Digital Brochures should be an integrated part of your marketing strategy – we outline why.
Why Digital?
More and more of everyday life is now taking place online and if your brochures are available in a digital format your products or services may be overlooked by potential customers.
Engage your customers where they congregate, having digital brochures allows you to make the most of their key 5 benefits:
- Can be read on a range of platforms
- Easy to share
- Update in real-time
- Intuitive navigation
- Maximise Marketing ROI
Can be read on a range of platforms
The amount of material that is now consumed while on the move is constantly growing, with everything from adverts and promotions to brochures and proposals being viewed on a mobile phone or tablet, the desktop is not their primary device anymore.
With customers, current and prospective, viewing your marketing materials on such a range of devices a well-designed digital brochure will be accessed by them all.
Easy to share
The same customers that are viewing your digital brochure on their various devices may very well want to discuss or qualify what they have read with colleagues or friends, and being able to instantly share that information is essential. Digital Brochures are now optimised for this very purpose with some capable of drawing in live content or video from online servers.
The ability to share and confer with a wider team, may make all the difference between a sale and ‘could we see more?’.
Update in real-time
In the past, if a brochure or catalogue was updated it would need to be reprinted and redistributed at great expense.
This still takes place, but due to the costs and work involved, is often scheduled for once a year or more. A digital brochure or catalogue can be updated and instantly updated if accessed on a live server or can be resent in an email to an entire mailing list in seconds.
Brochures and catalogues that do not have a digital version will have to incur regular updates to ensure their customers are as up-to-date as possible.
Intuitive navigation
As digital devices have become more commonplace as part of the digital revolution, the expectation of levels of interactivity or functionality has also increased. Customers now expect that brochures are capable of being ‘flicked’ through or at the very least the contents page will have embedded links that will take them to exactly the page or section that they are interested in.
The level of interactivity and complexity of your digital brochures is something to be discussed and agreed with your design team, but it should only ever enhance and improve the experience and not get in the way.
Maximise Marketing ROI
As outlined above, digital brochures and catalogues should not be seen as necessarily a replacement for a traditional printed item, but more of an ever-growing essential addition. If you go through the trouble of designing and compiling a detailed brochure that communicates exactly why your customers should choose you and your products or service, it makes absolutely no sense at all to not create a digital version.
With increasing pressures being put on marketing budgets and the expectation of greater integration between on and offline media, creating digital versions of your marketing materials is an obvious solution.
Design. Technology is always best when it’s invisible and not a barrier to the message itself. Any interactive brochure that is successful will be down to the design weaving the content and technology together seamlessly. Interactivity needs to be part of the brief and fully explored before the designs are created. Talk with the designer about how the interactive elements can improve and enhance the reader’s experience and not overshadow the key marketing & brand messaging.