What is a brochure?

 

The term "marketing brochure" refers to a small booklet or paper-based document —customers can now avail it in digital format as well—identifying and advertising different goods or services that are to be promoted. It features the information about a business, a product, a service, an update, or a campaign.

 

A well-designed product brochure helps strengthen your brand personality by exuding a consistent visual brand to every client. Furthermore, it helps your business to increase brand visibility and awareness. On the contrary, an ill-designed brochure can cannibalize your existing sales and push it to your competitors.

Difference between a brochure and a pamphlet

We often use the terms brochure and pamphlet interchangeably. However, they both are very different. A marketing brochure for example can cover one or several pages, whereas pamphlets (or leaflets) are usually single pages. Brochures are often designed with a commercial intent in mind, i.e. selling the goods or services, while brochures are made with an intention to be informative. Pamphlets are unbounded, while brochures can be two-fold, tri-fold or multifold and are capable of covering several pages; most often than not are bound.

Brochures are synonymously referred to as folders, insert brochures, Z-fold, gate-fold, tri-fold and bi-fold brochures. They are all equivalent terms of each other, barring the design differences particularly in the medium of print.

Gate-fold brochures are usually made of premium quality paper; a unique feature of this brochure is it is folded inwards, which makes it very convenient to use. Bi-fold brochures are the most prevalent form of a brochure that organizations use. Some Bi-fold brochure examples include pricing sheets, simple product presentation, real estate offers, and product sheets which are rich in content and pictures. Folders and inserts are often used at events, exhibitions, and conferences; It provides a feature of putting the folders within the brochure. A folder can be used to place different sales and marketing collaterals such as battle cards, drawings, or/and even a feedback form!

The increasing significance of Digital Brochures

We cannot discount the benefits that E-Brochures avails the sales and marketing reps, especially in times, when the Covid-19 scenario coerced us to work in silos. These are some of the benefits that can be availed if fior brochure examples in your content marketing strategy.

1. Brand Awareness

The digital brochures grab the attention of your target audience and are fairly engaging. It gives your brand a longer duration of exposure. Customers can save your brochure pdf, which makes it easier for your customer to recall your brand and establish brand identity. All the information it contains is for advertising your products or your services. And, it does so with diligence and a focused approach.

2. Analytics

Tracking is, perhaps, the most critical feature of a digital brochure. With the help of sales enablement tools, sales reps can get deeper insights into the interests of the prospects by analyzing the amount of the time they spend on a particular page. Thus, it helps the sales reps to deliver the most relevant content to a particular stage of the buyer’s journey.

3. Engaging Experience

In today's digitized world, the marketing team can adopt an integrated marketing communication strategy through digital brochures, in which they can incorporate video, audio, and infographics to provide an engaging experience to the target audience. This engaging experience can help businesses in warming up their prospects.

4. Search Engine Ranking

The more high-quality material you have, the more you appeal to big search engine algorithms. When you post an entire brochure online, search engines will find and reward you accordingly, which will lift the role of your website in results lists. As a result, more internet browsers around the world will be exploring your brand, and eventually, will strengthen your SEO strategy.

5. Sharing and Accessibility

The best thing that comes along with digital brochures is that you can share your content with anybody, anywhere, and without costing your pocket dearly. It is easier to share an interactive brochure across any medium through which you can refer to other prospects whether it be your website or email marketing campaign. Moreover, digital brochures can be accessed using any device, thus, empowering your customer to view your content when and where they desire.

The best stage in a buyer’s journey to use product brochures as a marketing communication tool

For a successful integrated marketing communication strategy, you need to map your content to each stage of the buyer’s journey. Your content should be targeted to solve the needs of your customer at each of these stages.

 
A Gartner report states that 77% of the B2B customers found the purchase experience very challenging owing to the information overload. Hence, it becomes crucial for businesses to provide their clients with information that makes their buying process a cakewalk!
 

