The Effectiveness of an Empty Space

There are so many facets of ad design that get hammered home in article after article. Everyone is telling you how to maximize your headline's impact and how to make your font stand out amid a sea of marketing.

So much time is spent on what should go into your ad that we sometimes neglect one of the most important and eye catching elements, the empty spaces.

This is really one of the simplest, but easiest to mess up, factors of your print design. Have you ever listened to a song like the Who's "Wont Get Fooled Again" or similar songs that build up to a crescendo then suddenly have a break in the music before kicking the guitars back into overdrive? That empty space in the music is powerful.

It can give you goose bumps and it can make a whole room feel electric. When the music starts again and breaks that moment of silence, the notes sound louder and more powerful as a result. This isn't a trick that is reserved only for musicians. The same principle applies to ad design (or any sort of design, for that matter).

What you should be shooting for is to draw attention to the important parts of your ad: the message, the offer or the image. People at times and it is an easy trap to fall into, make the mistake of simply enlarging the item they are trying to bring focus to. Granted, disproportionately large text can stand out, but it also has the effect of making an ad seem lop sided or amateur.

The eye needs to be drawn to your focus, though, and the most effective and most professional looking way to do this is through the use of space. Don't clutter your ad with unnecessary text and images, especially around the main areas, since they can detract from the central focus.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that if there's a big empty space in your ad that you have to fill it with something. Just include the pieces that are necessary to effectively convey your idea or message. If you just have too much information that has to be conveyed about your product, you should save it for a brochure or catalogue instead of jumbling it all together in your advertisement.

There are no hard and fast rules dictating how much or how little space you should have in your ad, but a good rule of thumb is to leave at least one fourth of ad space empty.

The same applies to the images you use in your ad. When taking photos keep it clean and free of distracting clutter. Use a background that will accentuate your product and make it stand out. For example, using an image of your product against the back drop of your office's out of date plaid wallpaper, is going to be distracting.

Space can make your ad design sleek and professional in appearance and that is what will make an impression on consumers. Sometimes, it is not what you do with the space you are given, it is what you do not do that counts.

Are Your Marketing Strategies and your Website on the Same Page?

Last week a sales rep from a local printing company walked in to my office to pimp his company's "superior" printing services. I gave him a few minutes and he proceeded to give me his pitch, walk me through his large list of printing capabilities, and show me a smattering of past print jobs that included an impressive mix of brochures, folders and binders with fancy die cuts, foil stamping and intricate embossing.

His sales presentation was actually very good and I imagine that he does a great job of new business development for his company. As I walked him out the door, he handed me his card and some cool branded notepads and I told him that I'd keep him in mind on future print jobs.

Upon sitting back down at my computer, I grabbed his card and typed in their website address. This is where things went down hill.

The Not-So-Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Now let me preface this by saying that I'm a marketing consultant/website developer by trade. So my critical eye for proper website design and usability is a bit more sensitive than the next guy. But wow, this company's website was REALLY bad. Their design looked remedial, severely dated and unorganized. Their logo looked completely different than the logo on their business card and notepads. The content was poorly written. There were very few images of printing samples. And upon scanning their printing capabilities page, several of the services that the sales person had mentioned were nowhere to be found.

I threw his card in the circular file (the trash). I kept the notepads.

This situation serves as a good example of the vital role that a website plays in your company's overall sales and marketing strategies. It is critical that your website convey a consistent brand image, perceived value and sales message for those soft-selling opportunities that happen when you're not present.

A Quick Test for Your Website

1. Can a website visitor get a thorough understanding of your bread-and-butter product/service and reach your contact info page in two clicks or less?

2. Is your website design and content consistent with the quality of your company and its products/services?

3. If you looked at your website and sales materials/brochures side by side, are they conveying a consistent brand image?

4. If your salesperson were to read aloud your website's content word-for-word during a sales call, would they close the sale?

I could go on, but hopefully you get the point. If you answered "NO" to any of the questions above, your website probably needs some work.

A Marketing Strategy Lesson

Back to the printing company with the horrid website. Let's say they've come to their senses and hired me to revamp their website. In our initial meeting, I would do a quick audit to learn about the different strategies and tactics they use to develop new business. Next, I would find that they execute a nice mix of advertising, sales and local tradeshows, and since they are a printer, they have very nice brochures. They even do educational sessions on the latest printing techniques through their local Chamber of Commerce.

When I ask about their website, they say, "It's a low priority and we've always worried about the cost."

With so many opportunities to utilize the online tools to market your business and sell your wares, it's a shame that so many companies view the web as their last priority. And some don't even realize the amount of clients and dollars that are going to their competitors who have made an appropriate investment.

5 Ways to Get Your Website on the Same Page

1. Perceived Value - First impressions are everything. In the first few seconds of a site visit, your website's design quality and content layout is subliminally communicating your company's value to the visitor. If your site's design quality is poor or unorganized, your company will be perceived as poor quality and unorganized, and thus, the visitor bounces.

How to Get On the Same Page: Work with a professional website designer who can help you design your site's look and feel to match (or exceed) the quality of your company, products and services.

2. Brand Consistency - Your company's brand is what people think of you. And whether people notice a magazine ad, see your booth at a tradeshow or find your website, it's vital that you present a clear and consistent sense of who you are at every customer touch point.

How to Get On the Same Page: Everything you put in front of a customer needs to look and sound consistent. This means every ad, every brochure, your website, corporate identity elements, etc. An integrated campaign works wonders when designed professionally by a single designer or agency.

3. Message/Content Quality - I've said it before and I'll say it again…content is king. Keeping your website updated with fresh, high-quality, informative content positions you as an expert in your field. And people want to do business with experts.

