Advertising circulars are relatively subtle, but they make the marketing world go round. Touching multiple products and categories, the idea is that companies are better able to enhance brand awareness, showcase offers, and acquire new customers with promotional offers. However, learning how to design advertising circulars well ensures that you’re able to see better success in your print marketing campaign. In this guide, our print marketing team at Signature Graphics will explain just what an ad circular is, how it works, and teach you how to design them with your customer in mind.
In print marketing, an ad circular is a promotional flyer distributed to local homes. The flyer contains a bunch of promotions and advertisements for various products to showcase the entirety of your store. The finished advertising circular is sent out at a planned frequency within a close vicinity to the business promoted within. With this method, the idea is that locals have a better awareness of your business and may be persuaded to visit with certain coupons or offers within the promotional flyer.
There are various design methods you can use to ensure your advertising circular hits home. From planning the layout and placing images appropriately to organizing effectively, we’ll show you just how to design advertising circulars for your best results:
First things first, plan out the overall layout of your advertising circular. Figuring out where to place each section of the flyer is crucial for telling the story and ensuring the organization follows a linear fashion. If you’re wildly placing components on a whim, it might not have the desired effect you’re hoping for. Oftentimes, the best layout for an ad circular is having a catchy title or tagline right from the start and creating a linear story with a value proposition, benefits and appropriately placed imagery. Consider where you want to place everything before getting started with your design.
Don’t know where to begin? Get in touch with our Kobalt Design Group to get started.
The next step is determining what types of imagery you’d like to show and the overall design. Oftentimes, consulting your brand guidelines can be a helpful place to start in order to stay consistent with your company’s overall appearance. Choosing similar colors and showing products or solutions in a positive light can go a long way to make an impact.
After selecting the appropriate images, organize content effectively, using white space and a linear hierarchy to your advantage. You don’t want to pack the entire space with content and imagery, or you could end up overwhelming your audience. The best way to pack a punch with your print marketing is to use the space without filling it to the brim. Maintaining proper white space will ensure the eye follows the content in a linear fashion, where they will eventually find your call to action and engage further with your company.
Related Blog: Layout Tips for Effective Print Marketing
One of the most common mistakes companies make is highlighting the product features rather than the benefits. A feature merely lists the various things that the product or service does. Whereas a benefit explains specifically how a customer can gain value from the product or service. By highlighting the benefit, it shows how the product or service specifically applies to the consumer rather than the consumer trying to fit themselves to the product or service.
The cherry on top of your advertising circular is your typography. As insignificant as it may seem, choosing the right font, font sizes and heading changes can make or break your advertisement. Selecting a readable font is crucial, but choosing the right font that matches your brand and the aesthetics you’d like to represent matters just as much.
Related Blog: Typography Guidelines in Print Marketing
Another thing to consider when choosing how to design your ad circular is what colors you use. Opting for your usual brand colors is usually safe, but taking the opportunity to rebrand before starting your campaign can also be helpful. That way, you have a better grasp on what colors work best for your audience and elicit the emotions you’d like them to have. If your colors are exactly where you’d like them, something to consider is the color of the call to action you add with your print advertisement.
Related Blog: How Color and Emotions Work for Marketing
Not only should imagery and content make sense with the product or service, but it should also tell a story. Envision your ideal buyer’s persona or customer in your mind before starting out. Once you have them in your head, determine how they can use your product or service to address the main problem they’re having. Work backwards from your product to determine who your customer is, why they are there, and how they can use your product to make an impact in their life. Tell a story with imagery and content in your ad circular that shows a problem and a solution.
Incorporating a promotion in your advertising circular is a great way to complete your design. Inserting coupons and discounts for first-time customers or even existing customers is a great way to get people through the door and increase your ROI. By creating a sense of urgency on top of it by stating that the discount won’t last, you’ll have even better results.
Selecting the appropriate materials and technical aspects of your advertising circular is another huge part of finding success with your campaign. Choosing the appropriate paper type and coating is a great starting point for achieving your goals.
Related Blog: Guide to Paper Types and Weights in Print Marketing
One of the last ways to learn how to design advertising circulars is to compare options. A/B testing is a great way to see how one version works compared to another. Try one campaign for a while and track your results. Then, try switching things up and continue to track the results. This will help you figure out which method seems to be working best for your audience. When you find something that works, stick with it, or do more A/B testing to see if there are even better methods.
After learning how to design advertising circulars, applying what you learned is next on your agenda. Whether you want to design your ad circular yourself or you need help with the next steps, our team at Signature Graphics can help you along the way. We offer design, print and delivery services, so we can step in wherever you need us. Explore our services today to see our print marketing solutions.
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