Sunday, June 2, 2013

HOW TO DESIGN A TRI-FOLD BROCHURE

Tri-fold brochures printed in full color are a very powerful advertising, sales and marketing tool. A well-designed printed full color brochure is sure to get an excellent response and a high ROI. If you have a good sense of design and are comfortable using professional design software like Photoshop™, Illustrator™, InDesign™, Quark™ or other professional design software you may want to design your brochure yourself. Most people in business don't have the time or knowledge and hire a professional graphic designer that understands all the technical stuff involved designing a color printed brochure.

A word of caution, many small business owners think they don't have the money to hire a professional graphic designer. The idea of a printed color brochure is to attract more business. If the design, the text or both is not created correctly and there is technical printing issues you could be shooting yourself in the foot.

Keep in mind; no one knows your business better than you. A professional graphic designer is an insurance policy for the success of the job. Make sure you know what you want and keep control. Make the changes you deem necessary. If you spend some time doing your homework and thinking about your tri-fold brochure you should know what you want. Many design customers know what they don't want after they see it. By having a clear picture of the finished brochure you can save a lot of time, money and aggravation. Over the years I've seen this happen over and over again. It's not the printer's fault. Remember the old saying "garbage in, garbage out".

Before you even think about the design think about what you want to say. You know your product or service better than anyone else. A brochure contains more information than a flyer. The most common for a brochure size is an 8.5 X 11 tri-fold. No matter what kind of fold you choose if you take a piece of 8.5 X 11 paper and fold it into thirds you have 3 panels on each side, each panel is 3.366." Brochure templates online are free and it's a good idea to use one for your copy layout. You can design your tri-fold brochure using all 6 panels or use the backside of the brochure opened to 8.5 X 11.

The front panel of the brochure should feature a photo or illustration. The design should be compelling so your brochure will be opened. Keep the copy to your logo, headline, subhead, company name and 3 to 5 bullets listing your products or services, don't forget to make sure your phone number, address and URL are correct.

The inside panel behind the front panel of your tri-fold brochure should have a photo or 2 and tell the reader the name of the product or service. Your tri-fold brochure should explain all the features and describe what the product or service does to make the reader life better in a short few line of copy. Bullets should tell the customer exactly why they should buy your product and how it will improve their life, for example:
• Guards against cracks 

• Moisture resistant 

• Dries in 2 hours 

• Easy one-step application
 
• Protects your investments

The back middle panel and right side pane can be used with additional copy that may include more detailed information about additional benefits or specs of product and or service.

The next brochure panel is on the right. It folds inside to the left inside and can be used for anything you want to get attention. Keep in mind that this panel must be about.062 narrower than the other panels so when it folds in it doesn't touch the middle panel fold line. The brochure panel that forms the back cover side is the outside middle panel. Be sure to make a strong closing with a call to action and a small discount code or other free benefit that will increase your response. The great thing about using a code is that you can track the effectiveness of the brochure.

If all of this is not for you, contact an online printing company and ask if they have an in-house design service or can recommend a designer that knows how to design a tri-fold brochure. If the online printing company recommends a designer you can be sure they know how to set up files for print. If the online printing company can do the design for you let them do it so they become responsible for the quality of the printing. Even if it's more expensive consider you are buying an insurance policy to make sure the job is printed to the highest quality.

Marketing professionals with big custom printing budgets use full color printed tri-fold brochures to increase sales and brand awareness. Small and medium sized business can level the playing field with wholesale priced high quality cheap full color brochures you can order online.

Now is the time to take the challenge, which could put your business on a new road to success. It costs nothing more than a few minutes to see how affordable and easy using a personal online color printing service is. Make your business stand out as a leader in your field. Go to Color Printing Pros and see all the useful custom printed marketing tools to help you make your business grow.

1 comment:

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