Our Company Needs a New Brochure Printing

Your company have decided they need a new brochure printing. A quick search on the Internet will result in countless companies offering this service. But I'm afraid this is not the right place to start... that is if you want your brochure to work hard for you.

The very first thing to do is ask a number of relevant questions.

What is the purpose of the brochure? Is it to help build awareness about the company or advertise a new product or service?

Who is the target market? Is it existing clients, prospects, all of them or just a section of these people? Who will be reading it? Directors, Sales staff, techies?

How is the brochure to be distributed? Is it part of a larger pack or family of brochures. If mailing is the cost of postage important?

What is the budget? Is there a budget for bespoke photography, or will library images do the job? The copy or text? Can someone in-house write decent copy? If not you'll need to consult an expert. A well designed brochure with beautiful photography can be ruined with shoddy English.

Who's going to design the brochure. Handle it in-house to save money, but do so at your peril. Bad design can do your business more harm than good.

After answering all these important questions, you should have realised now that it really is best to consult the experts, they will be able to advise about photography and will write decent sales copy for the brochure. You don't need to go to a high flying London ad agency, there are many decent design companies and freelance designers that can do the job for you.

Another question. How do you select the right design house, ad agency or freelancer to take on your project? You should be able to view recent work that they have carried out, and you could speak to their clients to see what they say about them.

So you've selected who will design your brochure. What next? They will take a brief from you, by asking lots of questions about your company and what you want the brochure to achieve. Following this they will produce a mock up for discussion with you. There will be changes to this - it is unlikely they will deliver exactly what you want straight away. So following a few changes to images, text, page order and so on, you will finally have artwork for you brochure ready to go to print... and if you can look back over 400 words or so, this is where our discussion first started... "we need a brochure printing".

So now it's time to go on the net and search for that printer. Of course, whoever designed your brochure will be happy to quote for printing, with a little bit on for themselves, and they will be able to advise you on paper choice and print techniques.

So before you go ahead and search for someone to print that brochure, ask yourself a number of searching questions. After all, the image your brochure makes with the recipient is so important for your business. A well designed brochure with appropriate copy and high quality photography will really make an impression. And it is a lasting impression you need to leave rather than the impression of "Oh, yet another meaningless brochure".