If you have decided that you want to use a banner for your advertisement needs and you want to get the best results from your print advertising campaign, how you design your banner matters.
Banners are still one of the most effective advertising methods. However, how successful your advertising campaign is, depends solely on how you design your banner. It is important to ensure that your banner is irresistible, eye-catching and informative.
Among other things, your logo and slogan must stand out, and the banner should try to communicate your core values. Here are some design strategies that you can consider for best results.
Define Your Main Objectives for Creating the Banner
There are a number of questions you need to ask yourself to guide you on how to design your banner. What is the fundamental reason for creating the banner? Is it to inform your customers about your brand or products? Do you intend to persuade people to sign up for a special program?
Establishing the purpose of your banner is important in determining the way you’ll design your banner. If you fail to define the purpose clearly, it is likely that you’ll lose your direction and your banner may end up not making sense.
Plan
You’ve probably heard the common adage “failing to plan, is planning to fail.” Well, there is nowhere where it is truer than banner ad design. Make sure you plan your banner design before you start down to the last detail.
The purpose of planning is to determine what goes where for maximum effect. It is obvious that your contact information is crucial on your banner, but having the information covering half of the entire space is clearly not the way to go
Planning will determine, among other things, where you want your logo and slogan to go and what the main focus of the ad should be. This is where your design instincts come into play. You can consult manuals on how to make a banner for ideas.
Ensure you use the right size images. Use colors that blend seamlessly and don’t make it too loud to give your banner the right ambiance, especially if you are designing an online banner. Also, for online banners, make sure you determine the right dimensions to ensure they are visible enough without being obstructive.
Format Your Banner Content Appropriately
Use visual elements such as cartoon characters and graphics in an appropriate manner. Use titles to lead the viewers to specific pieces of information. Statistics can sometimes be displayed using pie charts and graphs in a way that doesn’t interfere with the rest of the text.
Ensure that your banner is not too wordy. The main aim is to communicate the most important information using the fewest words possible. Otherwise, a banner that is packed with too much text and graphics can be off-putting. Last, but not least, try to incorporate a call to action to the banner to prompt potential customers to respond to the advert. Doing A/B testing with different call to actions will provide insights on how well your campaign is doing.
Having a well designed and impactful banner ad boils down to a few core principles. Make sure you keep them in mind.
