Essential Elements of a Promotional Flyer Designs

As mighty fine and simple as the promotional flyer, it does take a lot consideration and time to be able to come up with a final decision and be able to produce stacks of these traditional medium. As to not waste the major efforts on the production, an understanding of one’s target audience is the key to an effective promotion. Whether the intended promotional flyer is dedicated for the general audience or concentrated on a specific age group.

Let us introduce to you a technique widely used in the advertising industry, the market segmentation, which will be discussed down below. This will be of great help determining your potential target audience and pave way to plotting promotional strategies. If you missed it, here is the first part to the making of a promotional flyer.

Market Segmentation.

As previously mentioned in the previous article, your target market or niche are the ones who are strongly affected by the advertising message set out. To get to know more about your target audience, the market segmentation is one effective way in determining specific details that you may incorporate in your strategy and design.

Demographics.

Age: What specific age group will be ideal for the promotional flyer? The age groups, for example directly below, will affect what strategies, tone of voice and agendas set out for.

• 09-11: This age group loosely caters to tweens. The latter is for kids that are too old to be called kids and too young to be a teenager.
• 12-17: Considered to be teenagers, this age group is deemed to be knowledgeable with technology, familiar with trends and so on.
• 18-21: This age group are considered as the young adults. Mostly individuals situated in this segment are in high school and in some cases, in college.
• 22-24: Belonging to this category are college students.
• 25-30. Most individuals in this category are already working.

The age group segmentation is flexible. The example above isn’t the standard groupings for this category. Just keep in mind to be specific and mention the age group that fits your overall direction.

Age group example courtesy of Group Clone

Gender: Will this promotional flyer benefit to dominantly females or males? To be more specific with your segmentation, will the LGBTQ be it queer individuals, drag queens and kings, trans and so on benefit from this promotional flyer?

Let’s put in another example for the gender segmentation. Lipsticks is an all-important product to have in your make up bag, it brings in a whole new persona, character and it reassures the confidence in a woman. There is actually a day dedicated for lipsticks; the National Lipstick Day. It occurs during July 29 and some makeup brands set a month long promotion for their lipstick products. Posters and flyers are set out to a physical location and in the digital media vehicle. Who are they targeting; Makeup enthusiasts, makeup artists? Yes, but in a specific manner brands are targeting their products to women.

Too Faced National Lipstick Day / Gender segmentation example courtesy of HayLyons

Karaoke Night Pride Edition Flyer / Gender segmentation example courtesy of Flyer Heroes

Educational Status: The educational status won’t be entirely covered by addressing the target audience’s age especially if you are really specific with your approach. In this category, do mention specifically the educational attainment does you target audience acquired. Example: Grade School, High school, Undergraduates, College graduates and so on.

LOVE ROCKS NYC! Poster & Flyer / Educational Status segmentation example courtesy of Jambands.com

Social Status: In an objective manner, do address the social status of your potential target market. The core to dividing your potential target market into a specific social class is due to the different response that they might receive. This makes sense to allow adjustment and using different approaches to the various social class segmentation.

For example:

• Class A: High-class individuals.
• Class B: Above average middle class.
• Class C: Middle class.
• Class D: Below middle class.

Similar to the division of the age groups, the social status segmentation is flexible and the following example isnt the standard for such.

Bruce Eyewear Trunk Show Flyer / Social Status segmentation example courtesy of Bruce Eyewear

Marital Status: Are your target market single, engaged or married? Back to school promotions, for example, the theme is for students but it is actually dedicated to parents. Since the latter are the ones who makes the purchase decision other than their kids.

Allure Bridals Promotional Flyer / Marital Status segmentation example courtesy of Pinterest

Other essentials to mention for the demographic segmentation:

• Number of Children
• Nationality
• Income (Optional)
• Religious Affiliation

Psychographics.

Personality: Brands, products, and services all have personalities and this reflects the individuals doing the purchase decision. Addressing the consumers personality can determine the need and connection towards the product and are more likely to engage with it.

Lifestyle: For this segmentation, it is crucial to determine a target audience’s lifestyle patterns which could determine their wants and needs since they are based on those patterns. As well as this segment allows brands and marketers to promote their products as solutions to their situation and what they consider important at that time of purchase of exposure.

Loyalty: Do you find your target market as ones who add in variety in their purchase decision or buy your brand most of the time? Either way, specifying such matter in this segmentation allows new ways in adapting marketing vehicles and strategies whether it is to welcome or retain customers.

Opinions, attitudes, interests, and hobbies: This segmentation includes opinions on topics that touches religion, gender, economy and politics. In a broader scale, this could determine the target market’s views on the environment and other cultural issues. This will affect on which products they buy, services used as well as responding to an advertising’s message. With the accumulated data for this specific psychographic segmentation, is a high advantage for online marketing and when using social media as a digital media vehicle.

Occasion: Purchases made over the holidays, weddings, birthdays and so on can help in finding new ways and strategies in broadening an existing array of products and services.

Geographics.

Urban or Rural: You have to specify where your target audience resides be it rural or urban. It makes sense to to have this segment to answer question about distribution, placement, tone of voice and so on.

