Writing a Brochure That Sells Your Products and Services

Handsome man with pipe writing a brochure at his typewriter.

Your brochure can be one of the most effective tools in your marketing tool kit. So before writing a brochure it’s critical to make strategic choices about what you put in it so that it differentiates your products or services for your market and against your competition.

The most important criteria when writing a brochure  is that it says what your target market wants to know, rather than all you want to tell them about how great you are. So you need to understand “What is the information your target customers want to know so they can make a decision?”

The following are the strategic choices you need to make before writing a brochure:

1.  Who is your target customer?

  • What outcomes are the seeking?
  • What problems do they want to solve that you can help with?
  • What is important to them?
  • What do they need to know to make a decision?

Really understanding your customer helps to write a brochure that is specific and targeted, rather than full of generalisations, and that will peak your audience’s interest. Ask your current customers and potential customers to get some feedback before you begin writing your brochure.

2. Who is your actual audience?

  • Who will read the brochure?
  • Who exactly will buy your product or service?
  • What is their role in the family or business?
  • What influences them?

This will help you with writing the brochure content that best suits your audience and provides what they need to know to make a decision. If you are selling to a business, you need to identify the decision maker and target them as your audience.

3. What is your objective in writing a brochure? What do you want it to do?

  • Educate the audience about the need for such a product or service?
  • Make them aware that your product/service exists so they want to find out more?
  • Give them information about your products or services as part of your service delivery?
  • Sell your product through the brochure?

The different objectives will change the writing and style of your brochure.

4.  Choose your positioning for your product or service. What makes it stand out from the crowd and what will you focus on when writing your brochure?

Is it:

  • High class, top of the range, high price?
  • The lowest price available on the market?
  • The best value-added services package?
  • The most number of options available?
  • Or many other options?

Choose what’s right for you.

The quality and focus of your brochure needs to illustrate your positioning. For example, high-class, top-of-the-range product needs a high-class, top-of-the-range brochure.

5. How do you stand out from the crowd when writing a brochure? Know your competition.

Questions you will want to ask when writing a brochure are:

  • How are your products or services better than those offered by your competition?
  • What do you offer that’s unique to you?
  • How does that match up with the outcomes your audience wants and what is important to them?

This is a critical step in identifying your core message before writing your brochure content. Align what your stand-out qualities with your target market research from Steps 1 and 2.

6. What is your budget for your brochure? Does it match your positioning and meet your objective?

Your budget will determine the layout and quality of your brochure. It will also determine your next steps.

Now all you have to do is start writing your brochure content — or get a professional copywriter to do the writing for you. This is followed by designing the layout and getting the brochure printed. The second blog in this series will help you do that.

These steps are a great process to go through every time you are writing any marketing content for your product or service. They’re based on a simple premise: the better you know your customers, the better you can serve them.

For Part 2 of this post, go to Writing and Designing a Great Brochure.