These mini guides are a great starting place for many homework assignments and other projects. Each one helps you to focus on the most important aspects of the project in hand and gives you guidance on how to plan and prepare your work.

Brochure

Brochures tell readers about a product or service. Some are designed to grab your attention and raise your interest; others are much more informative. Each is written differently. You need to be clear about which kind you are writing.

The first kind—the attention-grabber—will be attractively presented, but won’t tell you very much. Its purpose is to make you sufficiently interested to ask for more information.

This is the kind of brochure you will find on display stands or in your junk mail.

The second kind of brochure is more informative, and is targeted at the potential customer whose interest has already been stimulated. You will almost certainly have to ask for a copy—they are too expensive to give away to casual enquirers. Sometimes these brochures are tucked into specialist magazines—the fact that you are reading the magazine indicates that you are already interested.

RESEARCH

Collect some brochures and sort them into the two categories—the attention-grabbers and the informative.

Ignore the subject matter and concentrate on the visual appeal. Which of the “attention grabbers” seems to you most attractive, and why? Is it the colour, the use of photographs or other illustrations, or the words that first grab your eye?

Which one looks most boring? Why?

Now examine the informative brochures and ask yourself the same questions. Notice also the differences in detail, technical information, and quality of print and paper.

WRITING YOUR OWN

Choose a subject that you know something about—Caribbean holidays or fishing tackle—it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that your knowledge will help you visualize what a potential customer wants to know.

Use either a word processor or a desktop publishing program, ideally with a colour printer.

PLANNING

Make a list of the factual information you might use.

Select from that information material that you can use to tell the customer what he or she wants to know, and not—this is very important—what the manufacturer or service provider thinks they ought to know. When a consumer buys a holiday, he or she is buying a dream, not a hotel room. A pair of trainers is street credibility before it’s functional footwear. Visualize what the consumer wants and what the consumer hopes to gain by the purchase, and write with that in mind.

THE ATTENTION-GRABBING BROCHURE:

• is small—you want readers to put in their pocket to read later.
• is colourful
• has a highly visible headline—just a few words, in a large typeface, to sum up what is on offer
• uses pictures that convey not so much a likeness of the product as an impression of its potential to bring glamour or success into the purchaser’s life. A fishing rod will be bringing a large fish to the landing net. This is not the place for a detailed technical drawing
• uses short paragraphs, short sentences, and has plenty of clear or white space on the pages—dense columns of text put readers off
• has contact details—you want the reader to find out more

Think carefully about the way the paper is folded—a piece of A4 gives up all its mystery very quickly, but if it’s folded into three panels the reader must become involved, even if only by the act of unfolding it.

THE INFORMATIVE, GLOSSY BROCHURE:

• is larger—the reader will sit down and study this—and will be printed on high-quality, heavier paper, to build up the impression that the product is equally valuable
• will stress the benefits of ownership, but may not mention costs
• uses plenty of factual, or technical, information to help the potential purchaser build his or her own reasons for buying. We make decisions to buy on emotional grounds—the brochure gives us the information we need to pretend that we are being logical and sensible
• appeals to people’s own image of their lives—a slow cooker might suit a gourmet, because “It lets the flavours develop”, or to people who feel they have busy lives “Save time by setting it up before you go to work, and come home to a piping hot ready meal”
• uses a different style of illustration—this is the place for the technical drawing
• uses technical specifications
• asks questions to which the answer can only be, “Yes”

Writing your brochure will give you an insight into the world of the professional copywriter—and it may even help you become a wiser consumer.