7 Things You Should Know Before Making a Brochure for Your Healthcare Brand
No matter how much you stress on strategizing, getting your positioning right or umpteen number of buzzwords, it will all perhaps boil down to the marketing communication through which you bring out those ground breaking strategies to life. Marketing Collateral is perhaps the most crucial component of creating the marketing communication kit for your hospital.
No matter what environment it is or marketing activity you are on:
- Pitching for an investor
- Healthcare exhibition B2B or B2C
- Patients in waiting room
- Looking to orient a prospective collaborator
The brochure decides the outcome of the event, yes! We mean it. As an agency we always suggest our clients to make brochures to reduce their in-person marketing efforts and plainly to communicate the message more effectively without an iota of dilution in the intention of reaching out to that receiver.
In this Blog you will read the following to get a detailed view and a broader perspective on how to develop a picture perfect brochure for your healthcare brand
- Why a Brochure is a must for your healthcare brand?
- How can you make use of your healthcare organization’s brochure?
- Types of Brochure for a Healthcare brand?
- How is a Brochure born for every healthcare brand?
- 15 Steps to arrive at the perfect brochure for your brand?
- What it takes to make the best brochure for your healthcare brand?
- 9 Common mistakes you are making while creating a brochure End- Tour some of BCC’s best brochures?
1. Why a Brochure is a must for your healthcare brand?
1.1 A brochure is a salesperson in print
A brochure is the most effective sales collateral. It conveys your brand in the exact same way that you want it to. A brochure can serve for more than one purpose. It is a channel through which you can catch the best referral partners and patients to grow your healthcare business.
A brochure is an essential element of your marketing stationeries, it is a must have as a part of promotional giveaway. Brochure is the most condensed form of your hospitals in and out information served on a platter.
Even if your salesperson does not prove to be effective to provide the desired result a good brochure will do the work. A brochure conveys what you want to convey to your business acquaintances through appropriate and self explanatory words and visuals.
1.2 Presentation says it all
Even if your salesperson does not prove to be effective to provide the desired result a good brochure will do the work. A brochure conveys what you want to convey to your business acquaintances through appropriate and self explanatory words and visuals.
No other medium of communication has this added perk. The communication is at its most effective state when it is present in such less complex yet relevant ways. This makes people go through and document the information you want your prospects to know. The facility of documentation raises the chance for your services to be chosen as and when needed by your prospects.
2. How can you make use of your healthcare organization’s brochure?
A good brochure develops a one-to-one personal connection between the reader and the organization. This gives the reader a feeling that your services are reliable, when your potential patients read about how you care they trust your company. Hence, a brochure can bring you the right referral partners and patients with needs that incline with your specialty discipline.
2.1 Build your referral marketing system
People refer those whom they prefer and preference is won through reliability. Brochure not just introduces your business to someone but a strong brochure can induce trust in your prospects. When you present yourself or your business to your referral prospects it is impossible to convey it all through face to face communication.
Even your physician liaisons cannot perform to an extent that your referral prospect is compelled to refer you how much ever trained. A brochure carries the content that convincingly talks about your healthcare business so using it as a tool for communication when you approach your referrals will make your chances of receiving a referral high.
2.2 A good brochure can make corporate presentation a cakewalk for you
A great brochure is the most condensed, comprehensive and cost-effective way for conveying your brand story and business profile. Brochure’s versatility can give you an edge over your co-presenters in a corporate forum. When your prospects have clear information about you, you will be able to increase the stakeholders & shareholders. Brochure is capable of leading you to great partnerships and professional alliances with other providers in the healthcare sector.
3. Types of brochure for a healthcare brand
3.1. Corporate brochure
A corporate brochure covers all aspects of your hospital, your vision and mission. It talks about your specialty discipline, infrastructure and your team to give a comprehensive insight into your healthcare organization.
3.2. Specialty Specific brochure
This type of brochure presents your specialty discipline’s treatments in a way that people can understand and trust. It elaborates on every particular procedure that is provided in a particular specialty.
3.3 Multi- Specialty Brochure
A multi-specialty brochure contains separate sections with content on each specialty discipline. Each section elaborates on the services provided i.e. treatments and procedure.
3.4. Solution specific – Treatment based brochure
This brochure is all about one particular solution and how it is provided to the patients. The brochure being treatment specific deals with the details about that particular procedure.
3.5. Doctor Profile brochure
Doctor Profile Brochure is one of the most powerful ways to introduce and induce trust in potential patients. A doctor’s biography can be presented in appealing ways through a brochure.
3.6. Check-up packages brochure
Promoting wellness through a healthcare brochure is an effective way to bring out people who are in self-doubt about their health. A comprehensive brochure on what all services are provided to patients in one experience and in one payment can make a great Check-up package brochure.
4. How is a Brochure born for every healthcare brand?
Brochure is a result of a brands great understanding of itself through effortful brainstorming and a series of sessions where important components for you brand identity is arrived at. You would have created a brochure or been a part of creating a brochure, if you recall the process there is a journey the brochure takes on before arriving hot on hand.
Let’s understand the process so we become more focused at every point to meet the end through meaningful means…
4.1 Recognizing the need
knowing the need of a brochure for your healthcare brand is very important. Making brochure creation a mere ritual for your healthcare brand will not help anymore. Brochure decides a lot more than you think, the opinion of the prospect that you last met sums up to that one brochure you left behind.
So think why your healthcare brand needs a new brochure?
