Flyers are a good standby tool for marketing both online and off. And theres no need to be a genius to create a great one, either. Here are some basic guidelines to design your own flyers.

1. MICROSOFT WORD Begin with a basic software program like Microsoft Word or Publisher. Open up the program, then look under File then New to see if there are already existing flyer wizards for documents or templates. If so, start there and adjust one to suit your needs.

2. COLOR First take a look at your project budget. Is there room for full-color printing of hard copies to distribute? If not, dont worry. Regular black ink on colored paper produces nice looking, professional flyers. Coordinate the paper color with a theme for the month, like green paper for St. Patricks Day or red or blue for the 4th of July.

3. TEXT / FONT Dont have too many different fonts, text sizes and styles in one document. Just choose a couple of complimentary fonts and sizes. For ideas on which to use, start a collection of flyers that are stuck on your door, around your mailbox and placed on your cars windshield. Search your favorite industry web sites for ideas, too, by looking at their online documents for downloading. Print them out and check to see what you link and dont like about them.

4. PULL TABS Add pull tabs to the bottom, so that if the flyer is placed on a bulletin board, passersby can pull off a tab and take the info home with them. Check the Help menu for directions. Basically you add a wide text box along the bottom portion of the flyer. Then you insert one row of columns. Click on the first column and write what you want to say not much fits here so take care! Maybe use your URL or website address and phone number. The text will run horizontally like normal, reading from left to right. So what you do is highlight it and click on Format from the top menu, then Text Direction do make it run vertical and fit in your tabs. Do the same for each tab.

When youre finished, make print flyers for local distribution. And turn the document into an Adobe .pdf file to distribute online. Upload it and include links to it in your emails and forum posts. Attach the pdf to emails when you know recipients accept attachments and can take a look, too. Reach out online and off with great looking flyers and grow your business one step further!