Memorize this: Print drives decisions. Decisions are implemented online. That’s the major take away from Julie Coates’ new trends for brochure design for 2020.
Increasingly lifelong learning programs are promoting their programs to millennials, and this means that marketing materials and messages need to evolve to communicate effectively with members of younger generations, she notes in her annual Best Brochure Ideas of the Year session at the big LERN annual conference in San Diego last month.
Here’s your exclusive report with all the 5 key points.
Increasingly lifelong learning programs are promoting their programs to millennials, and this means that marketing materials and messages need to evolve to communicate effectively with members of younger generations. Following are a few tips on how to appeal to younger adults.
Be authentic. Younger adults are more exhausted from and less tolerant of media hype than the rest of the world. They are less trusting and quicker to judge a message a manipulative rather than informative.
- Use authentic photographs (avoid stock photos)
- Avoid hyperbole (don’t oversell or over-promise)
- Hit the hot buttons (keep your message on target)
- Don’t “boomerize” your messaging (there’s bad blood here, people)
Focus on your participants. The best print brochures we are seeing have lots of content that focuses on participants.
- Tell their stories
- Share their struggles and their successes
- Make them come alive in your pages
- Help your prospective participants relate to them
Highlight your Instructors. Your instructors are your most important assets. We all know that we wanted to sign up for classes taught by specific instructors because they had a reputation for being good teachers. This is true for your participants, as well.
- Turn your instructors into “real people”
- Make them relatable
- Make them accessible and helpful
Personalize your content. There are lots of ways to do this in every section of your brochure—from the table of contents to the registration pages. Some of those techniques include the tips above, but there are a lot more things you can do—and must do—if you are going to be successful in reaching younger adults.
- Create friendly, inviting contact pages.
- Make the process simple and unintimidating.
- Use photos of your staff
- Include names and job functions of the person to contact
- Include personal information about your staff, pictures of their pets, their hobbies. Make them real and friendly.
- Help young people overcome their reluctance to ask questions
- Reduce Risk.
Reduce Risk. Most young adults are intimidated by bureaucracy and the rigid rules that have characterized educational institutions for the past 100 years. The result is that lots of these students just won’t risk rejection or failure. This is bad for them and bad for you.
- Have flexible registration options
- Eliminate penalties for most everything
- Have a generous refund policy
- Create easy access to information about your program
- Train your staff until you can’t train them anymore to be friendly, helpful and supportive
Put it in print. Set aside your notions that millennials want everything online and that baby boomers want everything in print. You have it backwards! Boomers in the US lead all other nations in computer literacy of older adults. And millennials prefer print catalogs. Yes. The popularity of print continues to rise as more younger people begin to participate in lifelong learning. Increasingly, lifelong learning members are noting that when they improve their print catalog, their online and digital presence is more effective. The catalog drives traffic to your website.
- Integrate your print materials with digital communication
- Focus on creating well-designed, easily navigable web pages and good social media
- Print drives decisions. Decisions are implemented online