Why Design Matters

The primary purpose of design is to capture your reader’s attention. You can have fantastic copy, a great product or service, and a compelling offer, but unless someone actually looks at the document, your marketing message is nonexistent to them.

The next time you get your mail, pay close attention to what jumps out at you. As you flip past envelopes, mailers and magazines, what grabs your attention? Chances are, it’s a color, a picture, or a prominent headline. That’s design!

Credit card companies try to get us to open their envelopes by sending materials in all sorts of sizes, shapes and colors - from sending formal yellow envelopes marked “urgent” to listing their offer in bold colors and type face on the front - “0% APR on balance transfers”. Magazines take a similar approach to get us to renew our subscriptions from bold “Expiration Notice!” messages on envelopes to renewal forms pasted over the cover of our magazines that scream “This is your last issue unless you renew now!” Other offers come in all sorts of shapes, colors, and sizes with the sole purpose of capturing a second of our attention, drawing us in, and compelling us to read more.

Every mail piece you send is competing with every other piece of mail your prospect receives for a coveted one second glance over. If your letter or mailer doesn’t look as interesting as other offers your prospect received in the mail today, where do you think yours ends up? The waste basket!

Your mail isn’t the only place where design matters. Design also is key in corporate literature. Today’s marketplace expects that you have some type of literature to describe your services. The home owners you are marketing to are business men and women who are used to a certain level of professionalism. If you don’t meet their standards, your materials quickly end up in the trash.

Your Marketing Materials Represent You and Your Professionalism
Most real estate agents send out boilerplate marketing materials. It’s fairly easy to buy a basic postcard or newsletter template, add your contact information and picture, and drop the pieces in the mail. However, when you do this, you’re packaging yourself as “just like everyone else.”

Your marketing materials are the physical representation of your services. When your prospects receive mail from you, many of them won’t know you. The postcard, letter, mailer or newsletter they receive from you is the only interaction they have with you. So, they judge you based on what it looks like and what it says.

If your marketing materials look unprofessional, you look unprofessional to them because that’s how you’ve just packaged your service. If your marketing materials have design flaws or spelling errors, they’ll judge your services as incompetent. If your marketing materials look like everyone else’s, they’ll judge you as “yet another real estate agent looking for a commission.”

In other words, if you don’t bother creating a professional image and message, you put the burden on your prospects to try to figure out who you are and what you do. And since they’re busy people with busy lives who receive 3000 marketing messages a day, they won’t take the time to figure it out.

The way you market yourself demonstrates the way you’ll market their home. After all, if you can’t afford quality marketing materials for yourself, how can you provide them with professional marketing materials to command top dollar for their home?

If You Can’t Afford a Graphic Designer
Design is more affordable than ever - even for the economic agent on a budget. If you can’t afford a high end graphic designer to create a visual identity for you, consider these options:

Find designers at Elance - Many affordable designers from all over the world bid on design projects posted to elance. This is the place to go if you have a set project, budget, and timeline. You simply post the project’s specs and enter your credit card information (so they can confirm you are a serious buyer) and wait for the bids to come in. Then, you choose a designer from bidders based on their terms, price, and portfolio.

Buy cheap stock photography at iStockPhoto.com - Why settle for unprofessional clip art when you can buy professional quality images for a few bucks?

Buy professional looking templates for Microsoft Publisher and Word (and higher end page layout programs, if you have them) at StockLayouts.com or TemplateCentral.com. Just insert your text - and new pictures if you’d like - and print.

Get a professional logo designed by LogoWorks.com or design your own online at LogoMaker.com.