The Different Types of Brochures

For most small businesses, a brochure is a necessity. Brochures have been around for a very long time, but they are still very effective marketing tools. You should always have a variety of brochures on hand to promote your business.

Why should you have several different types of this marketing tool anyway? Well, there are five distinct types of brochures, each of which serves a different purpose. These various types of brochures each have their distinctive style which would serve a particular objective in your marketing campaign. It may be great to have your marketing campaign consider on two or even several of these brochure types. But that’s up to you.

Let us discuss the five different types, to guide you as you plan your next brochure printing project.

1. Support Brochures
You can still see these around, even though they are not as common as they used to be. Traditionally, this type of brochure was used by travelling salespeople for use during presentations. They are usually designed to allow presentation viewers to follow along with the salesperson as he is speaking.

2. Direct Mailing Brochures
If you design a brochure in preparation for sending it to customers through snail mail, then it is a direct mailing brochure. These continue to be some of the most effective marketing tools available to small businesses. With this method, you can design the brochures to attract a certain type of recipient, and then send them to those same types of people.

3. Response Brochures
Many businesses do not keep response brochures on hand, but they should. When a prospective customer shows interest in your company and wants to learn more, you hand them a response brochure. These brochures are not meant to excite interest in the customer, because the recipients of these brochures have already shown interest. Instead, these are designed to seal the deal and convince the customer that your business is worth investing in.

4. Check out Brochures
If you have a traditional brick and mortar store, you should invest in some check out brochures. These are the ones that you will place on the checkout register. When a customer is buying products, they will see the brochures and perhaps pick one up. Therefore, these brochures are designed to “upsell” the customer, and entice him to buy more products or more expensive products. If you have a website, check out brochures can drive traffic to it.

5. Drop Off Brochures
Drop off brochures are very similar to response brochures, but not quite the same. A response brochure is given to a customer that has shown interest in your company. A drop off brochure is also left with a customer that you have spoken to, but has not necessarily showed interest. Because of this, drop off brochures are designed with more of a “sales” approach, trying to create interest in the buyer. Hand these out to someone you have spoken to briefly, but did not have time to seal a deal.

Katie Marcus writes about the brochure printing technologies used by businesses for their marketing and advertising campaigns.