Want to win over clients with a professional digital brochure? Here's the secret sauce.
As a designer or fellow marketer, you already understand the power—and the challenge—of storytelling. You’re crafting stories with visuals, color, and copy that must resonate and convert. You want to showcase your style, express your values, and make even the most design-shy client say, “I get it—and I want in.”
Enter: the digital brochure. Sleeker than a PDF, more intentional than a website, it’s your story, your way—wrapped in a format that’s easy to share and hard to forget. Today, we’ll break down:
- Why digital brochures are your storytelling secret weapon
- What makes an effective digital brochure, from layout to voice
- Real-world examples of well-crafted brochures to spark ideas
- Top digital brochure templates to help you build your own, fast
Why share your agency’s story via a digital brochure?
In short, digital brochures maintain the perfect balance between creativity and familiarity.
Modern digital brochures can be engaging, interactive, and easy to navigate, making them effective assets for presenting your agency to potential clients and partners.
Personalization
People love custom content and respond well to it. Something as simple as adding a client’s logo next to your own or offering tailored pricing can foster a stronger connection and build a relationship. And, unlike a website that can provide virtually one-size-fits-all content, a digital brochure can be personalized with a couple of clicks.
Staying current
Need to add a new case study, tweak your pricing, or fix a typo? Updating a digital brochure is faster and simpler than updating a website. Worried you’ll have to re-send your brochure to keep it up-to-date? Many digital brochure makers host your documents online and allow you to change the content without changing the link, saving you the hassle of re-sharing your content.
Expanding your reach
Digital brochures are most exclusively shared in one-on-one communications for reasons like personalization and privacy. However, turning your brochure into a downloadable asset for featuring on product review websites like G2 or visual discovery platforms like Pinterest can give you extra visibility online, boost brand awareness, and help attract leads.
Another great approach: position your agency as an expert by publishing collections of design, branding, or marketing tips in the digital brochure form, just like Ogilvy does:
Sharing valuable, insightful content helps build trust, establish thought leadership, and introduce your brand voice to new audiences, attracting those who align with your spirit.
Controlling the narrative
Unlike a website, where the visitors’ path may be unpredictable and sporadic, a digital brochure offers a linear storytelling format. You decide how your brand story unfolds, highlight key points, and guide the reader through the content as they learn about your agency’s mission, values, and experience.
Plus, digital brochures are easy to adapt to any storytelling depth. Want to keep it light and short, so people can scan the content in three minutes? Easy. Need to explain the process, educate with use cases, and provide ample room for examples? Who’s there to stop you?
How to structure your agency’s story in a digital brochure
What should your digital brochure include to be truly compelling? Of course, you can be creative about it, but just as any good story needs a good structure, your brochure needs a structure to engage the reader.
Here are the key sections every agency’s digital brochure or presentation requires:
- Cover page: A good cover page includes strong visuals that match your brand identity and a catchy tagline. You could also add contact details and a brief overview of what’s inside to hook the reader instantly.
- About us: Why should the client choose you? This is the perfect section to answer that question. Introduce your team, journey, and brand values — and show the reader that you are a good match.
- Portfolio showcase: Highlight your best work. Use plenty of visuals and, where possible, embed videos. Remember that short descriptions and measurable results add credibility and context.
- Services offered: List your services clearly and concisely, so it’s easier for the reader to see what you do and how you can help.
- Client testimonials: Build trust with success stories from real people! This could be a separate section, or you can embed testimonials within each project showcase to reinforce impact.
- Call to action: A clear call to action is essential in a one-on-one share. Guide your reader on what to do next, and include contact details for easy follow-up.
How to empower your digital brochure for maximum impact
Once your structure is in place, it’s time to design. Your copy and tone reveal your brand personality, but visuals truly define it. Is it bold, playful, or elegant? Provocative or sophisticated? Deciding on a theme up front brings consistency and impact to your message.
And if you’re really determined to give the digital brochure your all, here are a few more elements to consider:
Brand for faster recognition
You don’t need to replicate your website exactly, but your digital content should align with your brand management strategy. It’s easy when you add your logo, brand colors, and typography to maintain consistency.
For example, FlippingBook lets you brand the entire space around the digital brochure, including a clickable logo that leads to your website, a custom background, and colors. A cohesive design like this creates a premium feel and reinforces trust.
Add interactivity for deeper engagement
Gone are the bleak days of static PDF brochures and stale PowerPoint animations. Now, you can easily turn a PDF into a digital brochure — more potent than a print one could ever be — thanks to a mix of various interactive content across its pages.
Here’s how interactivity helps you elevate your static content:
- Videos: Add a team intro, project walkthroughs, or client testimonials to make your story more engaging and cater to people who prefer video to text.
- GIFs: You can use them for fun or draw attention to key parts of the digital brochure, breathing life into your content.
- Pop-up images: Your reader clicks an image and sees its high-resolution version, or a whole collection of images. This could be handy for including more project samples without crowding the page space.
- Fillable forms: Surveys and quizzes that open right across the pages of your digital brochure can turn it into a great lead-generating tool.
Here’s another example from Ogilvy with their 2023 Cannes recap, featuring videos in the ‘Works’ section — perfect for an event centered on video ads:
Think through the navigation
If your digital brochure has 10+ pages, you must consider navigation. There’s hardly anything more tedious than scrolling through an endless PDF (or a webpage, for that matter) without a chance to jump to the most relevant part.
One solution is to create a table of contents (or bookmarks) when preparing your PDF. Many digital brochure makers and design tools also let you create a clickable table of contents, helping readers navigate the content faster and more efficiently.
The benefits of using a digital brochure template
Even if you’re a design pro (and we know you are), a great template can supercharge your workflow:
- Stay consistent: The template gives you the structure, lists all the needed elements, and serves as a reminder of what else needs to be included, so you can work on the big picture without worrying about the details.
- You get inspired: Creative block can strike at the worst time possible, so if your mind goes blank, a ready, well-designed brochure template may help you get back on track. After all, it’s always easier to build on a foundation than to design something from scratch.
- You work faster: Templates help you be more productive. It’s crucial when deadlines are tight or you need to iterate quickly.
Envato has a vast collection of top-tier digital brochure templates to choose from:
Tell your story in a way that works
A well-designed, interactive brochure isn’t just a marketing asset—it’s your agency’s story, values, and voice distilled into an engaging and personal format. Whether showcasing your work, pitching to a new client, or building thought leadership, digital brochures are a powerful storytelling tool.
And with the right structure, template, and tools, your next digital brochure might become your most impactful pitch yet. Use creative assets from Envato to create the slick, professional look you need, and also take advantage of Envato’s full AI stack to get all the leading generative AI tools you need, all in one place.
