We all know how amazing the internet is. It has benefited the window and door industry massively. It has brought a wealth of information, imagery, facts and figures from our industry to millions upon millions of home owners across the country. Information that wasn’t so easily accessible only ten years ago. Things at the time old fashioned brochures didn’t always convey all that well.

But the internet cannot do everything. In most cases, you cannot buy windows. It’s no showroom either. Pictures are good, but as with cars and kitchens, physical marketing materials can often be the thing that inspires a home owner be it in their home or in the showroom. Items like brochures are often a good indicator as to the quality of the company. A shoddy, half-arsed, flimsy brochure won’t leave a good lasting impression. Whereas a brochure made from quality paper, high-end and aspirational imagery, one that’s at least 30+ pages, should leave a potential buy inspired and hooked.

Our industry knows this, and even in just the past few months we have seen a wave of brilliant, high-end brochures hit installers to help sell their products. It’s the battle of the brochures, and it’s going to be a very classy affair!

What makes a good brochure?

I work for an installation company, and as such, we get to see a lot of brochures from both suppliers and potential suppliers. Some are very good, some look like they’ve had about five minutes worth of thought put into them.

But I must say that the current crop of new brochures from our suppliers are very impressive. These are just a selection of the ones I had on my desk at the time of writing this:

Prefix – WARMroof

Prefix WARMroof brochure
Prefix WARMroof brochure

Prefix – OPUS

Prefix OPUS brochure
Prefix OPUS brochure

All very high quality I’m sure you will agree.

Now all the above examples have one major thing in common: imagery. Every single one of these brochures focuses heavily on imagery, and that’s exactly the right route to be going down.

These brochures, although created for installers, are aimed primarily for home owners. These brochures are fully intended to inspire them and catch their attention and imagination. I like how they’re all filled with big, bold, bright images covering most, if not all of the pages.

The quality of the photography in the brochures is important as well. It has done be done right or not at all. It is very easy to spot a badly taken photo, no matter how nice the product might look in real life.

How brochures should be done

For me, this is how industry brochures should be done. Aspirational, eye catching, image-heavy, professionally put together on high quality paper. Not that cheap throwaway garbage you sometimes see in this industry.

No home owner was ever inspired to buy a door after reading 500 words about how that particular door passed a certain security test. Or how their various cams and compression gaskets are better than someone else’s. That’s not going to sell a product. If you look back at some of the old stuff that was being printed, you have to ask yourself if we really understood what the aim of brochures was.

The ones above are going to sell a product, and well. These are brochures that home owners will want to keep for future reference, or pass on to friends and family.

Modern printed marketing of our industry’s products has to be done as it is shown above. Minimal space used for text. By all means include the main USPs of the products in there, they will always be required. But don’t dedicate too much space to it. Remember, most home owners aren’t going to get excited about gaskets and threshold heights. It’s got to focus on the product in all it’s glory.

Selling a lifestyle

We perhaps have been guilty of not realising this a long time ago, but windows, doors and glazed extensions are lifestyle products. Some may not agree with me. Some will still see windows and doors as dull, obligatory purchases that home owners fail to get excited by.

But I disagree. Window and door products have come a long, long way. Especially since the introduction of PVCu in the mid-70s. There are a lot of very high end products out there, which do now rival kitchens, cars and extensions when it comes to high value purchases for the home. These are products home owners can now get excited about, and look forward to them changing the appearance of their home and how they feel in it.

These types of brochures displayed above are a good example of how that should be portrayed to the home owner.

What’s also great to see is how many new and visually stunning brochures there are now. These were just a few I had lying on my desk at the time. But I have seen plenty which definitely follow along the same lines.

It’s going to be a battle of the brochures in the coming months and years, and it’s going to be impressive!

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