The Primary Purpose Of Design Is To Capture Your Reader’s Attention.
You can have fantastic copy, a great service, and a compelling offer, but unless someone actually looks at it, your marketing message doesn’t exist to them. While it is true that the headline is what encourages most people to read more, it is the design elements that grabs their attention so they will read that headline.
The next time you get your mail, pay close attention to what jumps out at you. As you flip past envelopes, flyers and catalogues, what grabs your attention? Chances are, it’s a color, a picture, or a prominent headline. That’s design!
Every marketing piece you post, get distributed, put in your reception, put in publications, email and put on the web, is competing with every other piece of marketing your prospect receives for that coveted one second glance.
If your marketing piece doesn’t look as interesting as others your prospect has in front of them, where do you think yours will end up? Completely ignored – or in the rubbish!
Your marketing isn’t the only place where design matters. Design also is key in business documents – internal and external. Today’s marketplace expects that you have some type of professional looking documents to describe your services, present your products and explain your contracts.
The potential clients you are marketing to are people who are used to a certain level of professionalism. If you don’t meet their standards, your materials quickly end up in the trash.
Your Marketing Materials Represent You And Your Professionalism
A lot of businesses send out template or copied marketing materials. It’s fairly easy to find a basic flyer, advert or newsletter template, add your contact information and picture, and send them out. However, when you do this, you’re packaging yourself “just like everyone else”.
Your marketing materials are the physical representation of your services. When your prospects view marketing pieces from you, many of them won’t know you. The web page, letter, brochure or newsletter they receive from you is the only interaction they have with you. So, they judge you based on what it looks like and what it says.
If your marketing materials look unprofessional, you look unprofessional to them because that’s how you’ve just packaged your service. If your marketing materials have design flaws or spelling errors, they’ll judge your services as incompetent. If they look like everyone else’s, they’ll judge you as “yet another {fill in the blank} trying to get my money.”
In other words, if you don’t bother to create a professional image and message, you put the burden on your prospects to try and figure out who you are and what you do. And since they’re busy people with busy lives who receive thousands of marketing messages every day, they won’t take the time to figure it out.
The way you market yourself demonstrates the way you’ll deliver your product or service. After all, if you can’t even deliver a simple quality brochure for yourself, how can you provide them with a quality product or service?
Posted in Blog, Graphic Design, Marketing
Tags: Advertising, Branding, Graphic Design, Marketing, Print
