how to design a small business marketing flyer that won’t end up in the bin

If you’re running a small business in Bristol or Bath offering a services to clients such as beauty therapy or professional trades in the proerty sector, then a marketing flyer is one of the most cost effective ways of attracting new customers. In other words a well targeted flyer is likely to get the most return on your marketing spend.

What tools do you need to design your small business marketing flyer?

It’s also pretty easy to design a small business marketing flyer yourself if you have the time and inclination or if not, there are plenty of people willing to design one for you at a reasonable cost.

If you choose to design one yourself then sign up to Canva, it’s a free tool with easily customisable templates to create flyers as well as other marketing materials for your business.

12 tips to follow when writing the design brief for your small business marketing flyer

Whether you choose to design it yourself or write a brief for somebody else to design it, the following points will help you to get the most from your flyer.

1. Use colours and fonts that are consistent with other promotional efforts to help develop a visual brand identity.
2. Only use high quality photography and images. If commissioning a photographer or graphic artist to create something unique is out of reach, then there is plenty of stock imagery on the web.
3. Find images to support your message, an image is 1000 words as they say. Use the strongest image in the top half of your flyer. Stock images are available through sites such as iStock but the subscriptions are not usually cost effective for a small business who only produces a limited number of marketing promotions a year. A couple of free alternatives are stockfreeimages.com and morguefile.com. Canva also offers free stock images with a premium account.
4. Don’t use too many different colours, images and fonts as it could end up confusing the customer– usually one strong image and one or two fonts styles work the best.
5. If you must use lots of images try to group them together.
6. Keep the messages simple – stick to one or two key messages in your flyer – don’t try to tell the customer about everything you do in one go.
7. Include a customer testimonial or two.
8. Know your audience – plan your flyer with your target customer in mind and address their needs in your copy. Segment your list and only deliver to people that you know will be most likely to take up your offer. If you’re a bit hazy on who these potential customers are then have a read of  my recent post CRM for small businesses.
9. Don’t try to be funny, it may come across as cheesy, aim to be professional.
10. Tell your customers to do something – this is called a call to action. If this is asking the customer to contact you then make it as easy as possible for the customer to do so.
11. Make the call to action bigger than the rest of the text on the flyer and if you want customers to come to a specific location then give clear directions and include a map if you can. Try to think how you can incentivise the call to action and add a deadline to create urgency e.g. call us today on 1234567 and quote ‘newcustomer’ for a 10% discount – offer ends 20/01/2023
12. If you have the budget then try to put your promotional flyer on a paper stock that’s going to impress. The more high-end your target customer the more quality you want to convey. Avoid photocopies and black and white printing (that is not by design), it won’t look professional.

If you’re a small business in Bristol or Bath and you’d like a helping hand with any aspects of your marketing, then please get in touch with me at sensible marketing for small businesses today.