Get MORE Sales!

If you are a designer or have customers of any kind you know how important marketing is! You know how hard it is to get the design just right and to make it stand out from everything else in this world today and get more sales.

The struggle of every marketer and designer is getting noticed. What font do we use? What is the right spacing? What colors make it “pop”? Why can’t I find the perfect graphic?

Sound familiar?

I found, with the help of a very talented graphic designer several years ago, these were the wrong questions to start with. The answers to these questions get you over the finish line with final detials, but they are the WRONG questions to ask when you start designing.

Art, design, marketing, they all play into each other, but they should all start with the same thing.

What are you trying to evoke?

This simple mindset shift will allow you to truly create something that will bring the desired effect.

Here are the questions that work best in the order you should ask them…

1. What is the purpose of what I am creating?

2. What am I trying to make people feel when they see this?

3. What actions do I want people to take as a result of their feelings?

4. How will I get them to do this action?

Seem a little lacking in information? Do you generally get directives to create things with facts and desired colors, fonts, and pictures dictated to you? There is a time a place for that and sometimes it’s what you have to work with, but even in those moments, you can still ask some of these questions in order to really create something special.

Let’s breakdown each question.

1. What is the purpose of what I am creating? Are you making a promotional flyer for an event? Are you creating a marketing email? Are you designing a new product? Are you creating a new sign for a business? Are you making a logo? The list could go on. The first thing to get straight is what you are creating and its purpose. For instance: I am making a directional sign for a business to allow people to better find the front office? OR am I creating a flyer for an upcoming kids’ event to promote a local afterschool club? Great, now you have the very basic information and it will be something that underlies all you will create. The first example is informative and needs to be clear and concise. The purpose is to show a direction. The second is to create an atmosphere kids would want to be in while still giving clear and concise information for parents. This one is a little harder. You have more than one audience. You MUST appeal to the kids, that’s how you get the parents to stay engaged, but you also MUST give clear enough directions to allow the parents easy access and understanding or they won’t come.

Ok, you have the first question answered. This will probably be given to you in a request to create the piece, but specifically asking and answering this for yourself will truly set your piece apart from the beginning.

2. What am I trying to make people feel when they see this? This one is a little more challenging to get people on board with. I know, I was one of the hard to get on board people. This will inform a whole new level of your design process if it’s done well, and you will have serious buy in from those asking for these piece when they see its effect. Let’s stick with our two examples:- The directional sign first. When people see this sign we want them to feel calm, at peace, and confident. How did we get there? When you know where you’re going and aren’t worried about looking silly, being late, or if you’re in the right place, these are the feelings you will feel. That’s the goal of the sign. Not only to get them physically to their destination, but also to get them there with the feelings described above. In terms of what this will do for your business? If people are arriving late because they couldn’t figure out where to go, this causes stress and often times people are less patient, less forgiving, less amicable, and even less willing to buy from a business that causes them frustration with the simple task of finding out where to start. Creating a clear, concise, easy to find and read sign that instills feelings of calm, peace, and confidence puts you MILES ahead before you even speak to the person. They won’t be frustrated with you (at least not for a directional issue) from the start and you will be better able to create a lifelong customer in the process. Now, let's look at the kids’ event. Believe it or not, the feelings for this one are easier to spot! We want to create a sense of excitement and joy in the kids while creating a sense of curiosity, safety, and intrigue in the parents. If the kids are excited, that will make the parents excited. But remember, the parents have to be more than excited. They have to feel their family will be safe and there is perceived value for them. Kids often have the biggest sway over whether or not a parent will attend an event like this, so design something intriguing and exciting for the kids, but remember your other audience. The people who make the decisions, can drive, and pay the bills. Reach out to their sense of childhood wonder while still being clear and giving them a sense of trust that with your company, their kids are in good hands. This allows you to have a much higher probability of the parents responding to your VERY CLEAR call to action.

Ok, you have your info and feelings in tow, let’s keep going to the next important question.

