5 quick tips on advertising banner design

Steve's top 5 web banner tips

Bit short on time today but I just had to rush out a banner for a client. While doing it I thought I’d jot down 5 quick tips that might help you with your banner designs.

Give a reason to click using targeted messages.
If you are trying to drive traffic to your site, don’t stick all the information the user needs to know in the banner. Why would you click on a banner if you know all there is to know. You need to entice the users to click. Many designers say that a great design will get people clicking, but it’s not really true. A great message will get more people clicking. Think about the site you are advertising on. Determine why people are on that site, what are they interested in and how can your brand fulfil their needs. Then determine what message will make want to them click to come to your site. You need to give the user a reason to click on the banner!

Flashing content
Don’t have anything that you want people to read flashing. You can have content flashing to get people’s attention that is fine. But trying to read flashing text is going to give users an epileptic fit. Get their attention by all and any means, and then hit them with a clear, readable brand message or call to action.

Landing page
Make sure the page that your banner is linking to a landing page that reflects the message that was in your banner. If you have a computer deal for $899, then make sure that deal is the first thing you see when the page opens up. Don’t just dump people on your home page. You can further optimise this page as well for more targeted search results.

Include your URL
This is a battle I have with a lot of customers. DoubleClick have surveyed that many users like to ”view through” ads, meaning they will take note of the banner, but instead of clicking the banner, will manually visit the site in question after viewing an ad at a more convenient time. This can cause a bit of havoc with your metrics and is another reason where a specific landing page is very helpful.  If your URL is not on your ad, how can people view through at a later date?

Brand Continuity
Your banner design should reflect the page it is directed to. It helps reaffirm your brand message, and doesn’t confuse the user by throwing up a completely different set of visual cues. I’ve been the user in a few such scenarios myself. I’ve had several browser windows open (as always), clicked on a banner, been distracted (as always), and later came back to the page that had no resemblance to the banner I had clicked. I didn’t recognise the page so I just closed the window. It only occurred to me later on what the page was. Too late – I was onto something else (as always). Once again, this is another endorsement for a custom landing page.

5 reasons to choose digital advertising in a market downturn

In a market downturn (I am reluctant to use the word recession just yet) the advertising and marketing budget is normally the first casualty of company cutbacks. Next it’s the chocolate biscuits. I’ve always thought that when times are tough that’s when you should be pushing your brand more than ever, but I guess that is why I’m not a CEO. That, and the fact I don’t play golf… must take that up. Anyway, you have to trade your way through the hard times, and this does mean maintaining a level of market visibility.

Here’s 5 reasons why digital advertising is the place to spend your modest budget:

It can be a lot cheaper
An on-line campaign can be significantly cheaper than more traditional advertising channels. If you are watching your pennies but still need to promote your business, why not spend a few dollars one some less popular keywords to ramp up your PPC advertising to chase that long tail. Re-run some old banner ads, or maybe organise some banner swaps. Electronic newsletters can be very cost effect as well. Or how about just increasing your company visibility by working on some social touchpoints, start a company facebook group, a youtube channel or a flickr account.

Metrics & ROI
Now more than ever companies will want to know where their money is going and what return they are getting for it. Being able to view the click through conversion of a banner ad campaign, or see how many people have opened your email newsletter and then clicked through to a landing page, provides information for better customer-centric decision-making. Digital advertising provides fast and accurate tracking and measurement reporting compared to traditional advertising channels. Print out a nice spread sheet to show your boss – put it in a clear plastic cover. Magic.

Fast turnaround
You can often put together and deliver the likes of a banner ad campaign or email marketing campaign with a comparatively short turn around. Even doing promotional vodcasts for your company website can be done quickly and helps keep you visible. This fast turnaround will let you rapidly respond to opportunities that are triggered by market downturn.

Targeted
Things are getting tight right across the board – you will be feeling the pinch, and so will your customers. However, people still need to run their businesses, and push their brands. Sending out a targeted marketing message to customers that talks directly to their specific situation is going to get a lot better response than a general appeal.

It’s cool
Yeah you heard me – digital is the Fonz of advertising. The opportunities for creativity and the visual impact you can achieve with digital advertising can help you create that point of difference in the marketplace that could help you get or stay ahead. Just look at the likes of Minis brilliant Follow the White Rabbit banner ad campaign or Burger King’s hugely popular Subservient Chicken. Like the Fonz would say – “Aaaaay”.

5 tips for quickly Spring cleaning your website

It’s been a long winter here and after months of eating chips on the couch watching movies, I have decided to get fit for summer. I was just at a spin class before, and in between thinking I might actually be sick and pass out, I thought now might be a good time to quickly whip our company website into shape as well. A Spring clean if you like.

Here’s my 5 tips on how to quickly Spring clean your website and freshen it up without undergoing a whole redesign.

1. Opening Paragraph of your home page. If it says “Welcome to our company, please have a look around our site” give yourself a slap. They know it’s your company and they already are looking around your site. How about you tell them what you do! Much better to lead with  “Our company is based in this town and we specialize in this, this and this.” It will help your search engine rankings and it will let users know straight away if they should go any further into your site. If your company has added a service or slightly changed it’s focus, be sure to reflect that early on in your content.
2. Our People  Section – Your most important asset are your people. Make sure your new staff are added promptly and staff who have left are taken down.
3. News Section – do you have a news section – when was it last updated? Time to get honest with yourself, are you going to make the effort to stay on top of it or is it just too hard. Or is there no news!  If the content is over a month or two old – it’s not news any more. Archive the news and get rid of that section, because it is just making your company look like nothing ever happens there.
4. Images on the home page. Well – images site-wide actually, but especially if you have static images on the home page that could be freshened up, do it. It makes a huge visual difference and gives users a sense of things happening within your company.
5. Check your links. Content may have been moved or links to external sites might now be irrelevant or pointing to pages that are no longer there.  Make sure there are no dead links on your site – that is a bad look. It’s also bad for your SEO – so get it sorted now.

That’s it. And unlike my spin classes, it won’t take very long at all to get a good result.