Along with many other printed mediums (magazines, business cards, letterheads, etc) the traditional brochure is on the decline.  In particular, websites are taking their place.

Plenty of businesses do not need a brochure.  However, if you have made the decision not to produce a brochure, are you sure that your replacement medium (e.g. website) is fulfilling the job that the brochure was originally invented to fulfil?   That job is…

The real purpose of a brochure is not to be read from cover to cover, it is to remind a potential customer of your business’ existence while you are not around.  At its most basic level, the brochure is a business card – just bigger and harder to lose.

And that’s it.  If it does more than that (e.g. the customer reads it fully, or passes it to colleagues), then great, it’s over-achieved its purpose.

Now, if you don’t have a brochure, are you using other means to “remind potential customers of your business’ existence while you are not around”.  If not, you might want to think about having a brochure… (but not necessarily a ‘traditional’ brochure)…

Here are some examples of non-traditional brochures:

Online resource library:

Instead of a traditional brochure, offer your prospective customers access to a restricted area on your website that has articles, ‘how-to’ guides, and other useful information.  Ask the customer if they are happy to be emailed the latest updates to the resource library each month.  You then have permission to contact that customer with updates on a regular basis, building your brand and regularly reminding the customer of the value you add.

The folder-brochure:

Essentially this approach is a paper-based version of the online resource library.  In this case, you give the customer a brochure that can have pages added to it (e.g. based on a ring-bound folder).  The brochure acts as a promotional tool (as any brochure would) but also holds useful advice, guides and information.  Each month you then send the customer new ‘how-to’ pages for them to add to their folder-brochure.  No doubt some customers will have lost their original folder – no problem, send them another, it’s all valuable brand and relationship building.

Video and virtual brochures:

For starters, video brochures do not have to be slick and professionally produced.  Youtube has educated us to appreciated simple videos that have good content (obviously, simple videos with poor content will never do well).  This means you can create regular videos that cover a wide range of messages – from promotional adverts, to product demos, to fun news to industry knowledge.  If the content is good and relevant, all you need is a person sat in front of the camera or someone narrating a product demo.  Regularly send your videos to your prospective customers, and if you’re lucky they will even forward your videos on to others.

Last but not least!

If you are considering printing your brochures, please do consider using recycled paper. The price is usually very similar to traditional paper and the finish is just as good.

Image source