3. What actions do I want people to take as a result of their feelings? Knowing this information BEFORE you being your design will ensure you don’t miss this step. Too many people miss this step and no call to action is ever expressed. This make the piece a waste of time, you’re leaving money or attendees on the table if you don’t tell them what you want them to do. People love to be called to action in all areas of life. Don’t let this fall through the cracks because you didn’t plan for it and run out of space, or worse, forget! Again, back the examples. The sign. CLEARLY we want them to travel in a direction to a destination. So, simply point or use text to tell them where to go. Be sure to include thoughts about color and font here to make everything SUPER clear. Don’t get cute on this kind of piece. Clarity over cleverness. Go back to question one and understand what you’re assigned to make. Don’t use a weird arrow that is ambiguous and please don’t use a hard to read font! Even if your company uses a script font in their marketing, I guarantee they also use a serif or san serif non script font to pair with it. PLEASE USE THAT! Also, think about the colors you choose. Don’t put white text on a yellow sign… McDonald’s is a great example with their white text on a RED background, not the iconic yellow arch. The kids’ event. We want the parents to come to the event, visit our website, call our office, or respond in some way. Now, here’s the key. You can’t design for ALL those things. Pick ONE! We want to give people all the opportunities we can, but that splits your focus and the result is a confused audience. If I am having an event to showcase our services and fun to the community, that’s best in person. My goal would be to get them to come to the event. In the process, people will likely at least look it up on the internet for more details, but if  you choose one call to action to design for and focus on, that will come through loud and clear. It's important to note you are also only picking one audience to call to action. You are appealing to the kids, an advocate for your event if you do it right, but ultimately the action MUST be taken by the parent. Market the call to action to one audience and tell them to do one thing.

Final question to answer before you get into designing. Yes, you are still in ideation here. Please don’t start designing until you have every one of these questions answered.

4. How will I get them to take this action? There are a myriad of different ways to get this done, but at the end of the day, as with the above suggestion, pick only one to focus on. The Sign. This one, honestly is pretty simple. You can lead a horse to water… Show them which way to go! A great addition to this is to create a definitive next visible direction moment. If you stand in front of the sign and look at where the arrow is pointing and can see a sign that says the name of the destination, you’re done! If, however, you cannot see your destination from the first sign, find the next best VISIBLE point from sign 1 and make another with clear direction. Continue this process until you have a very visible destination that is clearly marked. This could be a harder sell if you don’t role play with the people giving you the direction, so take them out there physically and show them. If it just simply isn’t in the budget, don’t give up and only use one arrow that leads people to an ambiguous next space. Try to give your first sign a little more info that will allow the person to find it. A simple map on the sign, or maybe even a little stand with directional printed maps is an idea. There are a lot of ways to get creative here, don’t give up because of money. Work hard to exhaust every option to get your customer to take the step you need them to take!- The kids’ event. Again, my goal would be to get the parents to physically attend. This means making time, date, and location SUPER clear. Having it actually say “Attend” or “Join Us” is also a must. Don’t just give people another google maps location, reinforce it with telling them what to do with it. The great thing about today is you can also put a QR code or your website on the sheet. You don’t have to tell them to go to it, your focus should be on in person attending, but its supplemental and will easily give more information should they need it.

One more note on messaging for attendance, if you are giving something away, it is good to try to include this if it fits! It’s a great way to get early attenders if it’s given away to a select few and allows your event to look full to passersby. Possibly drawing even more attendance.

Now that you have all these questions answered, make sure you have all the necessary information (date, time, direction, verbiage, place, etc) you will need. If your employer or client has a specific look in mind, you can now get their inspiration photos to help you see where their mind is.

Then, take all this information and get to work. Create for the appropriate size and then look to evoking a feeling.

If it’s a sign, you might want to use a calmer more serene color for the sign (if it’s in your color pallet). If you MUST use red, be sure to use white lettering, this will give a sense of clarity and instill confidence in your sign. For the flyer, if you have pictures from actual events, use those (far more effective than stock photos). Find 3-4 colors and stick with them, using different shapes and graphics to create a fun and exciting thing to look at.

You can look at our post on how to lead the eye here as well as 5 steps to art that sells. Both of these will help you make the best use of space. Remember what you want people to feel and use colors, fonts, graphics, and spacing that support the feeling.

One last tip. Put your necessary info on the flyer first and design EVERYTHING in black and white initially. Once you are comfortable with the layout and information, add color. Sometimes adding color too soon will bias you or your client and the color will drive the flyer, not the information or the feeling.

You need to assign the most value to clarity, then the feeling, then the design. As an artist or designer that might be hard to hear, but trust me. If you put your focus in that order, you will be truly creating a beautiful piece of art that is useful and effective at the same time.

Last thing I promise. If you love your design and the decision maker asks for changes, it’s ok! They aren’t saying you’re a bad designer, you are not your work. This is about doing the best you can and also working with the person assigning the project to you. At the end of the day, unless you’re the owner AND designer, it’s someone else’s vision and you need to honor it.

Check out our post on being afraid to fail for a better look into this concept.

Happy designing!

P.S. Here's a link to the art of my friend who really showed me the importance of these questions. He's an incredible graphic designer with his own business!

Andy Mejia

Graphic to help you remember how to get more sales!