1260 Productions

Using Effective Graphics in Design to Engage Users

Design is one of the most important considerations when you’re contemplating upgrades or an overhaul to your website or print materials. While there is no substitute for appropriate messaging, the design of your printed piece or your website is the first thing a user responds to. Design often determines whether a user engages in your message or abandons your website, deletes your email newsletter or tosses the brochure you spent a lot of money on. You have only a few seconds to grab someone’s attention, and you have to get it right.

“Graphics” generally refer to:

• The overall layout.
  Is the piece designed in such a way that it’s easy to navigate or read? Does it lead the viewer through a logical progression of the message at hand?
• Color.
  Color sends a powerful psychological message, and it’s important to understand how it will affect your users. What colors are most appropriate for what types of businesses? How does color influence perceptions of your business and actions by your prospects?

Illustrations, clip art, charts, icons, line art, etc.
The types of images that are created with a graphic design program or illustrated. Icons are a really effective way to communicate a message without taking up a lot of room on a page. To be most effective,icons need to be familiar and clearly indicate what they are meant to communicate! Think of a shopping cart icon on the top of an e-commerce website. You instinctively know that if you click on the shopping cart, you can complete your purchase. It’s familiar and it takes up a lot less room than a link that says “Complete your purchase here.”

Photography.
The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” could not be more true. Consider the following:

This is a photo  taken while designing a website for a local bakery. They are cake balls dipped in chocolate. While there should definitely be a description to make these delights as tempting as possible, the first thing any viewer is going to see is the photo. The photo is going to determine whether someone reads the description, and no amount of text can possibly communicate the yummy-deliciousness like this photo can!

• If you really want to engage your audience, use photos of people.

 

How to use QR codes as marketing solutions

Mobile barcode scanning is on the rise and there are many tools and best practices to be aware of when  marketing with QR (quick response) codes.  In my previous post I talked about what are QR Codes and so now, I would like to focus on answering “Now what?” or “who cares?”

What’s the value for marketers?
Right now, the potential is unlimited, which is why top retailers such as the three mentioned above are taking full advantage of this opportunity to instantly connect with their millions of mobile customers. Whether the QR code is placed on a print advertisement, a physical product or distributed through various forms of digital media, the code ensures real-time access for mobile users to the marketing message of a business owner’s choice. These messages can include the notification of a time-sensitive offer, the announcement of a new Facebook contest or a YouTube video, an alert for a highly anticipated product just received or an update to a store’s revised holiday hours of operation.

How can you deploy quick response codes in your day-to-day marketing? While it is increasingly common to include them on the Web, the best use is obviously to aid in bridging the gap between more traditional formats of marketing and the Web. Posters, business cards, letterhead, signage, books, brochures – the list of potential locations for a QR code is extensive.

Where you link that QR code also needs to be a consideration. Using QR codes in tandem with mobile websites, informational videos, or applications are a few possibilities. If users are engaged enough to read your QR code, it only makes sense to make that engagement as meaningful as possible. One of the most important keys to success in QR code marketing is sending your customers to a mobile-friendly site through the link provided in the barcode. Knowing that users will be accessing the codes primarily through their smartphones and to a lesser degree through other mobile devices such as tablets, to link them to a standard website that challenges their mobile capabilities would be futile if not downright damaging to your business and brand. Once you have conceived a smart strategy for an offer or promotion with the use of QR codes and created the codes themselves, ensure that you are sending your customers to the most effective landing page for closing the deal.