By Susan Wong
Have you ever considered that a brochure can be one of the most powerful of all your selling materials?

It is a simple piece of paper but the original impact that your leaflet creates is fundamental. If it’s shabby and unattractive your candidate is left with the same feeling. This will weaken your business growth.

Having a brochure professionally designed and printed is a key to success in a jam-packed marketplace. Taking the time to make sure that your brochure delivers all the key data in a way that is easily understood is something that only a professional can do.

If you are just getting started in business you may be tempted to do your leaflet yourself. When I first started in business I did everything myself – not a good choice. That is why it took me 12 years before I was even comparatively prosperous. Heed my warning – go professional from day one on your merchandising materials. They are an investment and not an expense. Professionally designed materials will deliver you customers and the cash flow to follow – the reason why you are in business.

A booklet has to use eye-catching design. It has to be succinct in terms of the message and last but not the least, it must be successful in tempting people to make that call of action.

Here are three key design principles to follow when making a pamphlet. Use them and you will see your results flow.

1. The cover:

The cover is your sales rep. Pamphlets are quite passive creatures and you are not often able to ‘walk’ individuals through your brochure. So you need to stimulate people to read further. The cover is the starting point so must be inviting and sharing the KEY values of WHY someone should read further. It should answer the WIFM question – What’s in it for me.

A good design company will show you at least three to four cover designs for your brochure. Analyse these designs to see which excites you the most. Ask your friends their opinion. Does the cover answer the question WIFM? If it doesn’t stimulate and answer the WIFM question, then skip to another design that works or get it redesigned. Taking the time here to get it right will pay bounties later.

2. The Content:

Once they are past the front over then the content has to become the salesperson. So once again, the pressure is on to be good. Do not opt for cheap uneffective content writers or ask the designer to write the content or worst still do it yourself. Instead make sure that a professional copywriter is doing the work. If your design company does not have a copywriter then engage one yourself.

Ensure that all the important questions that a potential customer will have about your merchandise are answered in a way that gets them to call you for more information. Do not go into ‘overkill mode’ and flood them with too much data at this point in time. Remember the brochure’s job is to energize and get people to call you.

3. The call for action:

If your prospective client has read the leaflet then you have done a great job. All you need to do now is give them a compelling reason to contact you NOW.

Having things like a free call 0800 or’00 number clearly presented (in big letters) can make a huge difference. Having an email address is a clear bonus. Make sure these two are clearly placed in large clear type.

Even give your clients a special voucher on the leaflet or reference code can help. But above all, ensure that you add a clear call to action. One way to do this is to readdress the KEY value of your service to your prospect in a way that will get them to take action. Remember value is everything. People only buy something that is of value to THEM.

4. The piece that got forgotten:

I did this on purpose and only said there were three points. Well the final point is the one that can get omitted. It is the ‘dummy’ one. Have you checked that you have these on your pamphlet:

Phone number | Fax number | Email address | Web address | Country of operation | City / area of operation | Company name | And have you proof read for typo and grammar errors? – 23596
About the Author:
Discover how creative catalog designs can accelerate your business growth using qualified graphic design.

While the job is interesting and one gets to discover the latest about the Internet, blogging is no easy task. “Time is money” could not be any truer for bloggers; impossible deadlines put us under harsh time constraints. Due to this constraint, bloggers are always actively on the lookout for the next great tool that can help us cut back on the time it takes to write our articles/reviews.

Bloggers who run their own website, on the other hand, are not under any critical deadlines – their worries are of a different nature. Taking constant care of their website and monitoring it is an absolute must for them; if a site owner’s website unexpectedly goes down, his/her income will be negatively affected.

Therefore one way or the other, all bloggers have problems whether they are self-employed, freelancing, or fulltime employed. They need all the help they can get.

Today we present to our fellow bloggers five tools available on the internet which will help them in one way or the other. We hope you all find the following tools as helpful as we did.

You are welcome to share if you know more useful tools which our readers/viewers may like.

dnschecker can only help you if you have it installed on your system. If you are using a computer on which you do not have the privilege to install new programs and you would like to check the status of your websites, the only way that comes to mind is by actually visiting the website in your internet browser. If the number of websites is more than one then the process could be considerably time consuming. Observu is a free website that lets us register for a free account and enter an unlimited number of websites to be automatically monitored. If any one of them goes down, we are immediately emailed of its negative status. There is no limit to the number of sites we want monitored. Observu can be helpful not only for site owners but also for bloggers who have reviewed a website and want to stay informed of its status. For instance John, a blogger, blogs about www.XYZABC123.com and he is emailed of its negative status the next month; upon receiving the notification, John can updates his previous review and add a note saying that the site is currently experiencing problems and is down. Such responsibility can go a long way and earn loyal readers.

5. BlogDesk

Wordpress is a blogging platform used by many bloggers. Other widely used platforms are MovableType, Drupal, Serendipity and ExpressionEngine. To blog in these platforms, we open up our internet browser window, log into our blogging Dashboard and get started. With the latest platforms we can save our work as we go along but having the data secure on our hard drive is something that most bloggers find comfortable. Also while typing on these platforms, one has to go through special means while inserting hyperlinks and pictures. BlogDesk is a 4MB freeware program that eliminates all the problems associated with typing our blogs on these platforms. It is a desktop application that enables us to type up our blog offline with ease. When we want to publish the article, we can simply blog from BlogDesk directly. The abovementioned blogging platforms are supported by the program. But before you go using it, make sure its option is enabled in the online settings of your blogging platform.

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Here’s a key section from the new Royal Society report “The scientific century: securing our future prosperity”:

Science thrives on openness – the free exchange of idea, knowledge and data. Changes to the way that information is shared are already accelerating developments in certain disciplines and creating new approaches to research. This openness can create a tension with the need to capture and exploit intellectual property. But it also presents an opportunity for scientific collaboration and innovation.

Well, maybe it creates a tension because intellectual monopolies are fundamentally antithetical to science and knowledge. Maybe the scientific community needs to realise this, and ought to refuse to compromise on its basic tenets of sharing knowledge for the greater good, not least because the shift from analogue to digital is magnifying their importance. Maybe the report should have been less pusillanimous in this respect. And maybe, because it wasn’t, it will be yet another case of words, words, words…

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Here’s a neat idea for a tablecloth, by Kristine Bjaadal. Normally, one would avoid spilling things on their linens, however the Underfull Tablecloth has a hidden pattern built in that only shows up once it becomes stained. Now you can look at that lovely butterfly pattern and remember that one time you had a bit too much wine, without feeling bad about having ruined the tablecloth! [via neatorama]

Makers Market seller Kevin of kaitrees has a bunch of great videos on his market blog. They range from details of the pieces themselves, to “slap tests”, and works in progress. It’s a neat look at the process that goes into making these pieces.

My sculptures are an effort to distill what real trees inspire in people into something one can have inside their living or working space.

This tree in the video above will require about 500 hours to complete, stand over 7 feet tall, and will use about 1000 strands of aluminum wire. It’s his largest piece to date, and looks Amazing! I wonder how much it will weigh?