How to Get On the Same Page: Hiring a professional content developer/copywriter is a great way to ensure that your message is delivered in a high-quality fashion, and with a consistent voice. Have the copywriter sit down with your salespeople to discuss the most effective messaging to help convert your visitors into buyers.

4. Self Promotion: Be Your Own Cheerleader - If you're not promoting your latest happenings (new product/service offerings, company news, upcoming educational sessions, tradeshows, etc.), no one else is going to. But don't get caught with a site that is difficult or costly to update. Nothing screams "dinosaur" like seeing a news page where the last news item was from two years ago.

How to Get On The Same Page: If your salespeople are out there telling customers about a new product or an upcoming educational session, your website should be doing the same. Frequent site updates tell customers that you are an active company that is on the move, as well as providing new content that serves as food for search engine spiders.

5. Track Your ROI - It baffles me that companies will spend thousands of dollars each year on marketing tactics that make tracking your return very difficult (a.k.a. advertising, direct mail, brochures, etc.), but they won't spend a few thousand dollars to build a decent website with an analytics program that practically gives you a two-way mirror to watch your prospect's browsing behavior.

How to Get On the Same Page: Website analytics, and even e-mail marketing, now offers great, inexpensive tools for customer research and ROI tracking that not only help you calculate ROI, but also help you hone your marketing strategies towards the content/messaging, products and services that bring home the bacon.

The Bottom Line

How many clients has that printing company lost over the years because of their poor, neglected website? Who knows? The bottom line is: they lost my business, and as a marketing consultant, the amount of stuff that my clients print alone could probably pay for a website in a matter of years.

Some Tips to Improve Slow Website Sales

I've seen it many times. A new entrepreneur is excited because their website just went live after weeks, or even months, of hard work. But the excitement doesn't last long when they see that they have yet to make a sale. Or maybe they've only made one or two. They're not covering their expenses, and they're certainly not making enough to live on.

I make sure to tell them not to worry, because it's happened to all of us. Especially with a new website. And there is an answer. Or, I should say, a few answers.

There are some steps you can follow to make sure you are doing everything right to maximize your sales. Look through the list below. If you can say definitively that you have taken all of these steps, then you should see a big increase in your sales. Here you go:

1. Make sure there is a market for what you're selling

By now, you've probably heard a lot about finding your online niche. If you did your research properly, you should have found a market that has a problem that you can provide an answer for. That's probably the most important part of your business.

If you haven't done the proper research yet, get started now. Use a keyword tool like Nichebot or Wordtracker to find what people are searching for online. And visit the forums to see what people are talking about and what problems they need to solve.

Don't skip this step. It's important that internet users are going to want what you're selling or your whole business is lost before it even begins.

2. Make sure that you're selling something that solves their problem

If you've found the right niche, then you should have some idea about what their main problems are. Do some research to find out what they need to solve that problem, then offer it to them. That's the formula in a nutshell. Don't let your product stray from the main topic. Solve their problem, and you'll have success.

3. Make sure you're getting enough traffic

It's difficult to make a good decision about how effective your sales process is if you haven't had enough traffic to your website yet. I recommend waiting until you've had at least 1,000 visitors. Anything less and you won't really have enough data to work with. Be patient.

4. Find out where your traffic is coming from

It's important that you are getting targeted visitors to your website. Make sure that if you're using pay-per-click advertising you're bidding only on words that are right for your market. If you're selling cell phones, you don't want visitors who are searching for land line phones for their office. Remember who your visitor is.

5. Test different headlines

Your headline is the first thing your visitors see on your site. Make sure it's compelling and gets them to keep reading. How do you do that? Simply by testing different headlines and seeing which one works best.

You can do that by rewriting it every now and then and checking your stats, or you can split test your headlines using Google's website optimizer. Website optimizer is part of your Google adwords account. If you don't have an adwords account, you can get one free at a href="http://adwords.google.com">http://adwords.google.com.

6. Make sure your sales copy is effective

The last thing you want to do once you have a visitor reading your sales copy is to distract them with something that isn't leading directly to a sale. In other words, leave out any links to other websites, forget about adsense and banner ads, and don't start talking about things that don't relate to your subject.

Concentrate on your sales message and proof elements, and dispelling any doubts they may have about giving you their money. This includes using testimonials if you have them, a 100% satisfaction guarantee, and good strong sales copy that keeps them interested all the way through to your "buy now" button.

7. Test different price points

It's hard to know what's the right price for your item right off the bat. You may have it at the price you're willing to pay, but that may not be the price everyone is willing to pay. A lot of people will expect to buy something in your market within a certain price range. If your price is too high, they'll shop elsewhere. If your price is too low, yes too low, they might think that what you're offering is of poor quality. You can answer this problem by simply trying out different prices to see what works best.

8. Make sure your order processing works properly and is easy to use

Test all of the links from your "add to cart" buttons all the way through to your "thank you" page. You can normally run a $0 test before you go live with most shopping cart and merchant account systems. Obviously, if your ordering system isn't working right, you're not going to see any sales.

Also, make sure that it's easy to use. Get a friend to run through it for you. It may make perfect sense to you, but that doesn't mean that it will for everyone. Let some other people try it out and see if they get stuck anywhere. Chances are good that if they do, then others will too. If everything isn't as easy as possible to use, then some people will just leave rather than trying to figure it out.

There you go. Eight steps you can follow with your site to make sure that you are maximizing your sales. Just from my own experience, anytime I was able to say that I went through all of the steps above completely, I saw significant improvement, and found good success with my website. I believe that you will, too. Good luck.