November 12, 2008

10 Tips for Attractive DIY Promotional Flyers

You don't need fancy flyers or a website to start promoting your events. Here are 10 tips for making your DIY flyers client attractive.

Keep it Simple

Remember that the simpler the design and text, the easier your prospect will be able to read and understand it. Stick to two colors and preferrably black and shades of grey on white or bright colored paper and an easy-to-read font such as Arial, Helvetica or Tahoma.

Less is More

Leave lots of white space in your text and design. It makes it is more welcoming to the eye and far minimizes confusion.

Focus on Creating Connection

Create relatedness. You don’t do this by jamming the flyer with tons of info about you. You want your reader to know you get THEM and their specific PROBLEM or challenge. Save the information about you for a small blurb at the end of your flyer.

Identify the Hot Button Issue

Look at your flyer and ask yourself, “to what problem, challenge, symptom or dilemma am I speaking to” and how am I offering to solve it.

Choose One-Page Flyer vs. Tri-Fold Flyers

Most tri-folds look alike and the very first page has to be so good that you actually want to open it. With a one-pager constructed in a simple WORD document format or other publishing program, your eye can quickly skim the entire flyer/brochure and get the “jist” of it.

Does it pass the 30 second rule?

In 30 sec or less, can someone understand what you are offering and what for? Test it on a few people.

Homemade Does Not Equal Looking Homemade

Pick a bright color, high quality paper to attract attention. Keep your font choice to ONE STYLE and in black and shades of grey. This keeps the cost of printing affordable, makes it easy to read and makes text changes and updates simple to do. You can also invest in Microsoft Publisher, PrintShop or some other program for creating flyers.

Should I get a graphic designer to do my flyers/brochures?

Sure it will look great, but in my experience it takes up a lot of time, money and energy to get your final materials. Instead, consider asking your designer to create an attractive template in a program you can easily access such as Publisher or Print Shop so that you can make text changes as you wish and use over and over again for your events. Then keep the same flyer for each event you do, just change the text. Keeping the same style flyer for all your events helps build recognition for your business.

Keep Your Flyers Handy

Don’t be the person who shoves their flyer at everyone they meet. Such a turn off. However, if you do make a connection with someone, keep a folder handy with your upcoming events flyers. This makes it easy to invite people to your events and it projects that you’re ready for business. It looks unprofessional when your caught digging around for a crumpled flyer or out of date biz card. You never know whom you’ll meet.

Professional Contact Info

Make sure you have a professional email address (not healthyme144@yahoo.com or j.mcguilicutty@roadrunner.nyc.rr.com) It’s easy to register your full name (www.YourName.com) as a domain name and set up an email address to match that account (YourFirstName@YourFullName.com). Check out godaddy.com.

To your success,

Karin

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Filed under Blog, Materials that Work, Words That Work by Karin