Corporate brochures can be mapped to the stages of solution exploration and evaluation of the alternatives. Equipped with information on the solutions you offer, the customer seeks answers to the final questions during the consideration phase. They are ensuring that there are no questions or shortcomings in their comprehension before making a purchase. Corporate brochures come in handy when your prospect has not researched about your company prior to a conversation – for instance, at tradeshows.

Creating a Brochure

Creating a marketing brochure is relatively easy if you know what is the required output. It essentially has five prerequisite steps that you need to follow to define your core or outline.

• Identify the personality of your brand.
• Define your ideal target market
• Build your core message
• Identify your metrics to measure success
• Define and Keep a tab on your budget

Best Practices to follow while designing a Brochure

Once you define the core or outline, you can then start building your marketing brochure. These best-practices might help you create a compelling storyline.

1. Know your Target Audience

The language and tone of your write-up, SEO, layout design, and position of products on the page are different for different cohorts. Hence, it is essential to know your target audience and craft your product brochure accordingly. You can use website analytics tools with heat maps to monitor your audience, to determine where your users spend much of their time—reviews of your products or those of your rival brands, or online forums and comments.

2. Hit the Bull's Eye

Remember that it is a brochure and not a novel. Your brochure should not come across as too verbose. Hence, you need to refrain from stating down all of your accolades and successes. Too much detail merely confuses the readers and dilutes the brochure's fundamental argument. Briefly identify an interest so readers can easily grasp what you communicate with them. Get straight to the point!

3. Call-to-Action

More often than not, we mistakenly assume that the prospects will buy your product or subscribe to your service just because your customers were surprisingly glued to your products. This is a major fallacy. It is very crucial to motivate your prospects to try your product or service and get in touch with you.

4. A Crisp and Clear Headline

The brochure headline will tell the readers instantly what the leaflet is all about. Some of the most frequent blunders businesses make with regard to headlines is to bombard them with facts about their company. Although essential business details are required, they should not be highlighted as the brochure's headline.

5. Analyze and Evaluate

Analyzing your brochure's performance is an integral part of refining and perfecting your strategy for this sales collateral. Through your selling strategy, you will obtain insights that not only benefit you but also your product or service offerings. Look at what sold well, which page your customers spend the most time on, how many times they forwarded it, and so on. If you have provided a call-to-action, ensure that you do have a way of quantifying the outcomes.

Types of Brochures

Beyond the physical form like tri-fold, gated, etc, brochures can be classified based on its intended purpose as well. Here is a brief list of types of brochures, across various industries, which will help you learn how each variant of a brochure can work distinctly for your sale conversion.
 

Point-of-Purchase Brochures

This is a type of marketing brochure that you will find at the standard eyesight level at the entrance of a building, a tradeshow, or retail stores. It is designed to entice the attention of the customers and acts as a conversation-starter for businesses. These brochures leave the customers wanting more information about the product or service. Hence, to design this type of brochure, it is imperative to create an appealing cover design with a captivating headline.
 

Product & Solutions Brochure

This type of marketing brochure comes in handy when you have had a meeting with your prospect regarding the technical (if any) and commercial aspects of your product and service, and now you want to leave a sales collateral that pretty much sums up your pitch. In addition to being informative about the company, these types of ‘leave-behind’ brochures enlighten the prospects on the complicated details of the product or service.

Interactive Brochure

These types of marketing brochures empower your prospects to engage with the content of your product. For example, the static content if converted into interactive flip-pages, they turn into interactive brochures. Interactive brochure examples include videos from youtube, gifs, audio, and animated infographics to give an immersive and memorable experience to the audience.
 

Direct Mail Brochure

One of the most important examples of a direct mail brochure is to nurture a cold prospect in having a sales conversation. With the aid of these brochures, you are speaking to someone who has no real interest in your product or service that you are offering. The content for this brochure has to be creative, point-blank and has to be written meticulously with care.

