Corporate Brochures
While a sales brochure helps to sell a specific product or service, a corporate brochure focuses on promoting the company itself — its history, management, capabilities, innovations, and ideals — in addition to its current lineup of products and services.
The overriding objective of a corporate brochure is to persuade the general public — especially the investors, media, partners, and customers — that this is a great company with a bright future. Corporate brochures are also known as capabilities brochures, corporate profiles, and corporate histories.
When writing a corporate brochure, follow these guidelines:
Just because it's called a corporate brochure doesn't mean the copy should be stiff and formal. It's okay to use a casual, even fun, tone.
Use plenty of facts, statistics, and other evidence to support the claims made in the copy. A corporate brochure isn't the place to paint rosy descriptions of benefits you can't really prove.
Be careful with anything that might date the brochure. Things can change quickly in a company. A new product due to be launched in the fall could very well be canceled. If that happened, the full-page spread you dedicated to it would become embarrassingly obsolete.
Put your key messages in headlines, subheads, callouts, and text boxes. People often scan rather than read corporate brochures cover to cover.
Answer the question “Why this company?” throughout the piece. Why should the reader invest in, support, or believe in this company?
There's a lot of scrutiny when you write a corporate brochure. Because it's about the company as a whole, senior management will likely review every word you write. Expect a lot of feedback and requests for changes and revisions. Here is an excellent example of effective corporate brochure writing.
Because they cover so much ground, corporate brochures often run several pages. Since the company is promoting itself, no expense is spared. These types of brochures are often printed on glossy stock featuring expensive photography and illustrations and sophisticated graphics and layout.
Conquering the complexities of Canadian sales taxes
There are many definitions of innovation. But perhaps the most apt is that it's an idea whose time has come.
Bob Brakel had such an idea just over three decades ago. Recognizing how difficult it was for financial managers to cope with Canadian sales taxes, he pioneered a groundbreaking solution built on a novel contingency fee model that virtually eliminated the problem.
It was an innovation that gave birth to an industry.
Today, Robert Brakel & Associates is the recognized authority on Canadian sales taxes. In an age where tight budgets, scarce resources and crushing deadlines are the norm in most accounting departments, RBA clients tap a wealth of resources that make it easy to:
Stay on top of tax issues,
Get fast answers to tough questions, and
Generate and sustain significant sales tax savings.
The toughest challenge in writing a corporate brochure is to avoid being too narcissistic. It's not easy talking about yourself without coming off as a braggart. The trick is to position the company's attitudes, ideals, achievements, and capabilities as benefits to the target audience. It's the same as in any promotional piece you write. You have to answer the question every reader asks: “What's in it for me?”
