How To Guarantee Great Brochure Copy

The copy you prepare for brochures is a bit different to what you might have on a
website. The English you use
can be, for one thing, a bit more detailed than that of your website, which has to grab the readers attention in seconds.
You can have less sentence fragments and slogans hanging in the air, for one thing. When a potential client has
taken the trouble to pick up your brochure, you have their attention... Well, initially, at least (so dont mess things up).

Unlike with a website, there is more room in a brochure to talk about your company and the history of
service you have, but its still of utmost importance that you write something direct that gets to the point quickly.

You should always place the utmost importance on giving the customer what they want up front,
which means: what can you do for me?

Customers want to know what they can get out of a relationship with you; information on the number of
employees you have and your year of incorporation is, at best, secondary.

What you should try to do when you communicate with your potential customers is make them imagine the
future. Make them imagine looking back at what a fantastic job youve done for them. I
find it makes a stronger case than saying if you use us, this is what we can give you if you take away the
element of chance. Make them think of when its already happened and tell them how great it was.

The first thing you need when you write a brochure is a checklist to get you started. Try to tick off as many
as you can:

* What its being written for (informational? Promoting sales?)
* Who its aimed at (what kinds of companies, profile of people reading the brochure)
* How many pages it has
* Where to get the information to write the new brochure (marketing division? Interviews with R&D staff? Engineers?)
* When the last brochure came out
* When the new one is due to be replaced (in other words, whats its life-cycle?)
* When you need the copy to be finished (hey, dont laugh. A tight deadline can have a big effect ? positive
and negative ? on the quality of what you write)
* The design (has the new brochure already been designed? This would impact on the word count and the
style of how you write it)
* Your house style (many companies have a certain vocabulary and a certain way of describing things)
* Competitors brochures (why not see if theres anything you can model for your brochure? At the very
least you can find out what youre up against)
* Your overall plan at the outset for what kind of brochure youd like

At all times you should be thinking of your customers. What do they want? What dont they want? What
can you do to make their lives easier? What can you help them avoid?

Happy writing.