A marketing flyer is a form of paper advertisement intended to cater to a wide audience and typically posted or distributed in a public place, handed out to individuals, or sent through the mail.
Flyers may be used by individuals, businesses, nonprofit organizations, or governments to advertise an event, promote a goods-selling business, persuade people about a social, religious, or political message, or recruit members for organizations or companies.
Too often, businesses approach the design of flyers and brochures with a “whatever works” mentality, which is too bad, since we have in our hands the ability to create an effective marketing tool. That is if we know the right elements.
1. Your Headline: Like any other written matter, your flyers need a good headline. However, it’s not just about the words here. While what your headline says is very important, the design is also a vital factor. It needs to pop, as they say. It needs to grab the reader’s eye and encourage them to read on, to get to the meat of the material.
2. Your Graphics: Both flyers and brochures use graphic design to appeal to readers. They can tie in with your business’s branding, evoke an emotional response in your readers, tie in with your service or product offering, and create the desired mood in your readers.
3. AIDA: Flyers should be planned according to AIDA, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. In short, your design and text should grab attention, where your design and text should be compelling enough to make a potential reader give it a second look; interest, where your text and images should be sufficient to create interest in the reader, causing them to read on, rather than stop after the headline; desire, where your text and graphics should be enough to create a desire within the reader for the product or service being highlighted in your flyer; and action, where you need a call to action in your material.
4. Selling: There’s been a shift away from outright selling in many industries, and that’s as it should be. Selling has no place in social media marketing or blog posts. It has only a small place in other areas of your business. However, you can’t afford to cut out the sales angle from your flyers. You can make the material informational, but it still has to sell them. Remember, no one buys a product because of the company behind it. They buy for what it can do for them, or how it can serve their business needs. It’s about them, and you need to sell to that aspect.
5. An overall goal: What’s the point of your flyer or brochure? It’s not just to give people information about your business. You need to have an actual purpose. What’s the point of your material? Are you announcing a new service and trying to attract early takers? Are you introducing a new product or announcing new pricing, and looking to attract buyers? Know your goal and format your text and graphics to reach that goal.
A flyer is an inexpensive and highly effective way to grab attention in a very busy marketplace. How do you make your flyer stand out in the crowd? Here are some techniques you can observe:
1. Write a snappy headline or title: Make it memorable, unusual, or provocative using a few carefully chosen powerful words.
2. Use colorful or striking graphics: One large image will have more impact than many smaller images. A stunning photo or illustration grabs attention, creates a mood, and supports your story. This image is your focal point and will draw your readers in.
3. Focus on the benefits of your product or service: Your prospects will ask the question, “What’s in it for me?” Write from their perspective using the words you and your. Avoid using we, us, I, and our. Be sure to keep your text short and to the point. Break long paragraphs with bullet points and place them in a separate box.
4. Use compelling testimonials and case studies: Nothing strikes a chord like an endorsement from a happy customer, especially if it demonstrates the results they’ve had with your product or service. Be sure to include the first and last name, company name, and location of the person providing the endorsement. You might also be interested in business flyers.
5. Organize your flyer with boxes, borders, and areas of contrasting colors: You don’t need to fill your flyer with wall-to-wall text and graphics. Incorporate some white space to make certain elements stand out and to make the flyer easy to read.
6. Make your points easily identifiable: Highlight titles and subtitles in bold, but avoid using ALL CAPS because they are more difficult to read.
7. Don’t get too complicated: Make it simple with two typefaces, and align items to a grid. Your page layout program will provide non-printing guidelines. Be aware of printing margins. We suggest that you create your layout with 1/2″ margins on all sides, or add 1/8″ for bleeds on items that print off the edge of the page. Check out some minimal flyer designs as reference.
8. Don’t forget to proofread: Have someone else proofread your work. Check your contact information. Dial the phone numbers on the flyer to make sure they are correct, and type in the URL of your website to make sure that it’s correct too.
Aside from being an effective marketing tool, another great thing about marketing flyers is that you can make them yourself on your home computer, print them in masse, and distribute them as you see fit. By following a few simple guidelines, you can communicate your business’s message and start advertising to your customers with just a few clicks of your computer mouse.
1. Download a flyer template to your computer. These templates are available from office-oriented developers like Windows and HP and give you a free, blank slate on which you can input your company’s information. (Or, you can download from one of the awesome flyer templates we’ve posted on this article.)
2. Add a snappy, bold headline, as we’ve mentioned so many times already, at the top of the flier to grab readers’ attention. This could be in the form of a question, like “Need an oil change?” or an attention-getting buzzword, such as “Free” or “Limited-time offer.”
3. Add a bold, singular graphic or image to the flyer. This may be a photo or a piece of clip art from your office software. Either case, one large image by itself is more effective than several small ones.
4. List information on the flyer. For example, you may wish to include your business’s location, services, or hours, or you may also include information such as customer testimonials and accreditation’s. Phrase the information for your flyer using simple, persuasive language. For example, when advertising personal massage services, don’t include wordy lists of your credentials. Readers will gloss over this information and not absorb it. Instead, use simple language that makes a strong point. Take a look at advertising flyers for reference.
5. Organize your information with bullet points and use white space. The flyer shouldn’t take more than a few seconds to read. Anything overloaded with information will be ignored by passersby. Restrict your number of different fonts to two for a clean and organized look.
6. Give incentives to the customer. For example, attach tear-off coupons to the bottom of the flyer. Unlike tear-offs with just your business information, which people have little incentive to take, one with a limited-time offer gives the customer a reason to absorb the information and keep your business in mind.
A flyer is a material for advertisement intended for wide distribution and typically posted or distributed in a public place, handed out to individuals or sent through the email. It holds valuable sections or elements that would be effective in attracting the target audience no matter what purpose is.
Flyers have different sizes which vary depending on how you want to use it. It includes the Half Sheet (5.5 × 8.5 inches), Standard (8.5 × 11 inches), and Large Format (11 × 17 inches). Choosing the right size impacts on its effectivity. Therefore, it pays to know the different sizes you can use.
Various types of marketing flyers are still used in different sections in the business industry. Below are the following.
1. Brochure – A brochure is an unbound, usually, multi-page printed product. It’s commonly a single sheet of paper and folded to create a bifold or trifold piece.
2. Booklets and Pamphlets – Booklets, in simple terms, are always bound, with staples, saddle stitching, plastic comb, etc. They contain multiple pages which are usually more complex than brochures.
3. Newsletters – A newsletter is a great way to keep your organization on the mind of your clients, constituents, or anyone in your target market in general. A newsletter is a useful tool for reminding your market that you are a partner, ready to help them out.