If your audience doesn’t connect with your branding, they might pass you over in favor of another business that speaks to them. It’s critical to keep audience perception in mind when working through the design process.
Here’s how to choose design elements that cater to your target audience:
· Create a customer persona: Customer personas represent your target audience’s key demographics, beliefs and motivations. Essentially, you’re imagining a character with a specific age, gender, region, set of values and other characteristics that make your audience unique. Think about what type of person would buy your product and choose design elements that person is drawn to.
· See what your competitors are doing:
Brands within the same industry will have a few design elements in common. Visit your competitors’ websites and take note of the major elements that are most engaging. This is a great opportunity to also notice which elements are weakening the company’s performance, like poor navigation or layouts that don’t make sense.
· Research industry design trends:
Brands continuously optimize their design and marketing materials in order to attract new customers. Lead the pack by staying on top of design trends that generate the most revenue. Figure out what your target audience wants, whether that’s a minimalist layout, fun color schemes, corporate fonts, interactive content and so on. Researching what’s new and hot will help you stay relevant.
· Put the most important content first:
During your consumer research, you probably noticed that people like brands like yours for a number of reasons. Some reasons are more pressing, while others take a backseat in the consumer’s mind. Determine what pieces of information they need the most and place those at the forefront of your branding materials. Similarly, advertisements should feature key takeaways using large, eye-catching fonts in the center of the ad space. No matter the type of content, consumers should be able to easily find what they’re looking for.
· Choose fonts that are easy to read:
Some brands make the mistake of believing that in order to stand out from the competition, they have to do something entirely different. They load their content with clashing colors and wacky fonts, which ultimately detract from the central message and turn away potential leads. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and pick out fonts that not only reflect your brand but are easy to read. The wrong design can seriously damage a company’s relationship with consumers.
· Break up text with images and videos:
While target audiences vary, they all have one thing in common—no one wants to stare at a massive block of text. Amplify the aesthetic of marketing materials with visual aids that both enhance the user experience and are relevant to the message you want to convey.
Here’s the big takeaway: remember your target audience. Every decision you make, from user-friendly webpage layouts to a font’s color and size, must contribute to your goal of attracting new customers. Focus on what they want, and you can’t go wrong.
Need help designing your brand? Don’t wait around any longer—say hello to the design experts at Spin Creative!
About Us
Spin Creative is a video production company and creative agency helping marketers create winning video and creative strategies that engage, inspire and activate targeted audiences. Spin is headquartered in Seattle with offices in San Francisco and London, serving brands around the globe.
