that outline becoming a full-color brochure. All you need now is content!

Writing long-form content

You didn’t think Jasper would leave you high and dry here, did you? Jasper’s Long-Form Assistant template can write pretty much any kind of long-form content — from scratch. You can also use this template to complete an article or other long-form content you’ve already started writing. Here’s the work it did for our Sani Farm brochure.

We used information from Jasper’s outline and also added our generated headline and Jasper did the rest of the writing. With your outline in mind, you can also include photos and create your brochure content page by page using this tool.

Brochure creation FAQs

Is a flyer a brochure?

No, flyers are one-page marketing materials, much like posters. 

How do you structure a brochure?

Typically, you have the following layout:

• Front/cover page: Includes headline, subheading, engaging images
• Inside content: Ranges between 2-32 pages of content, visuals, and other information
• Back cover: Final CTA and closing remarks

How do you design a brochure?

You can either work in collaboration with a graphic designer or make one for yourself using templates on Word, Google Docs, or Canva. If you have the technical know-how, you can also use Adobe tools like InDesign. There are a variety of brochure designs from tri-fold designs to half-page folds.

What is the typical size of a brochure?

There are no hard and fast rules, but some brochure printing experts say it should be between 3-32 pages long. More than that and you’re approaching novella or ebook length.

Can a brochure be one page?

A one-page marketing material would be a poster, flyer, or pamphlet — not quite a brochure.

Build a modern brochure for your business with Jasper

We may have moved most of our lives online, but great brochures continue to prove their relevance to marketers. Writing a brochure that stays with potential clients (literally and figuratively) begins with goal-setting and strategic content planning. Jasper may not be able to set goals for you, but it can take you through the other steps of creating a brochure.

Ready to make brochure writing easy peasy? Sign up with Jasper today!