Brochures? For Sure!

How do you get your message out? In-person workshops? What about online webinars or social media? Do flyers still work? What about brochures?

Professionals conducting education and outreach activities often wonder if brochures have gone out of style. We, at the Private Well Class, recently launched a campaign to distribute several thousand brochures—and it was a resounding success! This indicates that brochures are not quite yet a way of the past. If you have ever considered a campaign featuring brochures, flyers, or pamphlets, consider what we have learned from our most recent campaign.

We often discuss barriers to reaching well owners, both behaviorally and demographically. Using a combination of online and in-person methods to help educate individual private well owners helps us extend our reach. This year, our staff developed and distributed a Spanish and English version of a brochure for partners to hand out to well owners. The brochure contains information on useful steps that a well owner can take to make sure that their drinking water is actually safe to consume.

In order to reach as many well owners as possible, we ordered and mailed out brochures for partners to distribute, at no cost to them. Extending the network through our partners was a key component of this campaign. By helping one another, both parties benefitted – our partners received free brochures to help well owners in their county, while we were able to extend our universal message of helping well owners be a better steward of their well and water system.

For the first brochure mailing, we mailed out over 31,000 copies of our English and Spanish brochures. In our second brochure mailing, we are planning to send out 21,000 more.

We asked partners who have received the brochures to give us their feedback. Some of the responses were insightful in terms of how the brochures were distributed and why they were so popular among partners:

“Thank you for providing these brochures. We are a small Health Department with limited funding so this enables us to provide quality education to our well owners.” - Toledo, IL

“Thank you so much for providing this resource. It is a great place to start a conversation with a well owner about being a good steward of their drinking water.” - Columbus, OH

“I think this is a fantastic idea for private owners.” - Montesano, WA

“I pass these out to the well owners when I sample their wells. I also hand them out at health fairs and environmental festivals. Very useful information.” - Wyandotte, OK

“We distribute to real estate agents who work closely with property owners on wells.” - Lincoln City, OR

Want brochures to distribute? Have a questions? You can email us at info@privatewellclass.org to be placed on the wait list for our next mailing or to reach us with your inquiry.