While some people may consider them to be little more than useless junk mail, the weekly flyers can serve as a great source of joy for the bargain hunters in the audience. If you’re technologically inclined, you may turn to the flyers from your local gadget store to not only see what’s new in the world of tech, but also whether you can score a deal on a hot new phone, television, or gaming console. The foodies may enjoy the flyers for grocery stores and the fashionistas may be drawn to flyers from their favorite clothing stores.

A common issue that I see with a lot of these weekly flyers, however, is that the advertisers are working too hard to show too much information at once. The human mind can only absorb so much information at a time and if your flyer is overly cluttered with far too many products, it can be difficult for the consumer to sift out the deals of particular interest. It’s important to have a few key products that take up the majority of the real estate, drawing attention of potential buyers. These should be highlighted and they should be your most attractive sales.

One store in my area is XS Cargo, a shop that specializes in overstock, refurbished, and other inexpensive products. The store is nowhere close to being fancy, but they can oftentimes offer some terrific deals. The trouble with the XS Cargo flyer is that it is one big grid, absolutely overwhelming anyone who cares to browse through it. As a result, the accompanying images are too small and I just get frustrated trying to look through it all. There’s just too much.

Keep it simple and keep it focused. If you send out weekly flyers, highlight a few select deals and allow these to be the main point of interest. This will be more effective than trying to divide a reader’s attention between 40 different deals at the same time.