Q: I am looking for information on the best type of brochure to send out. We currently send out 2- 20 page traditional brochures – color cover – black/ white inside - Classes listed by category with each class including text description, date, fee, instructor – black/white photos to highlight classes. We recently consolidated with another school and that CE department sends out a trifold that is 24 x 11 folded to be 8.5 x 11 finished product. Color cover – 1 color inside – some fades to highlight categories. This brochure lists by category the class name, date, fee.
We want to determine if one is more successful than the other. This Fall, again because of the consolidation, we agreed to use the other CE’s brochure branding “On Course” instead of the school name being more prominent – our sales were down for the Fall – not sure if this was the reason or not but I am a little nervous to make a big change.
Other differences – we have 2 markets – one a rural area ( limited population) and one more of a bedroom community near Atlanta that has great small businesses and a few major businesses (strong population). That is why we send out 2 brochures – we send out about 14,000 of each brochure. Our other CE area is in a big city with major business and industry (large population) – they send out 80,000.
I hope this gives you some idea of our issues. Do you have any information that can assist me in deciding what direction to follow for our Winter/Spring brochure.
A: You are right to be cautious about making a big change. If you make the wrong decision, then you might see a big drop in enrollments. Of course, it is hard to know the cause of this fall's lower enrollment. I can tell you that overall, only 29% of programs saw declines in their enrollment this fall, based on a survey of our members, so in general, programs saw steady or increasing registrations.
Of course, you can test the effectiveness of one brochure over the other by sending out a mailing to about 10% of your customer base. To 5% send out the tri-fold, and to 5% send out your larger brochure. Measure the difference in response, and you will know which one works better. This test is not difficult to do, and is relatively inexpensive. You need to be sure that you are sending the test mailings to the same market, otherwise, the response rates won't tell you much.
What would really be best would be for me to take a look at the two different brochures, and evaluate them. Then we could set up a time to discuss.