By Sandra Eggers The tone of a written piece like your brochure can best be defined as the feel or emotional effect this piece has. Many things make up tone. The words you use in your brochure. The length of your sentences. The colors you use. The font. The punctuation. The type of graphics or photos. The graphic design.The type of paper you use. To give your brochure its proper tone, all of these elements need to come together, giving it one particular feel. Thats nice, I bet your saying right now. Wake me up when youre done with your artsy lecture. Whoa, pardner! Back up the Macor park your PC--right now & listen up. This is not some fancy-schmancy, high-falutin, artsy-fartsy, fuzzy-wuzzy concept. Its real. And it has real (read: bottomline) consequences. Ill start by describing an actual brochure I saw, one that Ive used as a very bad example, during the brochure workshops Ive given in the Detroit area. This brochure was on a very sensitive and heart wrenching topic: domestic violence. It was done by a metropolitan agency to either a.) make the public aware that domestic violence hurts children and is, by extension, child abuse b.) warn the perpetrators of the crime that it is, well, a crime. (For starters, this brochure was so poorly written, it was hard to decipher who it was aimed at. In fact, it stumped my workshop participants.) Now, writing this brochure unsure of the target market wasnt the least of its problems. Here is where we get to tone. It was a harsh 1-color (yes, 1-color--black type on white paper.It looked like something dashed off and photocopied.) brochure with large type & sentences that seemed to scream at you. The header read: There is NO Excuse, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE Its A Crime! The word you was used, but in a harsh, high-handed tone: What you should know about . . . followed this screaming headline. It got your attention, alright. But its tone was so shrill and harsh, it didnt invite me in, to learn, to get help. It only pushed me away. So you see, tone is very important. Now, Ill explain another example also from a government agency and dealing with children that does a much, much better job. This brochure was 1-color also. Only it was done by a graphic artist who knew how to use many shades of grey, screens, and other techniques to make what was originally black into a soft, warm, inviting picture.
In the center of the brochure were black and white photos of 4 smiling children, each of a different race. Above the kids was the header: The Health Insurance You Need In the center of the kids was a circle with the words MIChild, the acronym for low-cost childrens insurance, playing on the zip code abbreviation for the state of Michigan. Instantly known to its target market. Then, at the bottom of the brochurestill on the coverwere the words At a Price You Can Afford, followed by the toll-free number. The whole tone of this brochure is We want to help you. We respect you. We understand you. (And thats just from reviewing the cover!) See the difference? Even though both brochures were from government agencies, even though both brochures were only 1 color, the difference between them is vast. As, Im sure, were the results. In these brief paragraphs, Ive given you just a tiny glimpse of what tone is and why its important. There are many more examples in kinds of tone; how each tone is accomplished with the words chosen, the sentence length and structure, the type of paper, etc.I hope, however, that in these brief paragraphs you can begin to understand tone and its importance. And, most important, you can understand how you can apply it to your own brochure. (c)CSC Group, LLC For more than 20 years and now as founder of Purple Eagle Marketing, Sandra Eggers has been writing persuasive marketing copy for clients both big and small, including CNA Life, the Arthritis Foundation and Holiday Inn, helping them attract more customers, increasing their sales. To hire her for your next project, check out: http://purpleeaglemarketing.com For more practical tips, tricks and information to creating effective brochures even if you cant write check out http://brochurecopysecrets.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sandra_Eggers http://EzineArticles.com/?Business-Brochure-Writing:-What-is-Tone-and-Why-Its-Important&id=444629 paxil diazepam buy ambien online
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