Designing Promotional Flyers For Holistic Coaches & Practitioners… The Easy Way!

Are you a holistic life coach or health and wellbeing practitioner getting started with promotional designing?

When I first collaborated with the MindBodyFood Institute – back when the Founder was teaching holistic community courses – we began our marketing efforts locally, with a simple design printed on A5 paper; a few hundred flyers at a time.

I remember frequenting the stationery superstore “OfficeWorks” to buy boxes of quality white A4 paper to keep the chain moving; this was in addition to all the colour cartridges we went through!

Although cost effective at the time, it also required the initial time to design and then distribute all the flyers. Printing them was the easy part to keep the momentum going.

Sure, printing flyers is kind of “old school” and you might already be thinking, is this really going to work for me? Hang in there because this worked really well for us and it’s a fantastic method to get you started in your local community at minimal cost.

Initially, we designed our flyers using Microsoft Word. There was no need to use programs such as Adobe or other similar software products that cost an arm and a leg, when we could easily use this at minimal cost. Eventually we moved into using free online software with predesigned templates to speed up the design process and present an overall more professional look. Canva has become one of our go-to favourites.

The design of our flyers involved photo sessions. Sometimes we would take photos in the back garden and sometimes we would drive to a particular location. Some of our best photos were taken on the manicured office front lawn.

It’s quite easy to stage a photo – find some nice flowers, green grass, native bushes and use your own props that relate to your target niche.

For example:

Are you a Holistic Life coach? Fluff up the pillows on your bed or lounge, place a pot of tea or some health magazines nearby, put on your nicest activewear, or get comfortable in your favourite meditation space. Think of how a balanced lifestyle has improved your health & wellbeing and smile while the camera captures that moment.

The best on-location shoot was at a beautiful scenery approximately 90-minute drive from the office – out west and up a mountain! There were beautiful trees, kangaroos and wallabies all around, and many cute cottages lining the side of the road. We found a stop on one of the highest peaks and walked to a bench. The sun was out, the sky was clear and there was a lovely cool breeze.

Out of that impromptu stop, we got some great shots in the sun, with a beautiful view in the background – and we still use some of those pics today!

I’m by no means a professional photographer, however with today’s modern technology in our mobile phones and cheaper SLR type cameras, you can easily get the right photo for your brochure.

The hardest part is actually doing it and being ready to capture the moment.

If you’re not sure what information OR design you’d like your flyer to be, you can walk around your town and visit the many café’s, shops and chemists that display flyers.

Grab as many of them as you can to take home and learn from. Take note of what aspects you like and don’t like about each flyer:

Which one grabs your attention the most?
What wording and phrasing catches your eye with interest?
Do the colours invoke a feeling that matches the topic of your poster/service/offering?
Do you know exactly what the business is offering?
Has the business captured their message in a short, sharp, striking way?
Is the message of their service or product made appealing in the right way?
Even if you’re not their target market, did it still capture your interest?

We found the best size flyers were A5 (i.e. half the size of A4). This size was most effective for two purpose:

a) placing the flyers in the available spaces, and

b) easy for people to take the flyer with them.

I have found that brochures that include lots of wording and over descriptive text are my least favourite flyers. Too much text looks like a hard sell – and who has time to read long-winded brochures anyway? That’s too much work for busy individuals!

Think about the signs you see on the side of the road. When you’re driving passed these signs you have about a second to glance at them. How many signs have you seen like this with too many words? How on earth are you supposed to read them in a split second?

Remember, a person will make a decision in less than 2 seconds if they pick up your flyer or not. So use the right words, colours and design to immediately spark interest!

Featured image by bruce mars on Unsplash.