What will 2014 mean for printed brochures? « Back to list

We recently looked at 4 reasons to consider using printed brochures, and with January almost behind us, we thought we’d take a look at what 2014 will mean for printed brochures. Brochures are an extremely popular way to promote your services and they continue to be used by business of all shapes and sizes throughout the world. Below, we take a look at what to expect from the humble brochure in 2014.

Personalisation:

One of the biggest things we expect to see in printed brochures in 2014 is personalisation. Bringing your customer an offering that is unique to them is something we all strive for as it will increase the chances of converting them from a business prospect to an actual customer. Personalisation can help you achieve this and with the cost of printing falling and the time taken to print a brochure decreasing, it’s never been easier to print unique brochures with content tailored specifically to a customer or group of customers.

Think digital:

The digital revolution is well and truly here and for most brands a website and a social media presence is a must in today’s business world. This can however present a challenge in determining ways of connecting your customers from and offline space into the online world. When you’re dealing with printed marketing material such as brochures, it’s important that you connect this online and offline world together and use your brochure to drive users to your website and social channels. These platforms offer you access to customers 24 hours a day, 365 days in the year, and all over the world. Be sure to include details of any online profiles you have for your business and include links to your website so customers can visit and find more information. It may also be worth replicating any brochure you have and making it available for customers to download online via your website in PDF format.

Bring your brochure to life:

Last on our list is finding a way to bring your brochure to life in 2014 and one way that this may start to become popular in the coming months is through augmented reality (AR). We recently discussed augmented reality in 3 printing trends for 2014 and this technology promises to have an exciting role to play in how companies and brands communicate by print in the future. Augmented reality will allow you to bring your brochure by life through the use of a smartphone or tablet device as your customer hovers over a certain part of the page that will then bring your brochure to life on their screen. Imagine a world where you can now give a demo video or show a product being used, right from your brochure page. Augmented reality promises to change how we use brochures and other print material such as leaflets and flyers to communicate with customers. The car industry is an example of an industry that has really embraced AR. We predict that 2014 could be a big year for AR and brochures.

(Image source: Augmented Planet)

Brochures look set to continue to play a big role in how we market our goods and services to both existing and potential customers, and one thing is for sure, it’s exciting to see the direction in which the humble brochure is headed. Information at your hand that is targeted at you and totally embracing the digital age.

Are you a regular user of printed brochures for your business? Which topic excites you most from our list above? Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and let us know your favourite.