How to Design your Flyers and Leaflets

Make a real impact with your flyers and leaflets, courtesy of these top design tips from ADS’s expert designer Jason Stickley …(the studio located above your favourite printer in Swindon Copy Color!) How to Design your Flyers and leaflets Flyers and leaflets can be one of the most effective promotional tools around, but the success of this primarily depends on their design. It must immediately grab the recepient’s attention, and keep them interested in the product or service you are offering long enough that this leads to inducing some action, whether its phoning a number, visiting a website or placing an order. CHOOSE THE CORRECT SIZE OF FLYER OR LEAFLET Flyers and leaflets can come in a wide variety of sizes from A7 to A3 poster size. If you wish to hand out flyers on the street, A7 size is a popular size, as it can be small enough to put into a wallet or purse. If delivering your flyer or leaflet to households you would probably aim for A6 or A5, depending on how much information needs to be put across. MAKE IT PROFESSIONAL Anyone can type a few lines of text on their home computer and print it out. Unprofessional looking flyers and leaflets reflect badly on your company, doing more harm than good. If you don’t feel confident enough to spend a little money promoting it, why should people feel confident in ordering from you? Invest in a high quality professionally designed flyer or leaflet. It could make all the difference between gaining a new customer, or losing one. GRAB THEIR ATTENTION Let’s be honest, many people pick up the flyers and leaflets that come through their door and chuck them in the bin. In the short time that it takes for them to walk there, your flyer or leaflet needs to grab their attention. Don’t use your business name or product category as the headline. It isn’t a business card, most people aren’t interested that you’re called Tom’s Auto Repairs or The Dragon’s Den. OK, maybe a chinese restaurant and takeaway named The Dragon’s Den, and offering Duncan’s Dumplings or Special Chow Meaden on their menu, might tickle fans of the hit BBC TV show, but you know what we mean. Create a headline that generates some interest. Find out what’s important to your customers, and incorporate that into your headline. Create catchy headlines, and be precise with the rest of the content. Remember the old saying, less is more. So using our example from above – “£10 off your first MOT at Tom’s Auto Repairs!” – would be a great way to generate new business for Tom’s garage through a flyer or leaflet advertising campaign. TRICKS OF THE TRADE Use bullet points and get straight to the point, avoiding long sentences. Try and include some power words, such as Free, Bargain, Earn, Exclusive, etc. Utilise some images, making sure its relevant to what is being said, or the brand image you are trying to portray. Include a couple of interesting photos or graphics, and ask for a call to action. Don’t feel you have to fill the whole flyer or leaflet with every bit of possible information or product/service you can provide. If people are interested they will contact you. GIVE IT A GO You don’t need a huge budget to print your flyers and leaflets at Copy Color Swindon. Try 1,000 130gsm Gloss Finish A6 Leaflets (£33.00) or 1,000 350gsm Gloss Finish A7 Flyers (£38.00). That way you can test the market, and have more printed if they are successful. TRACK THE RESULTS Experiment with different headlines, special offers, deadlines and even distribution methods. Talking of which, if you’re not physically distributing the flyers or leaflets yourself, you must use a reputable and reliable distribution company to do the job for you. Ask Copy Color we can recommend people like Lime. The last thing you need after all your hard design work, and a perfect print job done by Copy Color, is 5,000 of your brilliant flyers or leaflets being thrown into a dumpster by a dodgy distributor. That costly mistake is going to get you 0% in new sales. Tracking helps the effectiveness of various leaflet and flyer types, making this form of marketing highly profitable. You can track each type of flyer or leaflet by using different phone numbers, or different promotional codes to see what kind of response you are receiving. You’re now ready to start designing your flyer or leaflet. Good luck! If you’re unsure of any of the printing terms used in this design guide, please visit our Printing Glossary for more info. *Prices correct as of March 2014. If you have any questions, or want to reveal some great design hints of your own, please share them with us in the Comments Reply box below…

For more information on How to Design your Flyers and Leaflets talk to Copy Color Limited