Cohousing-L Mailing List: marketing brochures

[Muriel Kranowski (murielk]

We last (and first) created a trifold marketing brochure in 2001, very 
early in the life of our community, written by myself and another 
member.  It's very out of date and we haven't handed it out for several 
years.  Now we're fully built and into the resales phase and want to 
produce a new brochure.

We envision that most of its readers will see it at events that our 
regional group, Mid-Atlantic Cohousing, puts on to inform the public about 
cohousing as such and about MAC's member groups.

We're about 200 miles from MAC's geographic concentration around the DC 
metroplex where those events typically occur, so those readers will have to 
be really juiced to want to visit us!  That's what our brochure needs to 
accomplish.  I see its main purposes being to let people know there is 
cohousing in semi-rural southwest Virginia, to convey our enthusiasm about 
our community without alarming them :-), and to steer them to our website.

I have two questions for other communities that are also in the resales 
phase and use a brochure:

1) Our original brochure was substantially about "what is cohousing?", both 
because there wasn't much to say yet about our community and also because 
the concept was unknown in our region.  Does your brochure do that too, or 
not so much?  Ie, how much general explanation about cohousing do you think 
is warranted in that format, when it's competing for space with your 
community's specifics?

2) Are you willing to send me a copy of your brochure, whether 
electronically (PDF or other format) or via the mail?  We certainly 
wouldn't copy your text but are looking for inspiration.  We would be most 
grateful!

Thanks!
  Muriel Kranowski,
  Shadowlake Village Cohousing, Blacksburg, VA

  murielk [at] vt.edu
  OR
  1713 Ginger Lane
  Blackburg, VA 24060