Rather in same way that many people read magazines in dentists’ waiting rooms, they will flick through brochures and leaflets and stop to take a longer look at bits that grab their attention. Alternatively they’ll flick all way through and then go back to bits they’ve noticed and that have interested them. They’re just as likely to flick through from back to front as they are from front to back.

What all this teaches us is that despite seeming logical, writing for brochures and leaflets in form of a story that starts at beginning, goes through middle and finishes at end, is not necessarily best way forward. Obviously you can’t make every page stand alone with a message on it that says “in case you’re flicking through backwards or only want to read this page, here’s a summary of our corporate profile again.”

But there are some tricks you can use to get this random reading pattern to work a bit more effectively for you, rather than against you.

A lot depends on type and style of brochure or leaflet you want to write, of course. In my experience, generally speaking more specific purpose of a brochure or leaflet more likely readers are to read it properly and thoroughly.

If a leaflet contains assembly instructions, or a brochure contains technical specifications of equipment, there’s a good chance that readers will start at least near beginning and then work through towards end.

Once again, that’s because readers will only get their full value from leaflet or brochure – “what’s in it for them” – by reading it properly. Where you get worst random grasshopper reading, however, is with less specific documents like “welcome” leaflets or “corporate” brochures. So let’s look at how we can minimize problems with those.

Despite all of above, often it is still worthwhile to organize your content in a reasonably logical order. Many people do absorb brochures in usual order, and even if they don’t they still expect to find introduction at beginning, substantiations in middle and conclusion at end. This approach is useful for moderately subject-specific document, like a leaflet about a new service or a brochure about a new line of garden furniture.

The trick here is to put main points in as crossheadings (some people call them sub-headings) in bold type, so that someone scanning document will get gist of your message even if they don’t have time to read body text.

You should also ensure that crossheadings make sense in their own right and that understanding them is not wholly dependent on their being read in any particular order. Body text should support and expand on each crossheading and lead reader towards next one, but without creating a “cliffhanger” (in case reader is going in wrong order).

For more general subject matter – most likely to be skimmed, scanned, flicked through, read upside down or otherwise not absorbed properly at all - here’s some advice from US writer John Butman from “Writing Words That Sell” which he and I co-authored some years back. This is what John calls “chunking:”

“Chunking means that story you are writing is not, in fact, a story at all … it doesn’t have a sequential flow. It’s a string of tiny stories, each with its own message. Each chunk is relatively separate and each page or page-spread is also reasonably separate. This approach means that you need to be careful about antecedents – you can’t refer to something mentioned on page one, because reader may have started reading on page twelve.”

I find that John’s “chunking” approach works particularly well when there is a lot of visual material, with “chunks” of text acting almost like expanded captions to illustrations. With “chunking” you may also use crossheadings, but their importance in telling story by themselves is not as critical. Crossheadings here, then, can be more cryptic or abstract provided that they are relevant.

And a quick word about style, particularly if you are writing a “corporate” brochure or leaflet: this medium, equalled only (perhaps) by “corporate” website is most prone to suffer from curse of “corporate speak.” Sadly it would be very easy for me to illustrate what I mean just by including excerpts here from corporate brochures I could find in offices of both small and large companies based in city where I live. The curse of “corporate speak” lurks everywhere regardless of environment, rather like cold viruses or headlice.

Catalogues

Many people fail to realize that catalogues should be written. Often their objective in creating a catalogue is to cram in as many products as they can with descriptive copy kept to a few mis-spelled words in tiny type squashed into a corner. These people are on-paper equivalent of “stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap” species you encounter in retailing.

However in a retail environment customers can usually pick up products, have a good look at them, read on-pack copy and find out all they need to know, so fact that they’re in a no-frills environment doesn’t matter too much.

When a product is pictured in small, two-dimensional environment of printed page it’s not only no-frills but also very lonely, unless product has support of some well-chosen words to inform readers and encourage them to buy it.

Considering that for many businesses and other organizations their catalogue is their only shop window – or at least represents, potentially, a very significant revenue stream – you would think that everyone’s attention and skill would be focused on its written content as much as its other elements. But no.

