During my travels last year, I made a point to gather a not-very-glamorous, but important piece of marketing.

I’m talkin’ about brochures.

Not Sexy
Brochures aren’t very sexy. In a world of flashy salesmen with plastic smiles and air-time on the local news, brochures are the shy teenagers in the call center.

Yet, those teenagers, just like brochures, spend a lot of time interacting with the actual customers. And, time and again, my travels always seem to be impacted by these pamphlets.

I use them for directions to resorts and ideas for things to do. When I check into a hotel, these hearty bits of marketing are patiently waiting for me in the lobby. No web connection, smartphone, or salesman required.

The Scope
There are two, big pieces to brochure strategy: design and distribution. Now, distribution arguably is the most critical piece. No matter how great your final product looks, if you can’t efficiently get them in a long list of places and keep them stocked, they won’t do much good.

This week, however, we’re going to focus solely on design. And, specifically, three parts:

• The front cover
• The inside pages
• The back cover

I’ve got examples of about 20+ brochures that I’ve collected, but I’ve narrowed it down to 10 that represent the collection as a whole that I’ll put under the lens.

Because this is a 4-day week for most of us (Monday was Labor Day in the US) that’s all we’ll have time for.

The Goals
Even with the shorter week, the goal is two-fold.

1. Look at a bunch of ways to approach brochure design
2. Come up with ideas or common patterns that may work well

So, let’s get on it. Tomorrow we’ll start by taking a look at front covers – what looks good, design considerations, etc. – and get the ball rolling.

See you then.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.