3 simple steps to designing an effective banner ad
// June 11th, 2009 // No Comments » // Digital Marketing
Frame 1 – Product Visual
Frame 2 – Promo Message
Frame 3 – Call to Action
If this has been your design strategy for banner ads, think again.
Designing a banner ad can be as simple as above, and at the same time, be as complex as you can imagine. I use the 3Rs to help my designers remember:-
1. Relevance
Banner copy, call to action and visuals need to be relevant to audience’s needs as well as the webpage content that the banner resides on. If the product is about sport injury treatment, the webpage is a mountain biking online magazine that is talking about stunts, a relevant Banner Ad message could be “Still feeling that ache from your last stunt?” instead of “Cutting edge technology in sports injury treatment”.
2. Reference
The banner message should be able make references to people, incidents, events, equipment, etc to the target audience. Using the same mountain biking banner ad as an example again, “Benefited by mountain bikers around Asia since 1999″ or “Used by the Singapore mountain biking team”.
3. Relate
Allow target audience to be able to relate to the message, creating the thought – What if it is me? Consumers need to be able to relate what you are trying to communicate to themselves on a personal level in order for you to create that motivation for a ‘true click-through’.
Bottomline is – When designing a banner ad, it is not about what you want to tell the consumer. That’s Marketing 1.0. Change your mindset in your design strategy and ask yourself, what does the consumer wants?
