The copy you write for brochures is different to what you would have on a
website. The English you use
can be, for one thing, a bit more detailed than that of your website, which has to grab the reader’s attention in seconds.
You can have less sentence fragments and slogans hanging in the air, for one thing. When a potential customer has
taken the trouble to pick up your brochure, you have their attention... Well, initially, at least (so don’t blow it).

Unlike with a website, there is a bit more room in a brochure to talk about your company and its history, but it’s still vitally important that you write something direct that gets to the point quickly.

You should always be concerned with giving the customer what they want from the beginning,
which means: what can you do for me?

Customers want to know what they can get out of working with you; information on the number of
employees you have and your year of incorporation is, at best, secondary.

What you should try to do when you communicate with your potential customers is make them imagine the
time after they’ve used you. Make them imagine looking back at what a fantastic job you’ve done for them. I
find it makes a stronger case than saying “if you use us, this is what we can give you” if you take away the
element of chance. Make them think of when it’s already happened and tell them how great it was.

The first thing you need when you write a brochure is a checklist to get you started. Try to tick off as many
as you can:

* What it’s being written for (informational? Promoting sales?)
* Who it’s aimed at (what kinds of companies, profile of people reading the brochure)
* How many pages it has
* Where to get the information to write the new brochure (marketing division? Interviews with R&D staff? Engineers?)
* When the last brochure came out
* When the new one is due to be replaced (in other words, what’s its life-cycle?)
* When you need the copy to be finished (hey, don’t laugh. A tight deadline can have a big effect ? positive
and negative ? on the quality of what you write)
* The design (has the new brochure already been designed? This would impact on the word count and the
style of how you write it)
* Your house style (many companies have a certain vocabulary and a certain way of describing things)
* Competitors’ brochures (why not see if there’s anything you can model for your brochure? At the very
least you can find out what you’re up against)
* Your overall plan at the outset for what kind of brochure you’d like

At all times you should be thinking of your customers. What do they want? What don’t they want? What
can you do to make their lives easier? What can you help them avoid?

Happy writing.