A company brochure is a brief description of your whole company.   When you give it to someone it needs to be crystal clear on what it is that you do and what you’re offering. This can sometimes be difficult to achieve because it has to be short, cheap, and nasty. And most importantly, impactful.

Chantal’s tips on creating a company brochure.

• What is the strategy? What is the purpose?  What is the intention? For me, it always starts with the strategy because that’s going to help you make sure that whatever you create leads to the outcome you desire.
• Where are you going to use it? Is it going to be on your website? Is it going to be digital? Is it going to have a printable version?  Or, are you going to hand it in as a proposal? It’s really important to know these things because each one is different. So, for example, if you’re going to send it out digitally it needs to be small enough to send via email but high res enough to be able to actually read the print.
• Make sure that it commands attention – short and punchy. It needs to clearly communicates what it is that you do.
• Be sure to include your full business name along with your ABN.
• Your logo – Remember that your images need to be high res – you want to professional.
• Include what makes you special, what makes you different and how you serve your clients.  
• Fonts are really important. usually around two to three fonts.  So, a font for your heading, a font for your subheading and then a text font.  Please make sure your chosen font is readable! I’m not a big fan of a script font because they are not very readable.
• Colors. You know what your colors are, stick to them.  You don’t want your brochure looking like a Christmas tree.
• Folds – If you are going to print it is it going to be folded?  into two or three? Where it is going to fold is incredibly important when it comes to design, you don’t want a fold line right through some important info or images.
• Use of watch space, don’t try to cram too much in there.  Remember, a confused mind will do nothing. It will not read, it will not understand, it will not buy.  So, your use of watch space is really important.  Use of headings is a great way to organize your information.  

Brochure sequence

• Start with you about us, and this is where you include your tag lines, your mission statement, Values, points of difference, unique selling point etc. Why should they choose you over everyone else?

• Then you would go into your benefit bullets. You want to make sure that you are clear on what you can provide for your audience.  What’s in it for them? And those become your benefit bullets.  

• The third part of the brochure is then about your product or service information. And I’m going to say this again. It has to be short and punchy. It just has to evoke enough curiosity that they will look at it and go yes, and call you. We don’t need everything to be on there. Just the most important things.

• Then include your story.  This is really important for credibility. Your experience, your qualifications, your personal story.  Include any of your credentials that could compel them or persuade them that you’re the right person for the job.

• The last one is contact details. And the most important part about those contact details is what is the call to action. So, there’ll be a call to action with your contact details. You need to steer them in the direction of what their next step is.  So there has to be a phrase telling them what to do. For example, I might say something “if you’d like to maximize your online potential and you’ve got a new project or you’re in the middle of projects and they’re just not working as efficiently as you’d like to email me here or call me here.”