The possible reasons could be:
- There are new updates your old brochure doesn’t talk about
- Old brochure is outdated in terms of brand appeal
- You want to renew the visual appeal of your old brochure
- You want to re-work the content chunk in your brochure
- You have simply got a better idea
4.2 Identifying the purpose
Why you need the brochure for now is the need but what all your brochure can do for your healthcare brand is about the purpose of the brochure. The purpose can be clearly foreseen when you can visualize the brochure yourself.
Your purpose can be something a minimal as- Listing down your services menu or be as monumental as capturing and retaining the interest of a prospective investor. Be it at the end of any extreme, knowing the purpose is very important.
4.3 Gathering a comprehensive team
Brochure definitely serves a different need for different departments in each Healthcare brand. Ask around if each department is satisfied with the overall brochure also enquire with as much concern on whether they’ll be able to do even more well with an independent brochure for each department (if they already don’t have one).
For healthcare brand each specialty can be considered a different set of diversified needs but also don’t forget to consider other teams that work for/with each specialty such as Patient co-ordinators, Sales teams, registration desk etc.
Might sound trivial but if asked each one would suggest a simple asset of marketing communication that’ll probably make their job easier and more effective.
Note,
Make sure you consider all of this in totality while making a master brochure for your healthcare brand and considering it in segments if you are to create a specific brochure.
4.4 Deciding on the type of brochure
Now that you have heard all of those stories driving you to make half-baked need analysis and not even quarter satisfying decisions you have made so far. A full book type brochure or a think collection of pamphlet looking brochure can give you more direction towards making the brochure.
4.5 Structure and Format of the brochure
Again, a lot more crucial part of the brochure is what all are going into it and where are they probably going into.
So things you decide:
- How many pages?
- What page should contain what?
- Where do you want to fit in images/graphics?
- Do you want any foldable pop-ups or any other wow factor to your profile?
4.6 Slicing and Dicing the internal components of a brochure
Getting the brochure ready is lies in the goodness of each detail. Generally the bream goes like this:
- A major copy
- Body copy
- Your brand story or About us
- USP or Why us
- List of Services
- This break up is completely customisable as we looked into before, different brochures serve different purposes.
4.7 Ensuring execution is concurrent to brand identity
Execution is where the taste of the pickle is decided. If you have an in house design team the execution is different and if you have appointed a creative agency for all your creative needs it is different.
But both the ways using the palette zeroed on for that particular brand is always the best idea.Follow your brand standard module at any cost, with your brand image remind yourself that there is no trading-off.
5. 15 Steps to arrive at the perfect brochure for your brand
- Analyse your old brochure
- Catch hold of competitor’s brochure
- Checkout what is the latest voice that brochures are adopting to
- Look within to find your own healthcare brand’s need for a brochure
- See how you want to fill that need-Yourself or Creative experts
- Set up the execution team as per 5th answer goes
- Sit down with the ones who understand your healthcare brand and know the nuances of a brochure and brainstorm with them
- Get a good hold of different perspectives from different teams.
- Prepare one good solid brief for your executors to follow
- Prepare one good solid brief for your executors to follow
- Also, make sure you have a content bank and a photobank ready.
- Make sure the structure of the brochure has an adequate amount of both pictures and content.
- After each stage of brochure designing process go back to your purpose and see if it matches the visual of your own kind of brochure.
- Dare to make as many changes as needed until the print file is out
- Now get the printing metrics right.
What all you have to decide
- What GSM?
- What Size?
- Matte finish?
- Laminated?
- Hard bound?
- A lot more of variations you’ll get to know when you enquire your printer stating your specific needs
6. What goes into making a great brochure?
A brochure can be one stop resource that says it all about your healthcare business. Brochure can be customized based on who the potential receiver is.
- Your hospital profile and history of the establishment makes the essential introductory part of the brochure.
- The awards, accolades and achievements of your healthcare institution says how much successful you have been in providing treatment, cure and care to people who were in need.
- Brief synopsis of your media features and appearances in print and digital media will tell your target readers how well known you are among your people.
- Know the occasion and the target readers for your brochure; this will facilitate you to make decisions on whether a specific part or member of your healthcare business has to be highlighted.
- Talk about the specialty that you want to optimize your healthcare institution.
- A sample of patient testimonials can be added to give your prospects a real good reason for them to trust and invest in you.
- The brochure is a wholesome summary of your healthcare business in a condensed form so it should carry your healthcare business’s vision, mission, motto and goals.
7. 9 Common mistakes you are making while creating a brochure
A brochure in making is a unidirectional process which starts on the client’s table and gets done on the designer’s table.
Through our experience we have always seen that often there are so many things disrupting the flow that in the end affects neither the agency nor the client but the brochure itself. When this happens the very purpose of arriving at the best marketing collateral for the healthcare brand is lost.
The following are the disruption you are bound to make while being extremely involved in getting a brochure out:
- Mistaking imitation to be inspiration-Your brochure cannot look like your competitors’. NO!
- Wavering brief- Ideas can flow in but a structured manner that’s well discussed within before taking it to changes in design
- Not having a layout trial (at least rough) before execution
- Being wishy-washy with content
- Compromised with too less content/images/graphics
- Pushing the designer to stuff too many images/content/graphic
- Giving too much or too little time for the execution.
- Giving too less or too much instructions to the designer than needed
- Waiting for the nth day to see the first cut and then go berserk in suggesting suddenly popped changes
Tour through BCC’s some of the Best Brochure
