FLYERS AND BROCHURES: HOW THEY DIFFER

In standard trade usage, a flyer is made from a single sheet of paper. By contrast, a brochure is in articlelet format. In working with outside sources, find out what distinction they make, so that you both speak the same language. Because different suppliers may have different definitions, keep your internal nomenclature consistent and “translate” as you go along.

A BRIEF MANUAL OF PROCEDURES

Procedures for creating flyers and brochures should be the same whether you do everything yourself, are part of an internal team, or supervise outside resources. The procedures apply to everything from simple do-it-yourself projects to the most sophisticated agency-produced materials. As with every promotion, creating a flyer or brochure is a five-step process:

1. Learn, or decide on, the purpose of your promotion.

2. Establish a time frame and remain within it.

3. Establish and remain within a budget.

4. Write and create the promotion.

5. Produce and distribute the promotion.

Let’s consider each of these points in more detail.

DECIDING ON A PURPOSE

The “Target” Audience Begin by determining to whom the piece will be addressed. The type and amount of information you include should be guided by its use. For instance, senior management will require a preponderance of financial data, the engineering depart ment will demand production specifications, and an interior designer will be interested only in size and colors. If, as is often the case, you must combine information for more than one audience within a single promotion, make it easy for each audience to find and use what it needs. Some simple ways to do this are given later in the section.

How Much to Include Whether you’re a brand-new enterprise or long established, don’t just guess at how much to tell your audience about who you are and what you have to sell. If you’re part of an ongoing organization, accompany several experienced sales representatives as they make their calls. Try to differentiate between sales success based on personality (I like Chuck) and that based on how goods are being sold (I like what I hear and see). If you are a member of an enterprise that is just starting up, you may have to do some or all of the selling yourself. An extensive guide to what and how much to write begins in a few pages. But don’t jump there yet. Though writing comes first, there’s a lot more to do before the actual writing begins.

Using the Promotion Knowing how and by whom the piece you produce will be used is critical to its creation. Will it contain “high” or “low” information; that is, must it generate a sale or produce a lead? Will it be mailed? Placed on the Internet? Distributed by a sales staff? Included in packages? Posted on bulletin boards? Used at trade shows? Or all of these? Let’s consider each of these options in turn. Mailing Mailings can be self-mailers; that is, mailed without envelopes or mailed inside of envelopes or other containers. They may go by first class or several variations of “Standard” bulk shipping. You may include a coupon or a reply form or request the recipient to write, call, or fax. These and other mailing options and decisions require a article all by themselves and are covered in Article 6. Use by the Sales Staff Your promotion can be a visual aid during a sales call, a leave-behind reminder, or both. It can be “Let me walk you through this flyer, which illustrates the important points about our service,” or “Let me just leave you this brochure, which highlights the points we’ve been talking about. You can look it over with engineering, and I’ll call you about an order on Tuesday.” Some “political” points must also be considered.

For example, in larger organizations, how will the sales staff react if the only address shown on flyers and brochures is the home office? Conversely, how will the home office react if all the responses go to the field? As the advertising or promotion director, you may be the only person involved in the promotion who works for “the company,” so resolve any such conflicts before your creative efforts begin. Enclosures Make sure that your promotion piece fits into the package. Is your piece the first thing you want seen or the last, and how can you be certain that it will be seen at all? Join the packaging design team first and the packaging crew later. There’s no substitute for hands-on experience in this phase of promotional activities. Distribution at Trade Shows If you use “help yourself” literature bins at conventions, meetings, or other events, how much of the promotion piece do the bins show: the complete page, the top half, or the top few inches only? The answer will affect the design of the piece, so do let the designer know. Internet Use Thanks to digitized production, practically any flyer or brochure can be placed on the Internet. They can also easily be modified for the specific medium or any other medium. Think multimedia from the beginning!

