Tips for Designing a Clear and Effective Sales Brochures

Please also read our What to Include in Your Online Listing, as much of what is said there applies here as well. Remember though, while your online listing should include everything, a sales brochure can be a summary of the main things you want buyers to know. They will refer to the brochure later, at home, and may use it as a memory aid when telling a spouse or family member about your home. This leaves you with a couple of options. You may choose to simply include everything from your online listing in your sales brochure, or you may use your sales brochure to highlight the main features of your home and include a reference to your online listing. If you choose the latter option, you might print a few copies of your online listing to give out in the event a prospective buyer does not have internet access.

Although it gets somewhat expensive rather quickly, you may wish to include a few color photos in your brochure in addition to the standard exterior shot at the beginning. They can serve as useful reminders to prospective buyers once they have left your home.

While you can always edit your online listing, the same is not true for brochures that you have already printed! You may want to sit down a couple of days before your yard sign arrives and before you conduct any open houses to make an initial version of your brochure. This allows you time to clear your mind and come back with a fresh perspective and decide what to add to your brochure and what to take out. This way, you are completely happy with the printed product.

Since one of the main functions of a print brochure is to serve as a reminder to your open house visitors, you could try to coordinate the content, order or even wording of the brochure with the order of the tour you give and the wording of what you say. This only applies if you have a set tour that you have rehearsed and that is consistent from buyer to buyer. Be careful though, as the other main function of a print brochure is to sell the home to drive-by prospective buyers. Don’t coordinate the brochure with the tour in a way that it doesn’t make sense to those who haven’t taken the tour. If you like the idea of coordinating the brochure with the tour, but are worried about how it would come across to those who find it in the brochure box, you have another option. You could design a regular brochure for the brochure box and to give to visitors, with an additional page coordinated to the tour that you give visitors in along with the regular brochure.

As with your online listing, be sure to point out the things you love most about your home. Read the “Presenting Your Home to the Buyer” paragraph in our Tips for Conducting a Successful Open House for a good idea of what we’re talking about. Some more ideas to get you started:

• The view
• The nice neighbors
• Proximity to shopping centers, parks, restaurants and other important facilities
• Landscaping Features
• Nearby schools: mention special programs- music, sports, etc.
• Recent professional remodeling projects

Avoid using abbreviations, don’t make potential buyers guess what you mean. Use the entire page. Begin with a good exterior picture to help buyers more easily recall the special features of your home once they have left.

Put the address in bold print and follow it up with your name and phone number to encourage potential buyers to call. Make the number of bedrooms and bathrooms prominent, as they are the most important details. Follow closely with the number of garage spaces and the total square footage. Include whatever else you feel is important. Again, the more information the buyer receives, the better chance they have to find things they like.