By Granville Y. Brady, Jr., AuD

The brochure is an important tool in a marketing program as it is often the first contact a patient or referral has with an audiology practice. Therefore, your brochure must give a great first impression while offering information about you, your services and your practice that will entice patients to make appointments or physicians to refer cases.

Every audiology practice is different, so there is no "perfect" brochure model to fit every need. However, by following some standard procedures, you can create a professional brochure that is perfect for your practice.

Target Your Market

Who is your audience? You might think that anyone who needs audiological or vestibular services is your target market—but that isn't always true. A "one-stop-shopping" pamphlet might be good for certain populations but lost on others. For example, most audiologists market their services to the general public as well as to physicians and other referral sources. A brochure aimed at physicians might be far too technical and subsequently lost on the general public.

The first task is to consider developing at least two brochures—one for the public and one for professional referral sources. Both need to be written in language that a non-audiologist can understand. With that in mind, the audiologist can begin to develop a script for each brochure.

Decide on Your Message

The next task is to decide what to say in the text of the brochure. You need to tell your audience about your qualifications, where you are located and any special features or talents you possess. Develop an F-A-B analysis for every aspect of your practice: features, advantages and benefits. What features does your practice have, how are they advantageous and, most important, how do they benefit your target audience? For example, having Saturday hours is a feature, the advantage is that nobody else offers them and the benefit is that the patient who needs a ride from a working son or daughter can see you on the weekend. Another example is your professional degree, which is a feature. The advantage is your advanced education, and the benefit is comprehensive care for patients.

The F-A-B analysis is also important in developing the doctor brochure. For example, scheduling dizzy cases within 48 hours is a feature. The advantage is that the patient is seen faster than anywhere else in the area, and the benefit is that the doctor can begin treatment faster with a higher probability of success. A happy patient translates into a happy doctor who will consider you above other practices when referring dizzy cases.

Draft the brochure language based on the F-A-B analysis. Hopefully, you have been able to list many more features, advantages and benefits than would fit into one document, so you need to prioritize them so that the less important features can be eliminated, if necessary, in the final product. Sentences that describe your training and experience should be short but comprehensive. Realize that not all the information in the brochure will be read and that the important points need to be highlighted.

Use the correct language for your audience. For example, both patient and doctor brochures might have a heading for "Signs of Balance Problems" with the symptoms listed below. In the patient brochure, a symptom might be listed as "momentary dizziness" while "vertigo" is substituted in the physician pamphlet. The doctor brochure should contain more information about disorders, whereas the patient brochure might note what the audiologist does to evaluate or treat the disorder.

The brochure should have the audiology practice Web site listed so that an interested party may obtain further information on the Internet. If the practice has multiple offices, list all of them.

Create a Rough Draft

Once you have developed the basic concept for the brochures, it is time to start a rough layout. It is important to allow for plenty of white space in your layout. Most brochures contain too much information and too little empty space. The use of bullets to emphasize points is a good way to draw the reader's attention to important topics. The use of a couple of photographs—of you, your staff or the front of your office—can add interest, as well as graphics showing a design of the ear or your logo. But as with text, don't go overboard. Too many photos are confusing, and they also can be expensive to reproduce.

The brochure should be no more than six sides, called a tri-fold. To envision a tri-fold, take an 8.5" X 11" sheet of paper and hold it so that the shorter sides are on each side. Fold the paper as you would when mailing a business letter, so that there are three panels on each side of the paper. Each panel should contain information, giving you six sides to fill. When folded, the first panel is the face side, the most important since it is your introduction to the reader. The next most important side is the one at the right as the reader opens the tri-fold. In our case, we listed "Audiology Care for All Your Hearing Needs" as the heading. Next is the center, which contains information about the audiologist's training and experience as well as information about specific hearing and vestibular disorders and their symptoms. The back or fifth page contains mission statements, hours of operation and other details that a serious reader might want to know. The back is the "hook" that persuades the reader to take action. Photographs on the middle pages personalize the flyer. Many patients exclaim that we look like (or don't look like) our photo!

Ensure a Professional Product

Once you have decided on all elements of your brochure, it's time to find a professional printer to create the final product. The advent of desktop publishing has made it easy to create printed materials right in the office, and it may seem that a good software program can duplicate, at a fraction of the cost, the services of a professional designer. Unfortunately, even the best software in the hands of a novice often produces less than professional results. Unless you or someone in your office has expert design and production knowledge, it is better to use your software to develop a draft and then take it to a professional printer to make the final product.

Your printer should offer layout services, helping you to decide where each part fits in for the best presentation as well as what kind of paper and ink will best serve your needs and your budget. The paper should be the best and heaviest weight that you can afford. In our case, we use 80-lb. paper with a semi-gloss finish. Keep in mind that you are a professional and that the brochure should represent the sophistication of your services and practice. Skimping on the cost of printing or paper can reflect poorly on your image, so budget enough for a quality job.

Use Brochures Effectively

The best approach for getting your message out is to establish a marketing plan. In some cases, an audiologist might use the brochures as direct mail pieces to attract new cases. The cost of quality brochures may prohibit their use as mass mailers, but they can be selectively sent to qualified prospects, dormant cases on the mailing list and previous patients who need an update of the practice. Another effective use is to display your brochure in physician offices. The doctor brochure can be hand-delivered by a field representative or enclosed with each report sent to the referring physician. Brochures can also be included in physician or patient information packets that are given out at health fairs and professional meetings.

Putting together the perfect brochure might seem to be time-consuming, but a quality piece reflects on your entire practice. Your attention to detail and your personal message will make your practice stand out from the rest.

Granville Y. Brady, Jr., AuD, practices in East Brunswick and Clifton, NJ. Contact him at drgranbrady@optonline.net