Have you ever seen a print advertisement where something is just… off? The colors are fine, but the overall appearance seems cluttered. When the layout isn’t quite right, it can mess with an entire ad and detract from its effectiveness. In situations like this, your message won’t have the same impact that you sought out initially and could make your entire campaign a waste. That’s why our team at Signature Graphics is here to share our favorite layout tips for effective print marketing. We’ll explain why print layout matters and give you our best tips for achieving higher response rates and greater success in your next marketing campaign.
The layout of your print marketing materials can make or break your campaign. A poorly constructed layout can deter your audience from reading your content or performing your desired action. A great layout equates to easy readability, better response rates, and overall appearance, all of which lead to more success in your marketing.
The layout of your print marketing campaign might seem minor, but it’s one of the most important parts of getting a potential customer through your door. A neatly written and organized ad is going to find so much more success than one haphazardly thrown together.
To get the most out of every campaign, there are a few tips you can utilize to maximize the layout of your print marketing ads. These are our favorite layout tips for your most effective results:
Visual hierarchy uses font size, text placement and color to determine the order of importance for your audience. One of the best ways to utilize your print marketing layout for greater success is to use this hierarchy to your advantage. Just like words tell a story, your content order and font size do the same thing. The larger your header, the more important that text is going to be.
When determining what’s at the top of your print marketing ad, you don’t want to simply add something that sounds the best. You’ll find the greatest success if you write a tagline that offers the most value to your audience. After that, you want to keep going a little smaller for each less important heading or piece of content. By the end of your piece, you should have told a story that leads to the perfect resolution: your product or service. That’s where your CTA (call to action) comes in to do the rest—and eventually, you’ll convert leads to customers.
White space is another crucial component of your print marketing design layout. One of the easiest tricks in the book is to use white space to your advantage. Oftentimes, when your audience sees a huge block of text, they tend to skip over it. However, by utilizing white space and providing a comfortable space between content in your marketing materials, it’s much more readable.
Strategizing to make the most of your white space and simplify your content can work wonders to show off the most important parts of your message. That way, potential consumers don’t get overloaded with too much information and know exactly what’s important.
Along with using font sizing and white space, the content itself is another important piece to your print marketing layout. The amount of content you have and the way it’s arranged on the page can help or hinder your audience from finding the most important information.
If your content is thrown lazily on a marketing material in huge blocks of text or without simplifying the information, it can come across as overbearing and hard to read. Many of your print marketing recipients will likely skim over or skip your ad entirely if there’s too much going on. Conversely, if everything is organized well, the content is simplified to a readable bit and bullet points are used to convey larger amounts of info, it looks nicer and is better received.
Another great tip for enhancing your print marketing layout is using color theory. Color theory is essentially the idea based on psychology and the study of human behavior that certain colors evoke different emotions.
For example, here are a few colors and their corresponding emotions:
While colors can evoke different feelings and emotions from your reader, contrasting colors can create a striking focus. When you want the audience to focus on specific parts of your message, you can use contrasting colors to make elements stand out. Oftentimes, marketers will use a contrasting color for a CTA (call to action) so it pops.
Related Blog: How to Use Color Schemes in Print Marketing
Speaking of CTAs (calls-to-action), the placement of them is also a huge part of an effective layout. If you place too many or not enough, you can get fewer leads. It’s all about placing these CTAs appropriately on the page. Just like any story, having an abrupt stop in the middle of it can detract from the overall message and experience—it works the exact same way for a marketing message or narrative. Adding CTAs appropriately throughout your content can better convey the point and lead to more successful interactions. So, where is the best place to add a CTA?
One of the most crucial locations to place a CTA is above the fold. Whether it’s a website or print marketing material, this usually means that you have the call-to-action on the first page in a visible location. The second-best location for a CTA is at the end of your message. If your audience hasn’t taken an action at the beginning of your material, the next best place is at the end. However, it’s also important that you are aware of where your audience is in the buyer’s journey.
If your audience is just starting to learn about your brand, it’s not the best idea to lead them directly to contact you. Oftentimes, adding a QR code to explore the service or product is a much stronger CTA than adding your phone number for people who are new to your brand.
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These layout tips for effective print marketing are sure to enhance your message in your next campaign. By properly organizing your content in a readable, organized way, your reader is better able to understand the story and the product or service you’re trying to sell. With a great layout, your message gains power with potential customers and is more likely to elicit a response from them. Focusing on the layout of your message is a fantastic way to improve your overall messaging and get better results in the short term and long term.
If you’re ready to find local print marketing solutions, need layout and design help, or simply need someone to send your messaging, Signature Graphics is a comprehensive solution. We have experts on our team who can help you with pre-print and design, printing, packaging, shipping and delivery. Whatever print marketing services you need, we offer a la carte options as well as turnkey services. Curious to learn more?
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