All too often catalogues look as though their copy has been written by a well-meaning secondary/high school pupil who can look forward to a glorious future as a street sweeper.

Yes, of course some products that get sold via a catalogue do not need a lot of description and only words you need to include are choice of colours/sizes/quantities etc. But what about “how to order” messages?

I don’t know about you, but if I’m thinking of buying something from a catalogue there’s nothing that puts me off faster than having to spend a lot of time figuring out how to fill out form, who to make cheque out to and where to mail it, etc.

We trashed them because all but odd one or two were ill-considered, highly subjective, barely camouflaged advertising copy that had about as much editorial news value as last week’s shopping list.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because despite fact that this happened many years ago, it’s still happening today. Both offline and now online editors continue to laugh sardonically at self-promoting garbage they receive from corporate sources exactly as my Dad and I laughed umpty-dump years ago. I salivate just thinking about how I could spend fortunes wasted on those releases and photographs over so many years.

And why does this continue to happen? I believe it is because organizations who send out this stuff – particularly their financial managers – just can’t get their heads around difference in culture between what they want to say, and what editors need to deliver to their audiences.

Good PR advisers try hard to compensate, but ultimately it’s client who pays their fees, and if client insists on issuing garbage there’s not much a PR adviser can do other than resign business.

Time after time after time I’m called into companies and asked to comment on why PR coverage they get in media is so poor. 99 times out of a 100 it’s because they’ve issued press releases that are only of interest to themselves and their bosses. And yet when I point this out to them they can’t understand it.

“But our development team worked 14 hours a day for three years to win that contract!” they shout indignantly. “And CEO had to cut short his vacation in Turks & Caicos just so he could sign documents by deadline! I mean, it’s most important thing to have happened to us in history of company!”

“I know,” I croon soothingly, “but those points aren’t of much interest to readers of your regional business press, or your trade press for that matter.”

“Well, maybe not,” they reply. “But they are very relevant to us, and to our shareholders. That’s why we made such an elaborate issue of those points in press release.”

Ah, I think to myself as I gaze out of window to see if my creatively-parked car is going to attract attention of passing traffic policepersons. Here is another problem we encounter with press releases.

It’s called “when is a press release not a press release?” The answer is, when a press release is to be used to impress all sorts of people who are not members of press. Only we want them to think that this is what press will write about us, so we put it in a press release. That would be okay as long as that’s as far as it goes.

But awful truth is same document (paper or electronic) really does get sent out to press. And quite rightly they ignore it, once again because it is of no interest to readership of publication concerned.

For Heaven’s sake, you folks who do this sort of thing, please grow up and face reality. If you want to promote your achievements to your share/stockholders or staff or suppliers or whoever, then just go ahead and do it and dress it up in “press release” costume if you must, although I don’t think that fools anybody.

But whatever you do, don’t send it to press – and don’t kid yourself or anyone else that to use same document for both purposes is a way to economize. It’s a sure way to shoot yourself through foot and indirectly could cost you a fortune.

If you want to get coverage in media then you must forget all elements of self-congratulation. Whatever information you send out has to have something “in it for them” (the audience) - something new, interesting and relevant. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering, just worth reading.

If your organisation has done something brilliant and you’re proud of it, by all means say so; just be sure to emphasise what’s great about it for audience and/or rest of world, not merely for yourselves. Let facts tell story. If your organisation genuinely deserves to be congratulated, it will be.

And you don’t simply have audience to consider in this case, because unlike forms of communication you control, with media coverage decision of whether or not to transmit your message rests with someone else – usually editor. Editors and journalists are either very busy or very lazy or both (and don’t chastise me for admitting that, guys. I’ve been there, done it, got T shirt and drank too much in brasserie at lunchtime too.)

If you supply them with material they can see is relevant to their readers and preferably is usable with minimum of editing, they will warm to it a lot faster than something that may hold a grain of interest but will take someone a whole evening to rewrite and several phone calls or e-mails to check for accuracy.