Who is your audience and how do they access information?

Is a brochure the best way to communicate your message to your audience? Whatever your market is students, businesses, funders, employers you should find out how and when they access information. A business, for example, may not want to file a booklet; a web page may be a simpler and user-friendly way of disseminating information.

You should think of the context in which your audience will need and will use your information.

If you can, plan some market research to find out how your audience looks for and uses this type of information. This can involve asking what type of information they need from you, in what format and at what time they would prefer it.

You may also find it useful to do some competitor analysis by seeing what is available from similar departments in other universities. If it is course information, then see how yours compares to theirs, and what you can infer about other universities from their literature.

How you position yourself in your market will be evident. If competitor literature is a few photocopied sheets with clip art, then your well-designed, professionally produced course brochure will present a strong market position. If this situation is reversed then you could well be presenting a distressed image of your department.