Nonprofit organizations often face strong head winds as they try to raise money for worthy causes. In the face of a challenging economy and increasing competition for dwindling donations, well crafted printed promotional materials can help communicate an effective message to potential donors.

Brochures can be successfully used to raise awareness about a particular cause, and also help promote different fund raising activities. When soliciting donations, it is important to provide information about the nature of the campaign and demonstrate how prospective donors can help make a difference. Identifying the specific channels where resources will be applied can alleviate contributor’s concerns and reveal the positive results that the charitable organization expects to achieve.

Creating an Effective Brochure for Fundraisers

Careful consideration should be used during the development phase of a fundraiser brochure. The primary objective is to elicit an intellectual and emotional reaction that compels a person to become committed to the cause. There are several elements that can be crafted into the brochure to enhance its overall effectiveness.

• Define the Fundraiser’s Objective: This includes clearly explaining the purpose of the fundraiser and outlining both the financial and humanitarian goals. Reputable studies and statistics that frame the problem can prove helpful in confirming the importance of the issue.
• Use High Quality Photos: Photographs send a powerful message to the reader. In any brochure for fundraising, displaying pictures that illustrate the nature of the problem can be very influential. Action photos showing members of the charity or foundation at work can inspire people to join or contribute. To enhance the legitimacy of the cause or organization, the use of high resolution photographs taken by a professional photographer is highly recommended.
• Add Complete Contact Information: Donors don’t always commit to pledging money at the fundraiser event. At a minimum, it is important to provide an address, phone number, fax number, email address, and website address.
• Include a Form for Referrals: A printed form that is included in the brochure will allow members and donors to identify other potential candidates who may have an interest in becoming involved.

The Choice in Printing

There are many choices to make when printing a fundraiser brochure. It is important to hire a print shop that has extensive experience with print material marketing for charitable organizations. Detroit Print Shop can help with every aspect of the printing process including graphic design, paper selection, and folding options.

Despite the appeal of obtaining travel information through the Internet, most people still use travel brochures when planning a business trip or vacation. There really is no substitute for a well designed brochure that includes a wide array of important details about the destination. Since brochures are compact and portable, travelers appreciate the convenience and durability that printed pages off the Internet simply can’t match.

Travel Brochure Concepts

Brochures are a considered a traditional form of travel industry advertising and often suffer from a lack of distinctiveness that reduces their effectiveness. It is important to remain aware of the fierce level of competition for clients, and develop a brochure that will display the unique features and benefits of your travel agency. The philosophy behind the design should be to create a resource rather than an advertising piece. If the client believes the brochure has been a valuable tool within the context of the trip, the advertising goal will also have been accomplished.

Design Considerations

Travel brochures often suffer from stale designs as a result of tired imagery. Poorly conceived graphics that employ globes, maps or compasses can project an outdated, or unimaginative identity. This approach can also serve to hamper the development of unique brand awareness since the appearance of the brochure may be mistaken for a competitor’s piece.

Most importantly, a travel brochure should be designed to compliment the image the agency projects on its website, business cards, flyers, and other advertising media. Design concepts can be based around some of the following criteria:

• Logo: The inclusion of an identifiable logo is critical to build brand identity and offer a simple way for customers to reference the provider of the brochure. Detroit Print Shop can develop for your company a polished and professional logo or a complete corporate identity package.
• Use High Resolution Images: One of the biggest advantages a travel brochure offers when compared to internet printed images is much better resolution. Graphics and photographs that jump off the page will entice vacationers to learn more about the advertised destinations.
• Add Insightful Travel Information: This includes complete contact information for the agency, as well as the website address and helpful travel tips.

Selecting a Print Shop

Travel brochures should always be produced by a printer that specializes in the travel industry. Detroit Print Shop can help with every phase of the printing process including graphic design, paper stock selections, and folding options.

Competition is high and you want to stand out from the crowd. You have been doing all the hard work and your coffee shop has created pretty positive impressions. You want the impressions to last; you have been thinking about creative campaigns and ways to keep repeating those positive impressions. A simple bookmark can do wonders to your campaign. Yes, people still do read books and an attractively designed bookmark could be a perfect gift to your customers.

Bookmarks have been one of the finest marketing collateral that has been used for generations to create brand awareness. A well designed one can build a loyalty and recall that would last a lifetime. Your message on an attractive reusable bookmark will be seen over and over again. They are great giveaways and yes, readers do love their bookmarks, and some even value them as collectables. Most importantly, bookmarks are really practical and useful, and are therefore the perfect gift for readers.

Script a suitable message, create some custom graphics and leave them on your coffee tables, at your sales counter, and put them in a handful of your carry out bags. Your message should always bear your customer in mind; so personalize them, create themes – for example, one could be for the traveler, one for the avid reader, one for people who love gardening, one for the coffee connoisseur, and so on. Rope in the services of a team of creative graphic designers and copywriters and get them to create an effective design that gels with your brand strategy.

Some ideas – you could build a coupon promoting a campaign, design an attractive bookmark with your promotional information on the back, promote your loyalty card, build-in a feedback card on bookmarks that you keep on your coffee tables, and cleverly imprint your logo on each of these. You would be amazed at the recall factor that a carefully crafted bookmark creates.

The best part about bookmarks – they are cheap to print unless you are doing something very fancy or are using material like fabric or plastic. At Detroit Print Shop, we have an array of talented, experienced, and creative individuals who can create effective bookmark designs for the promotion of your products and services. Allow us to create your best campaign on one of these reading favorites.