Choose an eye-catching design.

One of the first things that people will see when they open up a newsletter via e-mail will be the design. Choose a format that will be user-friendly. This means paying attention to colors that are used as well as layout, etc. Spark their curiosity by making your newsletter something that will set itself apart from all of the other junk emails that may be in their inbox.

Be consistent with your design.

Of key importance will be choosing a design that is consistent every time someone opens their email. Choose clean lines and web-safe/friendly colors that won’t be too harsh on a person’s eyes. For example, you might choose to have one main header for your newsletter followed by 3 separated columns underneath and a footer. Whatever it is you decide to put into your design, keep your audience in mind. Experiment with different templates and ask for audience feedback if you are unsure. After all, they are going to be the ones who potentially read your newsletter. And remember, Consistency is what helps to organize and unify a good newsletter design!

Experiment with different font faces.

People hate to read through tons of text that looks exactly the same. Don’t be afraid to use different font faces such as serif and sans-serif in order to emphasize certain aspects of content that you want to highlight. The same goes for bold, italics and underlined text. For example, you may want to put the header in bold, the kicker in italics and subtitles in underlined fonts. Whatever you do, keep it consistent with each subsequent newsletter, and also be sure not to overuse any one font face as it may add to unnecessary visual clutter.

Choose content that your readers will actually read.

Content is and will always be king. The aforementioned points are simply tips and tricks to get your readers to the meat of the operation: the content of what you are trying to say. Therefore, it is important to take time out each time prior to composing a newsletter. Make sure that you actually have something worthwhile to say! Don’t be afraid to use photos or illustrations in your newsletters. Make use of quotations, and always give credit where credit is due. Invite reader responses, and perhaps make an effort to publish these responses in upcoming or future newsletters in a special section.

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All I wanted to do was find out what time a movie was playing at a local movie theater. I had looked up the movie theater and discovered that they had a website with all of the listings, etc. – but failed to anticipate the problems that I soon encountered.

Once I arrived at what I thought was the movie theater’s landing page, it didn’t display the movie times, but instead, displayed another link to the main site. I clicked on this button, and it brought me to what can only be described as one of the most confusing websites I’ve ever come across.

This time, the landing page displayed (among other things) a drop-down tab where you could select the state that your movie theater was located in. After selecting the state, another drop-down menu appeared and prompted you to select the city. After this, the name of the movie theater appeared along with it’s address. Only after all of this was I FINALLY able to click on the name of the movie theater, which then brought me to yet another webpage that displayed the movie titles and show times.

After going through all of that, I couldn’t help but wonder what the creators of that website were thinking. It was not user-friendly and was most certainly not effective in encouraging their target audience to continue using their website.

When building a website, there are various elements that MUST be considered in order for it to function in a way that is appealing to users. Elements such as design, layout, font choice, graphics and content must all meld together into a nice, neat little package. Take a look at the following video for an example of what I’m mentioning here. While watching the video, ask yourself whether or not your website is user-friendly; whether or not it serves its main purpose; and the sorts of things that you could be doing to improve the overall experience of those who visit your site.

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**Note: This is a guest post written by one of our readers, Ben Johnson. For more information on how to submit a guest post, please send an email to janelle [at] unlimitedwebsolutions [dot] com, and put “Guest Post” in the heading.  Also see our guidelines for guest posting.

If you own a business, but don’t own a business logo, then you are not doing justice. This is such a powerful tool that giant corporations spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for a high quality and memorable logo design.

Budget Problem, No Problem:

Now, this clearly shows that this design is extremely important, but you may not have thousands of dollars for a logo. Don’t worry…Big businesses have all the extra cash to waste, whereas small business owners can get one at a fraction of the cost without even compromising on quality.

So, having said that, let’s now dig deeper and explore why you must create a logo design for your business.

Give Something to Your Market to Visualize Your Business:

Your logo is not a small piece of design; it is in fact your business identity. It helps you stand-out from the competition. Thus, without a logo, you won’t be able to create a unique business image.

If, in a store, you see many products by several manufacturers that you have never tried before, then it’s the quality of the logo that will enable you to determine the quality of a particular product. Without a logo, there won’t be any visualization and, thus, you won’t get any recognition. In order to grow your business, it is crucial that you give your business an impressive face with an impressive logo design.

Make Your Online Marketing Campaigns Effective:

If you use social networking sites, then your logo can help you a lot. Your logo design in your profile will help you promote your business and win the trust of your market. Let’s say you don’t have a logo right now. If you add friends and grow your network, it won’t help your business in any way, because you won’t be promoting your business. The only way of promoting your business will be through the links that you will post and it may even get you labeled as a spammer in the long run.

Having a logo design will prevent you from spamming as people will see your logo and learn about your business. If your network will trust you, then they will trust your business as well and would love to learn more about it. So, build your credibility by communicating with your network and build your business image with a high quality logo design.

Make Your Offline Marketing Campaigns Effective:

Distributing brochures and giving away complimentary items are some great ways of promoting your business offline. However, you won’t get any recognition if your brochure or products won’t have your logo imprinted on them. Other than recognition, a top-notch logo will also help you win the trust of your market.

When your target market will look at your complimentary products (with your logo) again and again, they will automatically begin to trust you (Hey, after all, they are already using your product in the form of a mug, pen, T-shirt or any other complimentary product).

So, folks, you need a logo design to give your business an identity and make your marketing campaigns effective.

In today’s tough competition, you can get a top quality logo, designed by a professional designer, at a very low price. So, you too can now create your brand identity effectively.

About the author
Ben Johnson is Alliance Manager at Logoinn, a custom logo design & website design company. He writes about the effect of design on marketing and brand identity and helps small businesses find design solutions for effective marketing& branding