Sales-Support Brochure

The primary use sales-support brochure is be a supplement to the presentation that is being sent by the sales. Sometimes, during the sales cycles, there can be a white-boarding session or yellow boarding session which in turn might need a brochure to go alongside the solution briefing document.

Technical Brochure

This type of product brochure revolves around the product or solution brief. This is slightly more technical where you typically talk about how your product or service works. A level deep conceptualisation along with some examples and frameworks can be the content. This brochure is primarily used in the B2B sector where it becomes a supplement for Product or Solution Brochure.

Examples of Brochures

To help you nail down the right pattern and suitable design of the brochure that you are trying to build, we have curated over 100 examples spread across various industries. This is a floating list that we’ll make sure that we keep updated with time.

• Automobile
• Aviation & Defense
• Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI)
• Consumer Goods and Durables
• Energy and Utility
• Fashion and Retail
• Healthcare and Life Sciences
• Manufacturing 
• Travel and Hospitality
• Technology and Services

Best Brochure Examples for Automobile Sector

The examples for marketing brochures within the Automotive industry can be rudimentarily classified into three variants. For instance, B2C marketing brochures will be typically created by the carmakers for the end consumers whereas the B2B product brochures will be developed by parts manufacturers. However, there are a few of them that can be both such as a marketing brochure for ‘Tyres’. While we have curated a good set of brochures for you to browse-thru by clicking the link above, for the purpose of elaboration, let us consider a few examples explained below:

Continental Tyres

Why it works: Gives you the problem and then tries to resolve the same problem. The cover page communicates the exact intent of the brochure. The tagline ‘Tackle Winter with Confidence’ gives you the reassurance of the product. The choice of images works very well with the snowflake embedded rugged tyres that go over the snow-covered roads. Over the next few pages, the brochure covers multiple topics and guidelines along with giving all the necessary variants, types, product range, cost savings and many more. The brochure also covers the AR (Augmented Reality) QR Code for those tech-savvy enthusiasts.  
 

The Citaro hybrid (Mercedes-Benz)

Why it works: This marketing brochure is built for a hybrid bus launched by Mercedes Benz. The brochure is over 15 pages long and not an inch of space is used without a purpose. Every detail in the content is well measured before it is accommodated into the document. The attention to detail in this brochure is outstanding down to the even the CTS (call to action. The brochure has a pleasing colour tone, has the right set of visual appeal, modern mindset, simple yet powerful headlines and enticing set of images. This marketing brochure example also acts upon the need to take the environment into consideration while building products. This is a classic example of how to get the design right for B2B at the same time get the awareness done for B2C customers.

Toyota Avalon

Why it works: ‘Give every day new meaning; An excellent tagline with which the brochure begins. This marketing brochure example checks all the boxes required for an all-round B2C marketing brochure. This brochure is an exhaustive 34-page document but at the end of it, you would not be having a single thing that is left out. A crystal clear explanation with vivid images make this brochure an easy read. The right use of images within the brochure makes you want to move on with the flow. This marketing brochure set out to achieve the exact set of objectives that it was built.

Best Brochure Examples for Aviation & Defense Sector

Just like the Automotive industry, Aviation Aerospace and Defence Industries are not focussed on B2C. However, unlike the Automotive Industry, this is not focussed on B2B as well. The primary intent of brochures for this industry is all about awareness, announcements and technical prowess. We have identified over 8 brochures in this field; let us look over a couple of those examples being elaborated:

Boeing

Why it works: This brochure was built to talk partnership prowess about the company - Boeing while conveying the underlying message that it’s driven by nothing but innovation for over 100 years. Boeing did an amazing job of conversing through graphics that do half the job even without the written context. This marketing brochure takes into account the demographics of the region for which the brochure is targeted brings a more relatable feel to the reader’s mind and influences his point of view. The use of blueprint imagery is an excellent way to communicate confidence and subject matter expertise.
 

