A Guide to Printed Handouts
Leaflets, booklets, pamphlets, brochures and flyers. We get there’s a lot of different terms thrown around for printed materials but it doesn’t have to be complicated.
Here’s a quick guide for the different handout options available and some ideas for when you might use them for your small business.
Flyer
Flyers, also called leaflets, one sheets or handbills, are often printed on a standard, A4 sheet of paper and are used for small-scale marketing efforts across a small region.
Typically, flyers are not folded and are used to draw attention to an event, service, product or idea.
A flyer’s message should be simple and short and the design should be eye catching, because the lifespan of a flyer is unfortunately, short-lived.
Flyers are an affordable option to reach localised groups of people. Since they are usually only printed on one side of the sheet, they can be printed quickly.
Most often used for:
- Event announcements
- Advertising new business openings
- Fact sheets handed out at trade shows or conferences
- Newspaper or magazine inserts
- Other general localised advertisements
Brochure
Brochures can have similarities to a flyer, but they almost always have printing on both sides. Brochures are offered in a variety of standard or custom sizes.
In addition, unlike flyers, which are usually flat, a brochure contains a fold in order to create multiple panels or pages of information. Common folds for brochures include half folds, trifolds and z-folds. Brochures can also be created from multiple sheets bound together. A smaller, simpler brochure is often referred to as a pamphlet.
Because preparing the alignment of folds and proofing must be done correctly, brochures take a bit more time and expense to create and are not usually handed out quite as freely as flyers.
Most often used for:
- Reference materials for customers and employees
- Follow up to promotional materials to help close a sale
Booklet
Booklets are always multisheet, bounded print materials, usually with staples, saddle stitching or something similar.
Booklets are simply more durable than pamphlets because of their structure.
Turnaround time is longer on booklets because there is more proofing and alignment involved than there is with brochures or flyers.
Most often used for:
- Product and service catalogues
- Manuals
- Reference materials
- When thorough descriptions and durability are preferred
Conclusion
In the end, what you choose to call your printed materials may vary, but the quality and effectiveness of them should remain the same: reliable.
SOURCE: Imagine