How can you create a sales brochure that will reinforce your brand image?
The sales brochure is an essential communication tool for successful sales prospecting, especially in the B2B sector. It serves to highlight your strengths and develop your reputation.
Whether you opt for a paper or digital format, the creation of a sales brochure is essential if you want to effectively canvass your prospects, and thus acquire new customers. But to be effective, you need to follow a number of best practices ☝️.
Format, style, content, structure, visuals... we'll take you through 6 key stages in creating a sales brochure with impact.
But first, a brief definition.
What is a sales brochure?
A sales brochure is a communication and sales medium with multiple objectives:
- to present the company in a concise way ;
- to promote an offer (whether products or services) and competitive advantages;
- to convey a brand image and marketing message;
- guide the sales pitch and encourage sales, thanks to the summary of key arguments on which they can draw;
- Remain in the minds of prospective customers, who can keep it and refer to it at a later date;
- develop the company's reputation, since the sales brochure can be shared from hand to hand, or from mailbox to mailbox.
☝️ This document is a classic in prospecting, but also in inbound marketing. It encourages the use of quality content (hello content marketing 👋) for commercial purposes, particularly for :
- purchases that require thought, ;
- presenting a new product range.
The sales brochure is an excellent way of demonstrating your professionalism and standing out, using a medium that allows you to develop your key arguments!
💡 Note: there are different types of sales brochure, depending on the objectives. For example :
- the corporate brochure, which presents the company, its history, values, activities and assets ;
- the product or service brochure, which, as its name suggests, highlights one or more specific products or services;
- the event brochure, designed to promote an event.
Why choose a sales brochure? The main advantages
The first promise of the sales brochure? Grab the attention of your prospects. A concise format, a clear presentation: your message is conveyed in a way that is both fluid and effective.
At the same time, it reinforces your brand image. Professional, well-designed, it inspires confidence and helps you stand out in an increasingly competitive market.
✨ Here are some of its key benefits:
- Its visual impact: with its graphic appeal, it captures attention quickly.
- Its accessibility: easy to distribute, it adapts to different media, both paper and digital.
- Wide reach: a brochure can be easily shared. A great way to increase your visibility!
- Practicality: it serves as a reference for your sales staff, who use it to support their sales pitch.
When you produce a sales brochure, you're investing in a tool that enhances your communication and helps you make a lasting impression on your prospects!
What should a sales brochure contain?
An effective sales brochure is based on clear, structured content. It must reflect your value proposition while meeting the expectations of your target audience.
👉 Here are the essential elements to include:
- An eye-catching cover: logo, slogan, impactful visual... the aim is to grab the prospect's attention at first glance!
- A succinct presentation: sum up who you are, your business and your values in a few inspiring sentences.
- A detailed offer: clearly describe your products or services. Emphasise the concrete benefits for the customer.
- Powerful arguments: highlight your competitive advantages. For even more impact, don't hesitate to add specific figures and examples!
- A professional design: avoid "old-fashioned" layouts and visuals and stay in harmony with your graphic charter.
- Calls to action (CTA): in digital versions, encourage your prospects to take the next step (contact, quote, trial, etc.) with intelligently positioned calls to action.
- Your full contact details: make sure your contact details and website address are clearly visible.
- Testimonials or references: reinforce your credibility with customer reviews and other case studies.
💡 Tip: always maintain consistency between text and visuals!
How to make a good sales brochure in 6 steps?
1 - Define your objectives
Before anything else, start by defining your objectives. Whether they are commercial, marketing or financial, this is an essential step if you want to produce a sales brochure that is appropriate and, above all, effective.
Determining these objectives will also determine your budget!
To do this, ask yourself the right questions:
- Do you want to present a particular product range?
- Or more generally, do you want to develop your brand image?
- With what type of customer (the famous marketing persona)?
💡 Tip: why not use the SMART method? In this way, you start to consider the format and quality of the brochure, and therefore the budget to devote to it.
2 - Drawing up the brief
Producing a sales brochure also involves creating an editorial and creative brief, and possibly a set of specifications.
How do you go about this?
By taking stock of the situation, diagnosing your business: what are the elements that need to be highlighted, and what tone and style should be used in relation to your target audience? The key is to focus on the essentials and produce a concise but powerful report.
👉 F or example, if you want to convey modern values, it's best to go for an innovative sales brochure in 3D format. For a younger target audience, an online, interactive sales brochure is the way to go.
3 - Choosing your medium and format
Depending on the answers given above, opt for :
- a folded leaflet ;
- a single-sided or double-sided page;
- a brochure ;
- a pocket with flaps;
- thicker or thinner weights;
- portrait or landscape format;
- a 100% digital brochure.
In fact, it all depends on the target audience, how the brochure is to be distributed, the quantity to be printed and, of course, the budget.
☝️ While the traditional presentation brochure is often in A4 format, for example an A3 folded in 2 for a 4-page brochure, the PDF format allows more freedom.
4 - Writing the content
🖌 Here are a few tips:
- Start by listing all the essential information to be included on your brochure and rank them in order of importance. These are the ones to start with.
💡 Tip: rely on a CRM like Salesforce Sales Cloud. By centralising customer data, it makes it easier to personalise the content of your sales brochure. It helps you to identify your target audience's needs, incorporate relevant statistics and create high-impact messages. So you can respond precisely to your prospects' expectations! - Organise your data by reading level (boxes, text in blocks, columns, etc.). The aim? To make the document dynamic and ensure that key information can be found at a glance.
Depending on the format you've chosen, you'll have an idea of how much space you'll need. - Be concrete. It's not about selling dreams, it's about reassurance! So don't hesitate to include success stories, testimonials from satisfied customers, concrete examples of your work, your awards, your labels, your certifications, your partners, etc. You should also avoid any information that becomes obsolete quickly, as this will force you to make costly regular updates.
- Produce an initial mock-up to determine whether you need to summarise more, delete some of the text or revise the format.
Your sentences should be concise and clear, and your spelling impeccable.
Step 5 - Select the visuals
Now it's time to choose the visuals, those must-haves that have the merit of airing out the sales brochure and making it more attractive 🤩.
Whether they're computer graphics, illustrations or photos, all these visuals must be of good quality.
Also, select elements that are harmonious with each other, but also with the colours of your graphic charter.
Step 6 - Creating the brochure
🚀 That's it, start creating!
There are several types of software available to you here:
- Graphic design software, such as InDesign, which incorporates advanced features for developing and customising visuals, structuring content and ensuring impeccable layout.
- Sales offer management software that, among other things, allows you to create customisable sales pitch templates and sales proposal documents.
💡 We recommend that you apply good design practices. Here are a few you should be aware of:
- Choose legible fonts, and limit their number to two or even three maximum (one for titles, one for text, for example).
- Aerate your text and layout. You can't say everything - your brochure is a medium that should make people want to find out more. So avoid overly compact content that prospects won't be able to read.
- Highlight important points with larger words, highlighted in bold or colour.
- Balance text and images, in the region of two-thirds/one-third.
- Choose dominant colours that match your visual identity. As for fonts, choose a maximum of three.j
3 Examples of sales brochures in PDF format
#1 Sales brochure template
#2 Innovative sales brochure
#3 Luxury sales brochure
☝️Pour As a reminder, whatever the type of sales brochure, it must present at least:
- your visual identity: your name, your logo, your colours, so that you stand out from the crowd ;
- your contact details: telephone, email, website, so that you can be easily reached;
- your added value: your products and services and their benefits.
Now it's up to you to create the sales brochure that suits you!