Country: Similar to the question of location, do mention the specific country targeted for your promotional flyer. This will answer if the product fits your potential target audience. You may also use this data as a way to incorporate a country’s mother tongue as the primary language used for the flyer. You may also incorporate one’s culture to bring a certain level of connection and relatable characteristic to your promotional flyer.

Japanese Performance & Music Flyer / Geographics segmentation example courtesy of Pinterest

Let us visualize.

Another technique used is by profiling, though similar in terms of market segmentation different presentation wise. Profiling is more of a storytelling version of the latter. Before we call it a day, for now, let us visualize and apply the examples above. For now, let us get to know Karen who will be the epitome of a make believe market segmentation for a launching of metal straws.

Meet Karen.

Profiling example courtesy of Pinterest

• Karen, is a freshmen in college. She is outgoing, friendly and possesses an upbeat personality. As a freshmen, she enjoys hanging and going out to parties. Despite the enjoyment with reveling, she excels in her studies and in the university and is the head of the graphic design committee. When she’s outdoors, she basks in the calmness and the beauty of environment presented in front of her. This is after her hike in the mountains. She believes in the importance of the preservation of nature and diminishing the use of plastics and straws.

Essentials to Include for Every Promotional Flyer.

You might have seen and experienced the elements of what completes a flyer. And in this list, let us visualize and break down the essentials to include in every promotional flyer. We say, don’t leave these elements behind. You may also scan through our guide to crafting a brilliant flyer which tackles on the general application of design and technical elements to flyers. You may freely bask in the brilliance of the flyers set to inspire your creative eye.

For this list, it is best to visualize each essential and as an example, the LUSH poster will be our guide to this segment. The parts of the poster will be emphasized for each element.

LUSH 2014 Poster / Flyer.

Designer: Aya Jugalbot

LUSH 2014 Poster / Flyer example Photo courtesy of Aya Jugalbot

Visit Aya Jugalbot

Brand or Organizational Logo. 

The brand’s logo is the starting line to the entire promotional flyer. This design element is situated on top of the page sometimes aligned to the center or on either sides. Keep in mind to treat the logo placement as equally important as the other design and technical elements. That is by the fact that their brand’s message wouldn’t be appropriately conveyed once their logo are placed in a stretched or distorted way.

To avoid this type of situation, kindly refer to the brand’s design guide or as its called brand guide. The latter serves as an instructional guide to the proper uses and application of the brand’s identity onto their advertising and branding collaterals. If you happen to need one or skim through to review what brand guides are, you may freely go through our aid on things to include in a brand guide.

Photo courtesy of Aya Jugalbot

Event name. 

Whether it is a launching of a product, sales promotions, event and so on, do place the event name as the main highlight of the flyer. Having said that, despite it being the emphasis of the flyer design the event name should not overshadow other design and technical elements. Rather, allow viewers to be directed to the latter.

Keep in mind to set the event name using a readable type or font due to its moderate size. The same philosophy as to the typographical treatment in posters, you want to allow viewers to be able to read in from afar and when close to the mid-size medium.

Photo courtesy of Aya Jugalbot

Event descriptor. 

Describe the event’s theme as well as its agenda. Will it be for charitable purposes or a showcase of products and so on. Keep the reader’s attention with this segment in the promotional flyer and spread awareness of the brand or event’s intention.

To balance the big type treatment with the typographical use of the event name, make sure to pair the fonts to create a balanced appearance of the text.

Event Details. 

This segment includes the date, time, locale and in some cases, motif or theme. Since flyers would bring about a one-way information towards the viewer, make sure to be brief and accurate when setting out the event details.

Photo courtesy of Aya Jugalbot

Call to Action. 

Call to action might mean two things in terms of promotional flyers. Call to action could mean the phrases set to entice and evoke an urgent message to the viewers. For example, “Call now.”, “Buy now before supplies last.” or even “The first 10 customers receives a free gift certificate”.

Call to Action could also mean the social media and website icons or information placed on the promotional flyer. As previously mentioned that the latter gives a one-way information towards the viewers, the call to action may break such direction. With these social media and website information, readers can contact and ask for further questions or at least view the product, event etc. presented in the promotional flyer.

Photo courtesy of Aya Jugalbot

For the call of action used in this poster/flyer, they incorporated hashtags for the event designated for Instagram and Twitter. This is a great way to create buzz and hype for the event be it during and after the event.

Sponsor Line. 

Sponsors of the agenda presented in your promotional flyer, as part of the agreement, exposure for the aforementioned is important. Do place the line up of sponsors on a quiet background as to not bring any distraction towards their brand logos.

Photo courtesy of Aya Jugalbot

On the flip side…

Promotional flyers are a key to bringing success in campaigning for brands as well as for political candidates; even in launching an event or product. Keep in mind of the market segmentation and the previously mentioned topics above that will be of great help when crafting and handing out promotional flyers. Now, enough of the latter. Beyond the purpose of promotional flyers, business flyers are as equally important in endorsing a brand and business. You may go through our list of design tips in creating high-impact business flyers. We hope that it will be of great use for your design projects and for future references.