How can you avoid common advertising design mistakes?
Advertising is a powerful way to communicate your brand message, attract customers, and generate sales. But it can also backfire if you make some common design mistakes that undermine your credibility, confuse your audience, or violate the rules of the platform. In this article, we will show you how to avoid these pitfalls and create effective and engaging ads that stand out from the crowd.
Before you start designing your ad, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with it. Do you want to raise awareness, generate leads, drive traffic, or sell a product? Depending on your goal, you will need to choose the right format, layout, copy, and call to action for your ad. For example, if you want to raise awareness, you might use a banner ad with a catchy headline and a logo. If you want to generate leads, you might use a lead magnet ad with a form and a compelling offer.
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Avoiding advertising design mistakes is like mastering a soufflé – it takes practice and attention to detail. Don't overstuff your ad with information, much like you wouldn't overfill your soufflé dish. Ensure your message is clear and concise. Overly complicated designs can deflate faster than a soufflé taken out of the oven too early. Also, remember to tailor your design to your audience - serving a chocolate soufflé to someone who prefers cheese might not go over so well. Lastly, keep testing and iterating. Not every soufflé rises perfectly, and not every ad hits the mark on the first try. Bon appétit!
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Designing your ad should be the end result of many steps before that: Foundational needs: - Brand guidelines - including logos, fonts, design systems, photography style guide - Brand frameworks - including overall strategy, comms frame work, and tone of voice exercise Once those needs are met you need a project brief: What's your goal? What's the background of this project? Who are you targeting? What's your human truth or brand insight? What's the key takeaway message? What is your key channel? Once you've answered all these questions -- THEN, you can begin to design your perfect ad. It seems like a lot of steps, but proper preparation will ensure your ad performs.
Another key factor to consider is who you are targeting with your ad. You need to understand their needs, preferences, challenges, and motivations. This will help you craft a message that resonates with them and appeals to their emotions. You also need to know where they are in the buyer's journey and what stage of awareness they have about your product or service. This will help you tailor your offer and value proposition to their level of interest and readiness. For example, if they are in the awareness stage, you might use a video ad that educates them about a problem and introduces your solution. If they are in the decision stage, you might use a testimonial ad that showcases social proof and customer satisfaction.
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If you are advertising a product or service, versus just branding, you want to target buyers who are in the decision stage, or at a minimum near the end of the consideration stage. Further, you should try and segment that audience and target those who place a high priority on features your product or service offers. Then you should craft your message to clearly communicate what the benefits of those features are.
Different advertising platforms have different requirements, guidelines, and best practices for design. You need to familiarize yourself with them and follow them closely to avoid rejection, penalties, or poor performance. For example, Facebook has strict rules about the amount of text you can use on your image ads, while Google has limits on the length and format of your headline and description. You also need to optimize your ad for the device and screen size of your audience, whether they are using desktop, mobile, or tablet. For example, you might use a responsive ad that adjusts to the available space, or a vertical ad that fills the mobile screen.
One of the most important principles of design is contrast, which is the difference between elements that makes them stand out from each other. Contrast can be created by using different colors, sizes, shapes, fonts, or alignments. Contrast helps you create visual interest, draw attention, and emphasize the most important elements of your ad. For example, you might use a bright color for your call to action button, or a large font for your headline. Another principle of design is hierarchy, which is the order of importance and relevance of the elements in your ad. Hierarchy helps you organize your information, guide the eye movement, and communicate your message clearly. For example, you might use a headline, subheadline, body copy, and call to action in descending order of size and prominence.
Another way to improve your ad design is to use white space and alignment. White space is the empty space between and around the elements of your ad. It helps you create balance, clarity, and focus. It also reduces clutter and noise, which can distract or overwhelm your audience. White space can also create a sense of luxury, elegance, or simplicity, depending on your brand identity and tone. For example, you might use a lot of white space to highlight a single image or a short slogan. Alignment is the arrangement and positioning of the elements of your ad. It helps you create harmony, consistency, and professionalism. It also makes your ad easier to read and scan. For example, you might use a grid system to align your elements along horizontal and vertical lines.
Finally, the best way to avoid design mistakes is to test and measure your results. You can use tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, or A/B testing software to track and compare the performance of your ads. You can measure metrics like impressions, clicks, conversions, cost per action, or return on ad spend. You can also test different variations of your ads, such as different headlines, images, colors, or layouts. This will help you identify what works best for your goal, audience, and platform. You can then optimize and refine your design based on data and feedback.
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In the end, the main objective to get your product in front of as many people as possible who could be the market to either purchase your product or refer someone that could use it! KISS it! Do not overkill your messaging! To often an ad may look great but the attention span is very short on most eyes! “Keep It Simple Stupid” land the plane and get to the point! Over 21 years in circulation has helped me understand this principle! KISS!
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