How to Produce a Winning Booklet

Booklets are a great way to give your customers something valuable they'll reference time and again. To be clear, booklets should not be overt sales pitches - instead, they should be informative, engaging and worth keeping around. This doesn't mean they can't be promotional, but if all your booklets do is say "buy me!" then they're a lost cause. You're missing opportunities to connect with your customers and send sales soaring.

Here's how to produce a winning booklet:

Start with the basics

You're an expert in what your products and services can do, but your customers are not. In the booklet planning stage, your goal is to answer the question: "What do my customers want to know?" The answer to this question will form the foundation of your booklet. This is how you can make your booklet both interesting and engaging, and when you can do that everything else starts to take care of itself.

Insert the marketing angle

The next question you have to answer is: "What do my customers need to do next?" This is where you come in to the picture. Once your customers learn from your booklet, there should be an actionable step they can take to learn more or purchase supplies and services. Do not overwhelm your booklet with sales pitches - they should appear as afterthoughts to the content. Placing your "ads" in as helpful tips and advice boxes is one way to pull this off.

Design and copy

Once you have your topic and angle down, you can hire a graphic designer and copywriter to put your plan on paper. Spacious layouts invigorate and intelligent-yet-light copy tend to work well in booklets. Large images, a coupon page, quick fact sheets, and other devices are great ways to keep your booklets lively and engaging.

Print for respect

For your booklets to be effective your word must be trusted and therefore your printing techniques must be respected. Choose a 100-pound gloss stock or 13-point 100 percent recycled matte stock for your cover. Both of these stocks are thick and hearty, and have finishes that enrich your colors. For inside booklet pages, 80-pound or 100-pound gloss text or even a 70-pound 50 percent recycled matte will do the trick. Printing full-color booklets with Wire-O or saddle stitch binding exudes professionalism, while oversized 12-inch by 12-inch booklets attract immediate attention and lend importance to your message. You can get instant pricing for all of these options at PsPrint.

Once your finished booklets are printed, all you have to do is send them to a well-defined mailing list. If you can put the right message with the right offer in front of the right crowd, your booklets will be a hit. Keep in mind the customer's point of view. Cater to your customers' needs and your audience will be engaged and motivated to take action.

Since 1990, PsPrint has provided better printing and service to nearly 500,000 small business marketers and graphic designers. PsPrint combines state-of-the-art Internet capabilities and the industry's best printing equipment with experienced print professionals and color specialists to deliver convenient online ordering, consistent color matching and 99.7 percent on-time delivery. By offering a 100 percent customer satisfaction guarantee, PsPrint also stands behind every order, every time. More than 70 top-quality and eco-friendly printed products and related mailing services are available online at www.PsPrint.com.