Lockheed Martin

Why it works: This marketing brochure example is that of a 2-fold brochure. This brochure is usually the template for the type of brochure that is carried along at a tradeshow. It is crisp, does not give away too much information for a short pitch, and leaves the customer wanting to know more about the product.

Airbus

Why it works: “Talk is cheap, show me the numbers” defines this brochure by Airbus. Boasting the statistics all through the brochure but then also defining what brings them at the top of the aviation sector. Airbus did a fantastic job of encompassing each of their jetliners with captivating figures and facts that leaves the audience wanting for more. They succinctly represented the statistics of each jetliner family and covered the entire product portfolio in a single brochure.

Best Brochure Examples for BFSI Sector

BFSI stands for the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance sector. The brochures in this field are usually sensitive with tone, language and colours as they deal with finances which is a touchy subject for most audiences. Many a times, the marketing brochures from multiple financial institutions resonate a similar theme. For the purpose of elaboration, a couple marketing brochure examples are given below:

AXA

Why it works: When it comes to designing a brochure in the BFSI sector, sticking to the best practices becomes tricky. But, AXA has done a great job of creating a point-of-purchase brochure in the insurance sector. One of the finest parts of this product brochure is that they have incorporated infographics to explain an illustrative example.

Prudential Financial

Why it works: This product brochure is designed for a new generation of retirees. Prudential Financial has made an effective usage of different timelines, and then explained the importance of their product for retirement. The brochure makes use of various frameworks, tables, and graphs to make the message crisp and succinct. The brochure uses mild colours and right set of images for the target audience.

Best Brochure Examples for Consumers Goods Sector

The consumer goods sector is a category of stocks and companies that relate to items purchased by individuals and households rather than by manufacturers and industries. Today’s consumer is well -informed and needs social proof along with data to back his/her purchase decisions - this is when brochures come in handy. We have handpicked a list of over 8 marketing brochure examples, however, there are only a couple that are being considered for further elaboration.

Nestle Professional

Why it works: This marketing brochure is a very good example of how Nestle combined the product catalogue with a cookbook. Beware! This brochure can give some real cravings to your taste buds! Nestle Professional has encompassed a complete product portfolio in this brochure, including most of the commercial aspects of sales. The brochure can even do a wonderful coffee table book with over 60 pages. The best part of this brochure is that they gave a live-application to the product that they are trying to sell with the method of preparation.

Unilever

Why it works: In just a couple of pages, Unilever has done a brilliant job in explaining their prowess in the Out of Home (OOH) division. In a 2 page brochure, you would not expect much detailing but that is where it stunts the reader. The brochure encompasses the facts and figures, clientele, and product features in the best possible manner.

Best Brochure Examples for Energy & Utilities Sector

The conceptualisation and execution of a brochure design for a sector like Energy and Utilities is multi-fold (pun intended). Depending on the use-case the brochure can be designed. This sector has use-cases across B2B, B2C and/or Both. The collection below has over 10 brochures collected and for the elaboration, let us consider a couple of examples.

EnGIE

Why it works: Why it works: This is a corporate brochure that can serve as a great template for a point-of-purchase in the energy sector. ENGIE briefly described who they are on the first page and positioned themselves as a leader in the business. Then after, it swiftly moved to the concept explanation – a strategy of consultative selling – and eventually, introduced the product.

ENEL X

Why it works: This brochure could as well be a coffee table book. There are two things which are exceptional in this brochure. First, Case Study design makes the user engaged in the service, giving him the feeling of already being a part of the organization. First being, Enel X has incorporated the use of case studies in this brochure to strengthen its sales pitch. Secondly, despite being a direct-mail brochure – which is more of an introductory brochure – they started off with their mission, concept explanation and their expertise, and put the brief about their company towards the end of the brochure. This unique practice marks their customer-centric approach in developing a brochure.

