Identifying Brochure Problems

by: Janice Jenkins
Are you having trouble with your color brochures? Did you spend all that time, money and effort in brochure printing only to discover that they are not giving you the results that you want? Well there are several key factors why brochure printing can fail. In this guide, we will share with you some tips on how to identify these possible problems and correct them.

Do an opinion survey: The first thing that you need to do to identify any problems with your brochures is to do a survey. Look for the people that you gave your brochures to, and ask them a few questions about their reactions to it. Also, try to find other groups of people to give your brochures to, and then ask them immediately afterwards of their opinion about it. If you gather data that is large enough, chances are good that you should see a growing trend where your brochures fail to impress your readers. This should be a key factor on how to improve your brochure designs on the next printing run.

Re-analyze your target readers: Next, you may want to study once again your target readers or target market for your brochures. You may discover suddenly that your target market is inappropriate for your brochure, or that your brochure content is not ideal for your particular target market. This can be a common mistake for brochure printing, since some people just assume immediately what their target readers like while actually not researching what those are. So try to reanalyze your target reader’s wants and needs by looking at market research data about them.

Revise distribution techniques: You may want to check your distribution technique as well if it is indeed effective. Did you just hand out your brochures to people on the street? Did you mail them to several addresses in a mailing list? Or maybe you just left them behind in public places. Try to review these techniques if they are indeed effective and people are picking them up and reading. If you look closely enough you should identify key problems that make a certain technique not work. For example, you may be mailing brochures to the wrong kind of people or the public places that you leave your brochures to are not really where you target market is. So revise your distribution techniques accordingly and try other methods to see if those others can work better.

Find another location: Also, you may want to look at your distribution policies for your brochures. Sometimes brochures can fail because they have been given in the wrong locations. Try to determine who the most common type of people that pass by your distribution zones. Also if you mailed some of your brochures, try to see the demographic data on the neighborhoods that you sent them to. You may discover that your brochure message will not really be interesting or be well received by the people in your distribution area. When this happens, it might be a good idea to shift your distribution efforts elsewhere.

Use multiple concepts: Finally, you may want to branch out to several design concepts for your brochures and test them out separately. By testing multiple concept designs for your brochures, you should be able to identify which design works, and which does not have enough of an impact to customers This should be the last step in troubleshooting the problems on your brochure since this basically decides if you will change your whole brochure or not.

Hopefully by the fifth type of check, you should already identify the problems inherent in your brochure. Just try to be patient and methodical about analyzing your brochure problems so that you can identify it and rectify is as soon as you can. With some determination and hope you should be able to turn your brochure printing around before any kind of permanent harm is one for your business.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit:
http://www.printplace.com/printing/brochure-printing.aspx, http://www.printplace.com/printing/full-color-brochure-printing.aspx

About The Author

Janice Jenkins is a writer for a marketing company in Chicago, IL. Mostly into marketing research, Janice started writing articles early 2007 to impart her knowledge to individuals new to the marketing industry.

Visit the author's web site at: http://www.printplace.com