The best marketing ideas in the world can fall flat if they aren’t executed with your target audience in mind (and geared toward what they will like and respond to), as well as reaching them with a thoughtfully and beautifully made presentation. Your products and services definitely need to speak for themselves once you get a customer on board, but in order to get them as a customer in the first place, you need to capture their attention and impress them with your marketing and design. Whether it’s a magazine ad, website, packaging design or anything else, your design needs to captivate. So how do you step up your designs and capture your customer’s attention? We have some ideas for you.

Know Your Target Audience

First and foremost, you need to determine who your audience is and what will reach them. Are you looking to reach teens? Think bright colors, fun patterns and modern, bold fonts. Is your target audience older professionals looking to travel? You might want classic fonts with a darker color palette and beautiful photography. Sit down and really think of who you want to reach and then determine what kinds of visuals really appeal to those particular people.

Think about your fonts

Your font choices can be really important and add a lot of character. Serif fonts versus san serif fonts can send a very different message, as well as handwritten fonts versus more classic ones. I like to use something that’s easy to read for body copy with a fun or more decorative font for headlines, pull out quotes or other things that you want to highlight. Choose at least 2-3 different fonts, and then use them throughout your piece.

Add some color

Color can also send a message and help add a lot to the design. Yellow is a bright and cheerful color that adds a lot of warmth. Blue is a great neutral color that can be calming and peaceful, although when it’s brighter it can add a nice pop of color. Think about the message you want to send and use the appropriate colors to elicit that kind of emotion or response.

Choose some great photography

Photos are a great way to add depth, color and personality to your piece. People these days are very visual, they don’t always read things, especially if it’s lengthy, but they do look at the photos. Use descriptive photography to capture your message and tell your story visually.

Use some icons

Icons are really popular right now because they add another visual element to a design and help tell your story without words, just like photos. You can add personality with hand drawn ones or add an element of professionalism with more classic and straight-forward icons.

The options are limitless in design, and there are always lots of ways to take an okay design up to the next level. Which will in turn bring in more prospective customers and hopefully more revenue. Design is important, take it up a notch and elevate your marketing!