The Best Brochure You Can Ever Print

Creating Marketing Materials

John Battelle | May 3rd, 2009 - 09:55 PM
(9) Found this useful. Do you? Yes

I know, I know, you’re all saying: “Print? Print? Battelle, in your last post, you implored us to get with the social times, start a blog, start Twittering, figure out Yelp. You even wrote that most small business websites were “static brochures, devoid of personality and life.’”

And now you want us to…print a brochure!!!

Yep. This my fantasy brochure of sorts, a slim piece of cardstock I wish every small business I worked with would hand me on the way in or out the door.

But before you can print this brochure, before it can deliver on its promise, you have to first go back and read that post of mine, the one about Cultivating Your Online Garden, and you have to actually go DO what I suggest you do.

Go ahead, DO it!

OK, now you’re ready to create the best brochure you’ve ever printed. Because this brochure isn’t a sales pitch, it’s an invitation to join a conversation that will last for a long, long time.

And while creating the conversation behind the brochure is hard, the brochure itself is simple. Here’s the text of mine, for my own small business, Federated Media Publishing:

Federated Media

“Connecting Brands to the best of the conversational web.”

Email: jbat@federatedmedia.net

Main Site: www.federatedmedia.net

Blog: www.federatedmedia.net/blog

On Facebook: Search for “Federated Media” and select “Groups”

Follow FM on Twitter: http://twitter.com/federated_media

Add a logo and any web- or communication-related information that you might find valuable (perhaps a listing on Yahoo Local or Yelp), print up a hundred or so, and start handing them out.

Seems a bit … promotional – even cheesy? You could say that. But what are you doing by creating a social presence online, and then promoting that presence? You’re telling your customers that you are not only available, you are eager to be in relationship with them, on their terms. You’re letting them know that you’ll always be there if there is a problem or a question, and that you understand how they are living their lives these days (more often than not, online).

Even if that brochure ends up in your customer’s circular file, you’ve made an impression that will last: You understand that all business is social, and you understand that thriving in the physical world means cultivating your online doppelganger.

Increasingly, the folks who will become your best customers and greatest evangelizers are also those most fluent in social media. So go ahead – given them something they can remember you by when they stop in. It may well be the best brochure you ever print.

Find out how much printing your job yourself can save using the Print Cost Estimator.

COMMENTS

5/14/09 - Custom Brochures Says:

Great tips for promoting an Online presence using a printed brochure. So many businesses make the mistake of marketing solely Online or solely through print. The problem with not establishing an Online presence is that businesses are not tapping into a vast resource for customers. The problem with not marketing through print media is that many would-be customers may never come across your website simply because they may not be surfing on related websites – and print media gives businesses a way to directly target these customers. And then for other businesses, traditional brochures are too complicated and expensive, which is why your brochure card is such a great idea.