Design is one of the most critical factors when it comes to producing a great response rate for marketing materials such as direct mail postcards, website landing pages, and newspaper advertisements. Customers respond to visual cues better than text, which is why your design can be the difference between a lackluster marketing campaign and one that destroys the control and becomes a lucrative strategy for many years. If you're not achieving the response rates you want from your marketing efforts, try the following three design secrets to increasing response.
1. Bright colors
Many small businesses want to look “professional” and, therefore, send direct mail letters or publish websites in bland hues. That strategy is a losing one. Instead, incorporate bright, attention-getting colors such as orange, neon yellow, and red to encourage customers to read your offer.
2. Large headlines
Your headline will perform better if it includes your special offer, and it will perform even better if it's displayed in a large, bold, legible font. You can use color in your headlines to help them stand out. Don't be afraid to write longer headlines that get the point across, since customers will skim your body copy and read your headlines and subheads first. Use fonts that are easy to read – you'll get no style points here. If you want your customers to quickly follow along and create desire, large headlines are how to do it.
3. Add a coupon
Your special offer is in your headline and your body copy. It's also in your conclusion, or call to action. Turn it into coupon for a more tempting visual. Many sales letters and postcards do this by adding a dashed line around it. Even website landing pages take advantage of this “clip and save” strategy. It doesn't matter that customers can't cut a coupon out of a web page or that a postcard doesn't need to be clipped at all. What matters is that customers' eyes are trained to seek out coupons, and they'll be drawn to your coupon and time-sensitive special offer.
If you're not sure about any of these strategies, it's time to engage in some A/B split testing. For print marketing materials such as postcards, you can print half of your campaign in your traditional control design and the other half incorporating these design strategies. Measure the response from each and compare to see which is more successful. You can do the same with your websites and email campaigns by taking advantage of A/B split testing scripts.
What other graphic design tricks can increase response rates?