Creating Effective Business Flyers – How to Do It and Why

Carl Taylor | September 19, 2022

Flyers are much more than a marketing technique of the past. In fact, they can significantly boost your business on its way to success – but only if you understand the art of flyer design.

Flyers are nothing new in the marketing world. They’ve been a mainstay marketing technique for decades, driving companies to greater commercial success. 

However, that doesn’t mean using flyers is straightforward. 

Today, design plays a crucial role in all forms of marketing, including flyers. Yet, many companies struggle to produce flyers that strike the perfect balance between the design elements and the information conveyed. 

This article will explain why business flyers are an excellent marketing technique for you. What’s more, you’ll learn how to get to the ideal design that will tell your customers what they need to know while capturing their attention.

 

Why Use Business Flyers?

The first objection that might come to mind about using flyers is their very nature. 

A flyer is, after all, a printed piece of paper distributed to potential customers via mail or through direct handouts. This makes flyers seem somewhat outdated in the age where digital marketing is king.

Surely, this technique was most effective in the past centuries – flyers have been around since the invention of the printing press after all. But their age doesn’t make them ineffective today.

That said, flyers come in two flavours: addressed and door drops. The former is sent out to specific households, while the latter is intended for the general population with no particular recipient in mind.

Both flyer types have a relatively high rate of response in terms of people actually interacting with the marketing material. With addressed flyers, nearly 60% of recipients read them as soon as they arrive. Almost 10% of people open their flyers within the following four weeks. Best of all, most recipients go through the flyer again six times.

Compared to a more modern marketing technique like emails, flyers perform exceptionally well. When it comes to customers engaging with the sender, flyers elicit a response rate reaching up to 5%. This number might not seem impressive at first, but it shows how useful flyers are when several other aspects are considered.

Now, we’ve already mentioned that a considerable percentage of people will read and revisit flyers. If we presume that the open rate is about 70%, it means that 70 out of 100 people will open the flyer. And if 5% of those people get in touch with the company, 100 flyers could bring in three or four future customers.

What’s more, flyers are extremely cost-effective to produce while conveying the essential message about your business. In other words, it’s quite easy to have thousands of flyers distributed among the audience of your choice without bloating your marketing expenses.

Additionally, flyers offer something most other marketing forms lack: a palpable piece of material. Having the ability to touch a part of brand marketing can have a stronger effect on customers than merely seeing information on a screen. And this effect shouldn’t be overlooked in a thorough marketing strategy.

With all these benefits covered, it’s worth noting that your flyers will only prove worthwhile if you design them effectively. 

The following section will share useful tips for designing excellent flyers that will have a better chance of converting your audience.

 

How to Create Effective Flyers

Tip #1. Have a Clear, Strategic Approach

The very first thing you should consider when designing a flyer is how it will convey important information. This means you need to have a clear idea of the message you’re trying to send to your audience. 

Flyers provide limited space for everything you want to say. So, that space should be used wisely and carefully. It would be best to keep in mind that you’ll never be able to include all information in your flyers. This means you should focus on the essentials.

Another aspect of the strategic approach is to plan how and where you’ll distribute your flyers. Your intended audience will influence the design as well as the language you use in flyers.

 

Tip #2. Make the Design Top-Down

People read flyers the same as they read books, from the top of the page to the bottom. 

While this might sound like an obvious fact, some brands forget about it and design their flyers like images. This leads to information getting lost in the visual noise or the main points being unclear.

To put it simply, your flyers should be designed to read clearly and make sense immediately. This can be done by focusing on the upper third of the flyer and putting the most important information there, accompanied by the most pronounced graphics.

The reader should have access to the crucial information right away and navigate their way down the flyer towards less important facts and flavour text.

 

Tip #3. Have Distinct Sections

Presenting your readers with a wall of text is a sure way to lose their interest quickly. Luckily, you can avoid this issue through clever flyer design. 

The best way to make your flyers more inviting and easier to read is to divide them into sections. To that end, you can employ white space to break the text or other visual elements that will make reading less strenuous for the reader.

Even if your flyer doesn’t rely on visual elements too much, organising the text into sections will be beneficial.

 

Tip #4. Utilise Strong Visuals

Your visual elements, including images, colours, and even fonts, must be chosen with the utmost attention. While the copy is what will convey the essential information, the visuals are what will grab the attention and make your reader more engaged.

