The Effective Use of Leaflets to Market your Company

Leaflets are type of open letter which can be circulated in a number of ways and they are a great cost effective way to get your message across to your future clients.

I have put together a 10 point check list of what you need to think about before you even start putting your ideas onto paper.

1. What are you selling and to who? Who is your target market in this instance, you will need to narrow this down so your company's message is clear.

2. How do you intend on getting your information to these people. By hand, post, through the door or left at various venues etc.

3. Who is going to be reading your leaflet - you need to design it with this in mind. There is no point in writing your text at graduate level if it is going to be read by average Joe Public.

4. Decide on your paper stock, if your target audience is upmarket you need to be thinking about using a high quality, heavy gloss or silk paper/card, if downmarket then a lightweight, cost effective paper will do.

5. When deciding on what is going to be in your leaflet always give a thought to what is the end benefit to your customer.

6. When designing your leaflet always use AIDA

• A - Attention - you need to grab the attention of the person reading it.
• I - Interest - once you have their attention you need to sustain that by keeping them interested.
• D - Desire - now you have their interest you need to get them to desire your product. Use customer testimonials, case studies etc.
• A - Action - always have a call to action, such as a specific offer, discount or maybe a voucher.

7. Reflect your brand identity throughout your leaflet, making sure that your brand is clearly recognised. Potential customers typically need to have seen your customer's message 6 times before they will buy from you.

8. Do not be afraid to leave white space - too much information and your may lose your message, it will also make it difficult to read and is therefore much more likely to end up in your potential clients recycle bin.

9. Don't use jargon.

10. Remember to leave room for your contact information, telephone, email and web address.

With the increase in digital print it is much more cost effective these days to target your leaflets to specific markets. There is no point in producing one leaflet in their 1000's if only a quarter of them are going to be of interest to who you are handing them out to.

Always keep your target market in mind at all times and design your leaflet to that specific market.