Write a corporate profile brochure

If you absolutely must write this yourself, here are your five basic first steps. I personally think you should get an outsider to do it (and I’m not just trying to drum up business here - ever heard of jargon??). I’ll follow this post up with more because it’s a big topic, but this will get you started.

1. Know your reader. By this I mean you should know who you want to be reading your corporate profile. What are you going to use it for? Conferences? Client meetings? Direct mailouts? Point-of-sale? B2B? Who will you be handing it to?
2. Have a purpose. Know what you want this document to say to your reader. Decide how much you want to teach your readers about your company and give them enough to feel comfortable about contacting you to find out more.
3. Think ahead. Make your corporate profile reasonably aspirational. So, project the image of your company where you want it to be in a couple of years. If you make statements like “Blankity Publications has been creating world class magazines for the real estate industry for 22 years,” then you have the dual problem of your document becoming dated as soon as Blankity ticks over 23 years, and of having positioned the company as focusing on the real estate industry - which may not necessarily be where you’re trying to take Blankity Publications. Be general enough to make your document last you a couple of years.
4. Have a consensus. Make sure your co-directors and executives are in some sort of agreement about who your corporate profile is for and what it’s going to say about you.
5. Put your message in every word. If your readers read it avidly from beginning to end or just glance at one page, you still want to leave them with the same impression of your company.

And, let’s all say it together, spell and grammar check! In fact, get this one proofread.