To start with, any image you use should be professionally made. This means those images need to be clear, colourful, and of high quality. These traits will allow your visuals to act as an ideal setting and addition to the story you’re telling through the flyer.

The selection of colours is the next important element. Of course, the colour scheme should be consistent with your overall branding. And in terms of the number of colours, it’s best not to go overboard and keep it to a select number of three or four at most.

Finally, the fonts you use will serve several key purposes. On one hand, the right shape and colour of letters will complement other visual elements. And on the other hand, a good font will make your copy more readable, helping you get the point across easily.

 

Tip #5. Leverage Contrast

Visual contrast is an excellent tool for grabbing attention and emphasising particular elements. In flyers, this contrast can be achieved through a fine balance of colours, light and dark areas, text, imagery, and shapes.

Using contrast to make certain sections pop up will prove effective. 

For example, a crucial piece of information will quickly draw the reader’s eye if it’s highlighted in a brighter colour as opposed to a darker background.

Contrasting elements are especially useful since they’ll make your flyers more visible from a distance and inviting to read.

 

Tip #6. Consider Full Bleed

Designing a flyer with full bleed means there’s no edge border around the flyer “body.” Instead, the design appears borderless, creating a particular effect. 

The advantage of the full-bleed design is that it looks more professional and polished compared to the bordered style. After all, a white border around a colourful centre image is seen as a default design, while the borderless style requires much more care and attention.

 

Tip #7. Don’t Shy Away from Infographics

Infographics, shortlists, and bullet points are an excellent way of representing crucial information in a digestible and understandable manner. 

Such elements might seem like cliches in the world of marketing, but that’s for a good reason. Brands use infographics, charts, and bullet points because they make it extremely easy to summarise otherwise complex pieces of data. 

And an effective flyer should aim to do just that.

 

Tip #8. Point Out the Benefits

You might have noticed that many of the tips here concern grabbing the reader’s attention and making the flyer content more understandable. However, you should always keep in mind the main purpose of your marketing material:

To present your offer in an enticing way.

When people come across a piece of marketing, they’ll be interested to find out what benefits they can get from the brand. This is the primary question your flyer should answer. 

If your brand has an advantage over the competition or features special deals, freebies, or guarantees, make sure to point them out and put those benefits upfront.

 

Tip #9. Emphasise the Keywords

Although keyword research is a critical part of online marketing, a similar principle can function when it comes to flyers. 

Rather than looking into keywords in terms of SEO, the terms to focus on in flyer design will be words that immediately draw the reader’s attention. These would be simple terms like “new,” “guarantee,” “free,” “limited,” “sale,” etc.

Whatever keywords you decide to use, they should pop out of your flyer and be identifiable at a glance.

 

Tip #10. Put in a Clear CTA

Like every other marketing technique, your flyers should contain a simple call to action (CTA) that informs the reader about their next step. And the most important feature of your CTA will be its simplicity of use. 

With flyers, your audience isn’t in an online environment where they can click on a button or a link. Instead, they’ll need to take the time to perform the suggested action.

Calling a phone number is always a decent option for a CTA. However, there are other options that may serve your purpose even better. 

For example, you can leave a QR code on your flyers that readers can scan and get to the designated page in an instant.

Alternatively, you can leave a URL leading to your site. In this case, it would be best to use a shortened version of the address that won’t require potential visitors to spend too much time typing or worrying about entering a wrong letter or number.

 

Flyers Get Results

If done right, flyers can become a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. 

This affordable, easy-to-print solution could boost your business performance significantly, especially as an addition to other marketing techniques. Granted, the effectiveness of your flyers will depend on the quality of the design.

The good news is that Automation Agency can help you nail the content and look of your flyers. 

Our Concierge Service will make sure your copy is on-point and your visuals memorable and impressive. In fact, the service can take care of the complete flyer design according to your brand’s goals and wishes. 

If you want to leverage the experience and expertise of Automation Agency Heroes, feel free to get in touch with us, and we’ll start working on creating the perfect flyer for your business.

About the author 

Carl Taylor

Carl Taylor is the Founder & CEO of Automation Agency. For the past 10 years Carl has been building businesses and marketing them online through the use of Sales Funnels, Email Marketing Automation, Landing Pages, and Wordpress Websites. Carl is also a #1 author and highly sought after speaker and consultant whose work has impacted thousands of businesses across various industries worldwide.

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