Printed brochures offer a wealth of advantages to businesses, ranging from increased exposure to enhanced brand recognition, heightened customer involvement, and more. However, with considered design, a brochure can have a even greater impact.
In fact, by utilising the power of print, you can unlock these benefits that are often difficult to attain in business:
While it is important for businesses to reach a large pool of potential leads, the challenge is that the quality of these leads can be inconsistent. This can result in valuable time and resources being spent on developing relationships with leads that are not viable. To overcome this challenge, some companies have tried to use websites to provide critical information to top-of-the-funnel visitors, filtering out unviable leads before initial contact.
However, websites may not always be effective, especially if poor navigation or slow loading times limit the information a potential customer can access.
Printed brochures offer a solution to this problem. With a well-designed printed brochure, the reader’s journey is linear, providing a straightforward path from the front cover to the back cover, making all the vital information easily accessible without the need for navigating a complex website.
This means that leads are not contacting the business blindly, but rather have a clear understanding of the solution offered and are ready to move forward.
Simple website builders like WordPress have made it possible to make changes to web pages in an instant. Today, businesses can add new content, edit existing content, and remove content whenever they want, however they want, without incurring any costs. And while this is fantastic for business owners who want to ensure they’re always providing the most up-to-date information to their customers, it doesn’t necessarily instill trust in buyers. Essentially, anyone can publish anything, without giving much thought to it, and then change it at will.
Printed materials are different. Products featured in printed brochures aren’t there because it’s free to include them; they’re there because a business has carefully and strategically selected that product to be highlighted in a brochure they’ve invested in.
Additionally, print is designed to last, not to be changed every day, highlighting that these products aren’t just flashes in the pan; they’re established products that businesses put their trust into. Print is the unsung hero in building trust amongst buyers.
It’s often been said that buyers don’t want the classic buyer-seller relationship; they want partnerships with the companies they choose to work with. This highlights just how vital building relationships is in today’s environment. The problem is that it can be incredibly challenging to maintain those initial connections developed in-person once a meeting draws to a close. When a potential customer walks out the door, relationships can easily and quickly break down. While this can be a hard pill to swallow, a follow up email featuring a web address or link to a landing page doesn’t always cut it. Any relationship building method that requires purposeful customer action will always be hit and miss.
Printed materials are different. The action of opening up and flicking through a brochure isn’t always purposeful. Sometimes, it’s inherent; it’s second nature. Brochures can help to retain connections outside of the showroom, dealership, office, or anywhere else simply through tangibility; through a physical reminder of the feelings that a potential customer experienced in person. That’s something digital could never replicate.
Looking Backwards to Move Forwards
When trying to unlock those hard-to-achieve business benefits, many organisations naturally look to the latest technologies, to innovative concepts, or to forward-thinking techniques. That’s when the question of digital or printed brochures arises. It’s the long established, tried-and-tested methods that are going to drive future growth; experts agree that print is more tangible, makes more of an impact, is more memorable, more accessible, and more credible; all important elements that come together to move leads further through the funnel and convert browsers into buyers.
Today’s businesses need to look backwards to more traditional engagement techniques – like brochures – to move up to the next level.
