Custom Booklet Solutions for Business Success

Booklets. Everyone’s familiar with this bite-sized version of a book, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s using them to their fullest potential. As a print format, they have far more space available for information, branding, and design than a postcard or a flyer. They’re also easier to develop, produce, and distribute than a full-size book. This balance of information, aesthetics, and portability makes them one of the most powerful and versatile print materials a business can produce.

To help prove our point, we’ve summarized 15 of the most popular custom booklet types that we produce at Wallace Carlson Printing. From event programs to training resources, sales collateral and marketing materials, learn how you can take full advantage of this multifaceted asset to benefit your business. 

Versatility for Business Needs: 15 Examples of Custom Booklet Printing

Before we start our list, remember that every example we share requires meticulous tailoring to your brand to be fully effective. After all, it’s a booklet’s unique combination of content capacity, design flexibility, and aesthetic impact that makes it so compelling. Using one-size-fits-all templates or accepting sub-par print quality undercuts those strengths. Conversely, choosing a strong printing partner who can optimize your designs and precisely render your design and brand elements will ensure your booklets always hit their mark.

Now, on with the examples! Here are 15 types of custom booklets for you to consider for your marketing, sales, and corporate strategies.

1. Product Catalogs

Catalogs are periodic publications featuring product illustrations, descriptions, and pricing information. This type of booklet is sometimes mailed to customers, and sometimes distributed in person via trade shows, showrooms, and the like. Graphic quality is particularly critical for catalogs, since products need to be accurately depicted and compelling for viewers. Achieving top quality requires a combination of high-resolution images and strong expertise from the printer.

2. Corporate Brochures

Brochures are typically used by businesses to highlight specific services, offers, events, or opportunities. They can be mailed out, but they are more frequently distributed during in-person interactions between sales professionals and potential customers. Depending on what they’re highlighting, brochures can lean either information or image heavy, resulting in highly variable designs. Regardless, the final product’s look and feel is important, as a brochure’s physical impression can have as much of an impact on its effectiveness as the content it contains.

3. Employee Handbooks

This type of custom booklet is an internal document, intended to educate employees and provide quick reference as needed. They typically feature a relatively large amount of information, with a table of contents to make finding specific sections easy. Because these booklets are meant to be used repeatedly and, in some cases, carried by employees during their work, durability and quality is of particular importance.

4. Training Manuals

Like employee handbooks, training manuals are internal documents used for educating employees. They may target general company knowledge and onboarding processes, or the ongoing development of specific skills. Depending on the training methods being used, these booklets may be written in, carried around, or passed between multiple employees, making both paper and binding choices critical considerations to discuss with your printer.

5. Annual Reports

Annual reports are internal documents usually printed for company stakeholders. They summarize a business’ financial performance over the prior fiscal year. As a formal documents conveying serious information, these types of booklets often use thicker paper and advanced print finishes like cold foil and spot gloss. These treatments can help convey gravitas and stability, setting a favorable mood for recipients.

6. Sales & Marketing Collateral

Booklets used as sales and marketing collateral include price guides, product and service showcases, case studies, branded reports, and more. Regardless of the specific content, these booklets must feature flawless branding to make an impact during a sales pitch or as a leave-behind document. Precise use of colors, logos, and imagery can make all the difference between a lasting impression and a missed opportunity.

7. Conference & Event Programs

Program booklets are printed to help direct and inform event attendees. They may include schedules, speaker biographies, maps, and narrative elements like corporate histories or addresses from leadership. Features like cold foil printing on program booklets can help boost an event’s formality, while emphasizing crisp, colorful imagery can help contribute to an atmosphere of fun and excitement. Above all, these booklets need to be well organized and easy to follow, so attendees can find their way through the event.

8. Company Profiles

A company profile tells the story of your business in a nutshell, encompassing past highlights, present status, and future predictions. These types of booklets are often handed out at networking events with potential investors and clients, playing a critical role in first impressions. As such, they demand perfection. Compelling content, beautiful visuals, pleasing design, and quality construction are all must-haves.

9. Investor Presentations

Investor presentations, also known as pitch decks, are often shared simultaneously on-screen by the presenter and in printed booklets handed out to each shareholder or potential investor. They’re used to explain the business plan and financial circumstances of a company, and persuade potential investors to contribute funding. Opting for premium materials and finishes, like spot gloss, can help create a more favorable, successful impression of the presentation overall.

10. Service Portfolios

A service portfolio is a critical document for IT service providers, outlining and defining their retired services (past), their current service catalog (present), and what’s in their service pipeline (future). These documents help IT departments and vendors provide clear, accurate communication about what they do and do not offer. Flow charts, infographics, and text form the core content of these booklets, making crisp, clear printing vital. Because the complex information can be tricky to organize, working with a printer that offers design support to ensure good readability and balance can also be quite helpful.

11. CSR Reports

A Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report is a document meant for a combined internal and external audience, that summarizes an organization’s environmental, socioeconomic, and philanthropic impact. As a piece of communication specifically addressing social responsibility matters, including sustainability efforts, printing CSR reports with sustainable practices and recycled materials is advisable.

12. Real Estate Listings

This type of booklet is used to illustrate one or more real estate listings, usually of high-end or luxury properties. The luxury nature of the subject matter lends itself to heavier weight paper and glossy finishes, while the image-heavy content focusing on photos, renders, and floor plans requires top-quality printing.

13. Product Manuals

Product manuals are usually utilitarian in nature, and they need to be particularly light weight for easy inclusion within product packaging. They’re often printed in black and white on relatively thin paper and feature abundant text with detailed illustrations. These qualities require an experienced printer, capable of executing minute, crisp, and saturated lines.

14. Client Proposals

Client proposals are used in a variety of fields to present work bids, prototypes, creative pitches, and more. As a type of booklet singularly dedicated to winning over their reader, often as part of a competitive process, these pieces benefit from premium materials and finishing techniques. Opting for unique, eye-catching, and even tactile features can help ensure your proposal stands out in every possible way.

15. Membership Booklets

A membership booklet, or membership handbook, is a publication produced for members and possibly prospective members of a given club or organization. Much like employee handbooks, they’re intended to educate their readers and provide a quick reference for key information such as contact numbers, benefits, and subscriptions. Using durable materials helps these booklets hold up to being transported and used for repeated reference. However, depending on the organization they’re printed for, they may also emphasize creativity and community values in their design.

Still searching for more details on custom booklets? Learn how to design eye-catching booklets or explore which printing techniques best suit your project to ensure your booklet stands out.