“Choosing Your Brochure Size and Format”

Choosing Your Property Marketing Brochure Size & Format

August 30, 2017

Small decisions can have a big impact. Seemingly minor variables, like the size and format of your property sales brochure, and the paper types you use, can say a lot about you, and the quality of what you deliver. Just in your choice of finish and paper stock, you can communicate a sense of being something special.

In almost all cases, we recommend printing a brochure, not just relying on a PDF version. It provides prospective buyers with something tangible to hold in their hands, which, in the absence of a real, finished property, seems all the more important! In our minds, as long as your brochure is a high quality publication, it’s well worth the investment to print it. In terms of content, much of the work that goes into your brochure will be repurposed and republished in a range of ways – particularly in the form of social media posts and articles on your website – so again, it’s an investment that pays out.

With all that in mind, here are our thoughts on choosing your brochure size and format.

The most commonly used brochure format is a landscape A4. This works really well as there’s plenty of width on each page for all your fabulous imagery, site plan and floor plans. Portrait formats are less popular but can feel really modern, work well for townhouses (because they’re ‘vertical’ too), and can have a more urban feel.

But one way of making an impression on your prospective buyers is to choose a non-standard or oversized format for your brochure. Unless you’re planning on mailing out your brochure a lot – in which case bear in mind the availability of envelope sizes! – you might consider ‘going large’ with your brochure format in order to stand out and convey a sense of space / grandeur / significance. We think very large brochures – A3 or larger – are overkill, though. They are awkward to browse, unlikely to fit in a bag, and more tricky to carry. For these reasons, you’re huge brochure might become an annoyance to your potential buyers, and make them feel you’re wasting precious trees just to make a point.

But we do like a slightly oversized A4 – either a little more landscape or a little taller or both. A small increase in size feels different enough in your hands, it communicates the impression that you are going for something better than the ‘standard’, and it gives you a bit more room to play with on the inside – without seeming ostentatious or extravagant. Bear in mind that non-standard sizes will be more costly to print… but sometimes, of course, that’s the point.

Your printer will be able to suggest special print effects for your cover – in particular for your logo. You might choose to have your logo embossed on the cover – which means the logo itself is slightly indented or outdented (is that a word? a printer would say ‘de-bossed’ but I’m not sure that’s really a word either…) from the page. An alternative is foil or foil embossing, where your logo is enhanced with a layer of reflective gold or silver. This can be really effective on a plain background. At the moment the choices are generally between gold and silver foil, which can work well but which I sometimes feel have been a bit ‘done-to-death’. Some printers can offer a broader range of foil options – perhaps a brushed aluminium or steel finish, or copper or even zinc…! Put some thought into how you can make a great first impression with your brochure cover, and consider spending a bit of money to make it stand out in some way.

As with every element of a successful property marketing campaign, your decisions about the size, format and finish of your sales brochure will be guided by your understanding of your ideal buyer, and your compelling value proposition. At iCreate, these are some of things we like to nail down at the outset of any property marketing campaign, through a process we call the Project Vision Session. Please contact us if you’d like to receive a free copy of our Project Vision Document (PVD) template, which will take you step by step through the necessary ‘thought process’ to ensure your property marketing is perfectly positioned.

Or, why not book a Project Vision Session with iCreate?

Whether or not you’re already a client of ours, we would love to facilitate your Project Vision session, during which we’ll guide a series of simple exercises aimed at creating the road map and briefing document for everyone involved in your marketing campaign. This is a co-creation experience involving members of your team and ours. The intention is to create a clear direction for your marketing, by thinking through i) who your ideal buyer is, ii) what they will love about these properties, and iii) your core ‘promise’ based on the answers to these questions. You might wish to include others, such as your agent, business partners and your existing buyers in this exercise. Please contact us to enquire about pricing.