Don't Miss

Want your Marketing Poster to Pack a Punch? Look at the Layout

By Jyppe Alqui on March 16, 2013 — Updated on June 14, 2013

Ever been wowed by an ad at the bus stop and admired its cleverness? This didn’t happen by accident. Good ads – whether they are posters, flyers, brochures, or even business cards – have the same essential element – a stellar layout.

If you want to impress customers and even have a chance of them considering using your business, you need to get your marketing materials up to scratch. In this guest post, we’ll look at what makes a good layout. While we’re talking about a poster, you can apply these principles to flyers, business cards, or even brochures.

Don’t try to include everything

A poster has to grab the attention of your customers and make them stop and read – it has to address their needs. In order to do this, you need to make sure the text, images, and white space are all carefully considered.

White space, color, and how your customers read

Plenty of white space is what lets your poster breathe – you should aim for 40 to 50 per cent of the space on your material to be left blank. A lot of business owners find this unnerving but it’s essential in getting your message across clearly.

In terms of color, while it can be tempting to go for a very brightly-colored poster to grab maximum attention, doing this can often be a turn-off and can exhaust potential customers who are trying to get the message your poster’s attempting to deliver. Aim for no more than three shades.

Keep in mind that your customers will only give your poster a few seconds’ glance, so make sure they can get your ‘take-home message’ quickly. What do you want them to do, after reading your poster? Remember too that most people read from left to right and then from top to bottom, so ensure your message follows this pattern.

Text, typography, and how you say it

When you’ve decided what your message is, how’re you going to put this across? Keep your audience in mind. If you make handbags, think about what qualities are essential to your customers when they’re choosing a handbag. Do they want quality, high-fashion, or durability? Choose words and phrases that will appeal to your target market. Whoever you’re writing for, whether pre-teens or seniors, make sure your sentences are short.

Steer clear of choosing typefaces that are very common and easily recognizable as they’re difficult to associate with just one brand. The typeface you choose needs to be consistent with your brand and echo its feel. For example, if your website and logo have a minimalist feel, going for scrolling and looping text on a poster is unlikely to make your brand cohesive.

Make sure the text is large enough for your audience to read easily, whether you’re creating a poster for inside your bakery or a billboard hoarding to advertise your car showroom.

The big picture and your brand’s image

Make sure that the tone of your poster fits in with other advertising avenues, such as your website and any social media accounts you have – even your business cards. While your advertising campaigns will change from time to time, your business’s reputation, image, and voice must be consistent.

So, did the ad work?

Think about how you will analyse the success of your poster or flyer. For example, keep records of footfall to your premises before you begin your advertising campaign and then compare these records to footfall shortly after your campaign has ended. You could also include voucher codes on your poster and record how many people use these codes to get discounts off your products.

After some number crunching, you can find out whether or not your campaign was worth the effort, and can learn some valuable lessons about whether to repeat the process in the future.

Following these pointers can genuinely make a big difference in a business’s marketing campaign. Why not check your marketing material to see if it measures up?

________________ __ _

Charlton is a passionate writer who works for Minuteman Press. When he’s not writing he’s typically in Europe skiing. For more information visit: Minuteman Press