In 1848 two men called Karl Marx and Frederick Engels produced a 40 page pamphlet which literally changed the world. Although many people might not agree with the content of the Communist Manifesto, its impact on the world cannot be overstated. Although we are not all trying to create a political ideology with our businesses or brands, there are certainly some lessons to be learned from what two German intellectuals managed to achieve on their tight budget and from relative obscurity. Harnessing the power of printing can make a huge difference when it comes to spreading your message.
Planning
Although the Communist Manifesto was only about 40 A5 pages long, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels had been working on its content for years. That’s not to say that we need to spend years working on your advertising brochure, but there’s certainly something to be said for proper planning and setting out a creative process for your work. As the saying goes, “if you fail to prepare then you prepare to fail”.
Timing
If your goal is to put out a great brochure to announce or further your brand recognition, and increase your market share, then timing is everything. When we talk about timing this means two things. First of all you need to time things right in terms of making sure you allow enough time to finish the brochure and allow the printers to do a good job of printing it. A last-minute rush can be an absolute catastrophe when it comes to producing a world-class final product. The second aspect of timing is making sure that whatever you’re trying to portray with your brochure, it sits well with the current Zeitgeist of what’s going on in the world around you. Lots of advertisers are becoming extremely involved in reactive marketing when it comes to producing adverts and materials in a short space of time to to react to world events or news coverage as it develops. In the case of the Communist manifesto, the authors were fortunate that as there work went to press, revolutions were already kicking off throughout Europe.
Why a booklet?
You might ask if it’s really necessary to use a long format like a booklet to get your message out there. The Print-Print.co.uk Brochures Printing sum up the benefits of printing brochures succinctly and excellently:
“A booklet or brochure will let you captivate them without the risk of losing their attention”.
Imagine if Karl Marx and Frederick Engels had chosen to simply print a leaflet directing their potential audience to “find out more” in a library or somewhere else. The reality is that most people don’t go and find out more, they put leaflets or flyers in the bin and something else comes along and distracts them in moments. That’s not to say that a leaflet isn’t a great way to spread a short message or branding image fast, because they are, but if you need to convey a lot of information and you want to do it in one shot then printing a brochure is probably the way forward.
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