With more and more DIY design tools for entrepreneurs and digital marketers, we are seeing an uptick in poorly executed ads and promotions. Design matters and even the best templates can be mangled by well-intentioned staffers.
The first thing you need to do is to ATTRACT AN AUDIENCE. Think about printed material from a distance, or digital material when scrolling. What will catch the viewer’s eye? From there, how will you draw them in and move their eye through your design in order to have them take the intended action?
Here is a design “cheat sheet” you can refer to when double-checking your work PRIOR to sharing it with the whole wide world….
Top 10 Design Elements To Get Right In Your Marketing Material
10. Theme/Topic
noun: the subject of a talk, a piece of writing, a person’s thoughts, or an exhibition; a topic.
What is your main idea? The tone or feeling should be apparent immediately.
9. Colour/Mood
Define a palette for a reason and stick to it. This should be informed by the theme. Colour sets the mood and can have many connotations. Good design templates usually have a preset palette, or use a free palette generator like this one by Coolors.
8. Focal point
What are you drawn to when you look at the piece? Ensure that the eye isn’t inadvertently being pulled away from the key message or worse, that the eye has nowhere to land at all.
7. Negative Space
AKA “white space”. Is it working in your favour? If you don’t have any, you have a problem.
6. Typography
Word breaks, hyphenation, widows, fonts, rivers, rag – if you don’t know what any of these terms mean, you might have a problem with your typography. Issues can range from mildly annoying to highly illegible. In our opinion, type is often the biggest differentiator between a professionally designed piece and a pretty crappy piece.
5. Copy
Remove superfluous working unless it’s there for effect. For example, ‘plan ahead’- have you ever ‘planned behind’? Blog: Easy Ways to Improve Communications with Your Audience (mmm314.com)
4. Professionalism
Typos and mistakes; don’t have them. Really, like you should hardly ever have a typo in a published piece. Have someone proofread, or use one of many free tools at your disposal like Grammarly.
3. Branding
Big or small, all businesses should go through a branding exercise and then draw on the established elements whenever they create visual assets for their campaigns. Branding and proper logo usage Blog: Elevate Your Small Businesses With a Professional Brand – Meringue3.14 (mmm314.com)
2. Impression
Ensure your material has consistency in tone, layout, values, etc. Blog: Brand Archetypes – Your story is told through your brand (mmm314.com)
1. Call to Action
noun: (in advertising material) a piece of content intended to induce a viewer, reader, or listener to perform a specific act, typically taking the form of an instruction or directive (e.g. buy now or click here).
All your materials, whether they be print, blog, social media posts or email newsletters, should have a strong invitation for the intended audience to perform a specific act (visit the website, call for an appointment, purchase this product/service, sign up for emails, comment/like, etc). Make sure your contact info is correct with a clear call to action. Has to be, or what’s the point?
Now that you have caught the attention of your viewer, the point is to engage with them and invite some sort of response. Although you don’t need to be a Graphic Designer to produce beautiful and effective marketing materials, these intricate details matter. Bookmark this Blog or share with a friend or colleague!
| Sign up for FREE Marketing by Design Tips |
| Each month we write an article geared toward addressing the common pain points of our small and medium-sized business owners. We share tips & tricks for cutting through the noise, leading with brand & tackling your marketing by design. |