ESTABLISHING A TIME FRAME AND TIME LINES A time frame is the time allowed for the complete project. A time line details the time for each of its subprojects, such as researching, writing, designing, editing copy, typesetting, and doing artwork. For any project involving outside resources, your time frame and budget are totally interrelated. Costs are affected by time allocations, and completion dates may not be flexible. The brochure that says “Visit our booth for a special discount” will do you no good whatsoever after the exhibit closes—no matter how creative the excuses are for not getting it done. Individual time lines are established by working backward from a targeted end date and allocating completion dates and responsibility for each of the following benchmarks:

•End date. When the project must be completed and what “completed” means: printed, distributed (how?), or received (by whom?).

•Distribution. The dates for each aspect of distribution, including mailings and warehousing of extra stock.

•Printing and bindery work. The time from the completion of printing film or disk to the delivery by the printer of usable printed pieces. For flyers and brochures, a separte bindery may be involved in collating or folding, or the printers may do this themselves. The time line schedules them both.

•Copy, design, and layout. Who will do copy, design, and layout and who must approve them are often the most flexible elements of the time line, especially if they are done by internal staff. What is sometimes forgotten is that they are also the foundation on which everything else is built. Constructing that foundation is discussed in detail almost immediately in the upcoming section “Creating the Promotion.”

•Final disk or art, prepress, and proofing. These subjects are covered in detail in Article 16. Check there; schedule here.

ESTABLISHING A BUDGET There are two types of budgets, and they must not be confused. Both are fixed, but they are based on different conditions:

1. Administrative budget. A specific amount is allocated, and costs must not exceed that amount.

2. Estimate-based budget. Costs are estimated, and projects are then approved, rejected, or changed based on the estimates. The budget becomes a time line consideration when it must be approved by someone other than yourself before any work may start. If this is mandated, build in time for getting estimates and quotations, as well as the approval itself.

CREATING THE PROMOTION: AN OUTLINE The outline that follows is written as if you were the promotional supervisor of a large organization. Exactly the same procedures apply to the one-person shop or any size of organization in between.

1.Purpose. The purpose of the piece is the most important reason or reasons for preparing it; for instance: (a) to use (“walk through”) during sales calls, (b) to distribute at conventions, and (c) to mail for leads and/or sales. Make an absolute limit of three. (How many can be “most” important?) Put them in writing!

2.Sources. Determine who will provide the information needed to write and design the promotion and when they will be available. Get a backup source, if possible.

3.Check and approve. Establish responsibility for the accuracy of information about the product, legal clearance, editorial clearance (spelling, grammar, the house style), and sales input. Determine who will edit— rather than write—review, and have final approval of the project. Only one person can have final approval!

4.Concepts and presentations. Depending on how you and your organization work, you may go through a series of concept presentations or go directly to final copy and layout. In either case, the materials must be put through the following steps, whether they be taken mentally while talking to yourself or in formal presentations to others:

A.Organization. Organize all your information in the order of importance to the specific audience that will see the printed piece. After it is organized, you can decide how much of the information will actually be used and the style in which it is to be presented.

B.Emphasis. Decide which points are to be stressed and which is the most important point of all. Make the latter into your headline.

C.Illustrations. Decide on photographs and other illustrations: how many there will be, what kind they should be, and where to get them.

D.Response. Determine what you want the reader to do and give them a reason to do it. This is the most frequently understated element in promotional literature. As advertisers, we tell the recipient everything, except why we want them to read the material.

E.Policing. Policing is neither proofreading nor editing, but a final check against #1, your stated purpose in producing the promotional piece. That’s why we put that purpose into writing. It’s very easy to get so carried away with our creativity, that we forget what we set out to do. Once the basic concept has been developed, preliminary or “draft” copy and possible designs are produced. In organizations with several layers of management, these are the versions presented for managerial comments or approval. Note that detailed revisions may be required for draft copy and designs, as some managers can’t visualize promotional materials until they see them in quite finished form. During my years as an advertising account executive, I’d reminded my clients—as gently as I knew how—that they were paying for all the changes they order. As employees reporting to management, you must—equally gently—give notice of impending deadlines.