Best Brochure Examples for Fashion & Retail Sector

While there are over 10+ example brochures that have been handpicked for the Fashion & Retail sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

Fendi

Why it works: Minimalistic Visuals

The unique aspect of this brochure is that Fendi has not cluttered the visuals with a detailed description of the products that the model is wearing. Instead, they have included a series of images with different apparel and towards the end of the brochure, they have mentioned the details of the apparel. This brochure is one of the best examples in the sector of fashion & retail.

Rolex Sky-Dweller

Why it works: Tailored as per the target audience

Rolex watches cater to a niche, upper-class target segment, and it has executed a fantastic job in tailoring the brochure as per the target audience – simple yet elegant. The text size, style, images and the overall theme of the brochure reflects the supreme class of the product.

Best Brochure Examples for Healthcare & Life Sciences

While there are over 10+ example brochures that have been handpicked for the Healthcare & Life-sciences sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

Medtronic

Why it works: Product Portfolio with Reference Statements

A brochure in the sector of healthcare & life sciences is often text-heavy, technical and lengthy. It is challenging to design a brochure which is understandable to a diverse set of audience. However, Medtronic incorporated the best practices that can be utilized in the healthcare sector by using a crisp language and including a section on the reference statements.

Brenntag Pharma

Why it works: Tabular format of product details

As mentioned earlier, defining the product to the customer in this sector is often too technical. Brenntag Pharma has created an extraordinary template for breaking down the complexities of the product details in tabular form, making it comprehensible for their prospects.

Best Brochure Examples for Manufacturing Sector

While there are over 10+ example brochures that have been handpicked for the Manufacturing sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

John Deere

Why it works: Integration with fact sheets

Technical products often come along with fact sheets that help the prospects in their decision-making. John Deere perfected the art of integrating fact sheets along with the product brochure, thereby giving their prospects an enriching experience.

DuPont™ Tyvek®

Why it works: Headlines reflecting the benefits of the product

This is one of the best templates of point-of-purchase brochures in the sector of manufacturing. At a tradeshow, your prospects hardly have time to dig deep into the details and benefits of a product mentioned in your brochure. Bearing in mind the same thing, DuPont designed the brochure in a manner that even if a prospect skims through the headline, he/she can get the hang of the product benefits.

Best Brochure Examples for Travel & Hospitality Sector

While there are over 10+ example brochures that have been handpicked for the Travel & Hospitality sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

Accor

Why it works: Captivating visuals and headlines

This brochure encompasses the entire portfolio of Accor with a dedicated section for each of the brands. The company has aptly segregated the brands based on the target audience. The headlines and images are tailored according to the target segments giving the entire set of an audience a customized experience.

Carnival Cruise Line

Why it works: Almost everything is perfect about it

This is, by far, the choicest template of brochure we have witnessed in the industry of Travel & Hospitality. This brochure is in tandem with all the best practices to be followed while designing a brochure. Carnival Cruise Line has included the best headlines, visuals, CTAs, infographics, tables, price-list, and what not! You might want to get on board with them once you have a glimpse of their brochure! 

Best Brochure Examples for Technology & Services Sector

While there are over 10+ example brochures that have been handpicked for the Technology & Services sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

Aspire Systems

Why it works: Integration with the best infographics

Aspire Systems has created one of the best brochures in the sector of technology & services; they have incorporated multiple infographics in a single brochure giving an engaging experience to their prospects. Leveraging the power of engaging visuals, headlines, and facts,  Aspire Systems has conveyed the benefits of their product without depending much on text.

Freshworks

Why it works: Customer-centric

You will notice that Freshworks, in this brochure, has put the customer at the centre while defining their partners, the product features and even the headlines. To make your pitch resonate with your prospect, this is a critical guideline one should follow. Also, the theme of the brochure is consistent with the brand elements, which strengthens their brand recall among the prospects. 

We hope this article empowers every marketer to design an awe-inspiring, compelling brochure. Share your choices of brochures with us at marketing@paperflite.com, and we will be more than happy to discover some more meticulously crafted brochure examples!