Considering marketing materials for 2026? Making the most of your marketing budget is more important than ever, so choosing marketing materials as part of your plan is a winning strategy for most brands. We have the five best printed marketing materials you need to use in 2026 to help you drive sales, increase engagement, and build a strong brand that your customers will return to again and again.
These little powerhouses of printed marketing materials are designed to include valuable content along with eye-catching graphics that your customers and community will use and hold on to. The flexibility to include longer printed content makes booklets ideal for storytelling. Brands can use a booklet to combine a deep narrative with beautiful graphic elements to create memorable marketing materials that works in a variety of situations.
Types of Booklets
Business Review: Companies create annual review reports and booklets are the perfect platform to share them within the company, with customers, and with the community in a succinct way. These business review booklets can be used to spotlight company achievements, notable events or milestones, financial health, and important company strategies.
Community or Non-Profit: Booklets are created to promote the non-profit or community organization’s mission, its initiatives, and the funding needs. They play a critical role in building awareness, creating fundraising opportunities, and demonstrating commitment to the community and its volunteers and supporters.
Education and Training: Booklets are created by organizations that teach, offer courses, or provide training for the community or consumers. Focused content, crisp photography, and instructional text combine to create a helpful booklet that can instruct and guide as well as positively reflect on a strong brand.
Health and Wellness: This type of printed marketing materials is ideal for providing consumers with health practices, information about medical procedures, and tips for wellness.
Product or Brand Marketing: Businesses can use booklets to introduce product lines, services, or brands to consumers with booklets that combine beautiful graphic elements, interesting copy, and compelling elements like case studies or testimonials. Businesses often create focused booklets that help consumers see their unique products, demonstrate their value in the marketplace, or highlight new technologies or services within their marketplace.
Specific Benefits of Booklets
They influence purchasing.
They build strong branding.
They create engagement opportunities.
They are a convenience.
They simplify communication.
They are quick to read.
2. Marketing Materials — Brochures
These folded and printed marvels are the hardest-working and most flexible styles of printed marketing materials.
Types of Brochures
Bi-fold: Marked by a single fold creating four unique panels, bi-fold brochures are printed on both sides and developed to show off gorgeous graphic elements along with a large amount of text, making them ideal for organizations like real estate companies that need to give customers a lot of information.
Tri-fold: This brochure’s hallmark is three panels on the front and back, creating space for a good balance of visual and text elements. The most popular brochure type, the compact nature of a tri-fold makes it ideal for trade shows, mailers, and handouts. Tri-folds are popular with restaurants because they give room to showcase the menu in a naturally segmented format.
Z-fold: With multiple folds, the z-fold brochure opens up completely and is ideally suited for timelines or instructional brochures.
Gatefold: This type of brochure opens up centrally, giving a reveal experience for the consumer. Often associated with high-end or luxury branding, a gatefold creates a dramatic and beautiful brochure.
Leaflets and Flyers: Double-sided pages without fold are the gold standard brochure because of their low cost and ease of distribution. They can be handed out, stuffed into folders or bags, paired with other materials, or mailed.
Using Printed Marketing Materials Like Brochures
They can create a feeling of exclusivity.
They can give a succinct overview of branding.
Brochures can be organized in a variety of ways.
They help consumers focus on key content.
3. Marketing Materials — Calendars
Types of Calendars
Desk: Perfect for pairing a business’s services or products, a desk calendar is a flat and often oversized printed project that offers users plenty of space for notations on its surface.
Fundraising: Schools, community groups, teams, and nonprofit organizations use fundraising calendars to promote their group while generating income for their group. Artwork and photography are often donated to increase fundraising efforts, and advertising may be sold to businesses aligned with the group.
Promotional: Designed as giveaways at conferences, meetings, events, or as mailers, promotional calendars are often created with businesses like travel agencies who can feature their services through gorgeous monthly photography.
Themed: These printed marketing materials include images focused on a central theme. For example, a landscaping business might create a themed calendar that features stunning flora and sculpted gardens to demonstrate their expertise.
Wall: This type of calendar often includes beautiful photographs to draw attention to the business’s primary concerns or concepts. A wall calendar for an art gallery might include different pieces of art on each page to entice customers to visit the art in person.
Effective Marketing with Calendars
Calendars will increase brand awareness.
They can increase fundraising and visibility within a community.
Calendars put printed marketing materials in front of potential customers every day.
Giveaways extend a brand’s reach.
Printed calendars demonstrate a brand’s value and relevance to its target market.
4. Marketing Materials — Catalogs
Types of Catalogs
Corporate: Often distributed in-house, to investors, or financial stakeholders, corporate catalogs can include everything from financial data and annual reports to company values, history and its mission.
Educational: Typically designed to present training, teaching, or learning opportunities, educational catalogs are found within the learning or education sector. College course catalogs are a typical type of educational catalog, including course title, description, offered dates, and other critical details to help students map out their future classes.
Fashion: Highly visual and dependent on high-quality photography, fashion catalogs present current offerings to retailers or customers. Fashion catalogs also rely on visual storytelling, giving businesses a platform to express their brand’s values and concept.
Product: The most common type of catalog, informational text and clear imagery present a volume of products to customers, the community, or other retailers.
Service: Text and visual elements combine in a service catalog to demonstrate offerings of industries like travel agencies, which might include photographs of destinations, explanations of travel packages, and testimonials of past customers.
How Using a Printed Catalog Helps a Business
Increases customer engagement.
Informs customers so they can make better choices.
Directs consumers to complete their purchases.
Helps to build investor confidence with a brand.
5. Marketing Materials — Postcards
Direct Mail Postcard Categories
Event: These postcards announce event information to build attendance, provide enticing details to encourage attendance, or even remind attendees about the upcoming event they are already attending.
Informational: Postcards that are sent to customers with industry or niche business information both promote the company and give the recipient value. A local cooking school could send out postcards with a simple recipe and a beautiful photograph of the dish, enticing customers to both make the dish and reach out to the cooking school for more knowledge.
Promotional: Retail stores often use promotional postcards to advertise upcoming sales or promotions.
Reminder: A personalized postcard that reminds customers about upcoming appointments or recommended services is an excellent way to leave a tangible reminder of your business with the customer.
Thank You: Sending follow-up postcards, thanking customers for their business, is an excellent marketing strategy that many boutique owners utilize because it builds brand loyalty by providing a personal touch and creates relationships between the business and the customer.
How Direct Mail Postcards Can Impact Your Business
They instantly capture your recipient’s attention.
Postcard notices can boost event attendance and enthusiasm.
Postcards can promote repeat business and strengthen brand loyalty.
They can help a brand position itself as an educational resource or expert in the field.
Smart Marketing Materials Printing
A solid marketing plan should include different ways to reach your customers, and these five effective print marketing tools are great options to consider so you can reach your marketing goals. Partner with a trusted printer like Publishing Xpress who can take your concept and turn it into a beautiful booklet, brochure, calendar, catalog, or postcard so you can connect with your customers, build your brand, and lock down sales for 2026.
