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Visual Impact of Design
November 06 2012
November 06 2012
It's Tuesday evening and you are scrolling through Facebook's newsfeed. What catches your eye and makes you stop and take a closer look? Odds are, the attention-capturing post had a picture. Our brains are wired to respond to images, so if you want to attract attention, you need beautiful images, evocative branding, and appealing design.
Emotion + Desire = Motivation. Good design creates an emotional response that triggers desire. Emotion and desire create the necessary motivation to act. Strategic design will channel desire with a call to action, i.e. your conversion goal.
Whether you are advertising a new line of products or drawing supporters to your non-profit work, you must have a clear goal and then work backwards:
- Action: What do we want people to do?
- Desire: What desire will move them to act?
- Emotion: What kind of images will help the audience feel what they need to feel in order to desire and then do?
The holiday Crate and Barrel catalogue (above) that just landed on every American doorstep is a fantastic example of emotional marketing. And even though we all know our emotions are being intentionally provoked, the experience is so enjoyable because the images are so beautiful that we keep the catalogue around to be enticed a few more times before we throw it in recycling. And then we head over to Crate and Barrel to buy the experience.
They're not just selling ornaments. They're selling close-knit families, candle light, love and magic. If you want to reach your audience and get past the hurdles of busyness, budgets and even apathy you need images that are moving and a design that says you are professional and they can trust you. And of course, you need an obvious way to sign up, donate, buy or share.
You understand that if you want to engage your target audience, you have to know them. Is your audience male, female, younger, older, rural, urban? Do they check Pintrest boards, watch extreme sports, subscribe to wine clubs, dress their pets up for Halloween? You need the kind of design that ignites their emotions and images that appeal to their personality or maybe ones that remind them of what they dislike and want to change.
We find that our clients often understand what makes their target audience tick but when it's time to build a website, they sometimes think in terms of their own taste. Your website has to reflect your audience and not you if it's going to be effective. If the design isn't focused, you will lose the interest and respect of your visitors. If it isn't professional, people won't take you seriously. But great website design will win genuine respect and positive attention. Good design is worth the initial investment.
Archives
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ADA Compliance and Website Accessibility Standards
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New IDX Widget Going Live for Everyone
As part of our ongoing efforts to improve our system and also stay up to date with the changing technology requirements of each MLS, we have created an entirely new IDX Widget that was released to ...
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—Danielle Green
Owner