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Three Business Brochure Mistakes

resources imageBusiness brochures are an absolute necessity if you're going to grow your business beyond the one or two person garage-business format into an established million-dollar firm. You want your business brochure to be fresh, effective and act as an investment toward profitability. This is what all companies want out of their business brochures; unfortunately, most miss the boat in one form or another and their business brochures become little more than appetizers for paper shredders. That's because they make the following three fatal mistakes that repel customers.

1. Print only one brochure

Think all you need is one brochure to succeed in business? Think again! There are at least five types of brochures, each for a specific situation: leave-behinds, point of sale, direct mail, inquiry response and sales support. Thus, you should print a business brochure for each scenario. Moreover, if you sell more than one type of product or service, you'll have a product/service brochure for each. The reason it's recommended to print several types of brochures is not to get more money out of you at the printing press; rather, it's so your marketing efforts are well-targeted. If you can target your message with pinpoint accuracy, your sales will increase exponentially.

2. Write about your company

Many companies are guilty of this fatal flaw in their business brochures: they waste the entire brochure with copy about themselves. Fast fact: nobody - nobody - cares about your company's accomplishments, staff, philosophy, etc. All they care about is what you can do for them. Your accolades can certainly be used as supporting evidence, but your brochure should be written about your customers. What do your customers need? What do they want, and how can you give it to them? That's what will sell your products. resources imageThink about it. If you say "Best Web Design Firm in California Three Years Running," you're saying you have the background to do what you say. But what is that you're going to do? How about "Enjoy complete control over your website forever with your own content management system"? Now you're talking about the customer, and you can use your award as supporting evidence.

3. No response mechanism

So you've done your homework, learned everything you can about your target audience, figured out how you can solve your customers' problems, and packed your message into a dazzling business brochure with compelling copy. Now what? Never leave your customers hanging without a very clear, specific course of action to take next - your response mechanism. You might invite them to log on to your website for a free download, call a phone number, or simply visit a brick-and-mortar location. If you don't tell them what to do next, they won't do anything. If that happens, then what's the point of your brochure? Always remember that sales are about meeting the demands of the customer, not about shouting how great your company is from the mountain top. If you can get into your customers' heads, create desire, and tell them exactly what the next step is to solving their problems, you can create a winning business brochure.