Designing is an integral part of any brand’s marketing, but design mistakes can do more harm to the brand than good. With the widespread popularity of social media, online commerce has become more convenient and available. Hence, an overall expansion of both physical market places and online market spaces has become evident. There are many marketing strategies, techniques, and tips that have emerged as a result of this expansion. Similarly, designing techniques and styles have also evolved through the years as the market and marketing grew to a better level.

Given this, it is inevitable that people now consciously or subconsciously compare brands to decide on their purchasing choices. One of the most important factors that determine whether a customer is going to trust your brand is from how you market it.

Design Mistakes to Avoid:

Prove What You Can:

Many brands these days try to prove themselves better than other brands by stating in their marketing designs that they are ‘number 1’ or whatsoever. However, such claims are often looked at with suspicion by the potential customers as they would want to find out whether you are, as a brand, in fact telling them the truth. Hence, unless your claims can be proved to the customers by either a Google search or a particularly named institution or authority that the customers can inquire from, avoid such claims that are meant to show superiority in the market. Instead, opt for qualities or characteristics of your brand or product lines to be the main focal point of your design.

This can be done by choosing one or more specific words to define your brand, and then revolving your whole marketing strategy including the content and designing around those words. For example, if your brand sells children’s clothes, you may choose the word ‘playful’ and then portray a playful design and content theme throughout your marketing – not only will it give the customers lesser reason to doubt your claim, but also, you can prove your brand as a playful brand however you wish!.

Contrast Colors, Not Concepts:

One of the most commonly made web design mistakes or even regular marketing mistakes includes a contrast of concepts. This mistake makes your brand confuse the customer rather than convincing them. You may have seen advertisements that use words like ‘luxurious’, ‘classy’, etc in their ad’s content but the picture or design accompanying the content of the ad is not matched to the words they are using. Similarly, it is important to remember that you are designing for the customer, and knowing their psyche is most significant in deciding designing elements. Hence, if your brand’s marketing campaign is for a discount on books, then you should know that regular book readers or bookworms are most likely introverts with a preference of staying indoors in a quiet place.

Given this, your ad’s content should include words like ‘solitude’ and the design must match the same with neutral colors, etc. Using neon colors with this message would be a complete contrast, and instead of attracting customers, it would drive the potential customers away. Therefore, whatever your advertisement is intended to communicate, your words and design must align with one concept.

Give Them What They Expect:

While it is appreciated to go out of your way and surprise the customers every once in a while with your creative designing and marketing approaches, customers usually trust the brands that seem consistent with the customer’s expectations of what the brand is like, what qualities their products or service offer, and why exactly the customer needs the product or service of that brand. Hence, in-depth market research can reveal what exactly customers expect of you. Their expectations may be developed from your existing products (like if you have always been creating high-end luxury products with premium pricing and great quality, any of your new product lines would be expected to have these qualities too).

However, what customers expect from you can also be rooted in the competitors’ strategies. For instance, if a competitor if introducing an additional new feature in their product, your customers would expect you to offer that feature soon, too. Otherwise, they will likely switch to the competitor’s product if the new feature appeals to them. Hence, when you design, basically focus on flaunting those qualities of your product that match the existing expectations of your customers. This may be done by photographs, illustrations, or even videos to show the customers that your brand is indeed fulfilling their needs and expectations.

Amongst the many web design mistakes to avoid, the above listed are the most common ones which your brand must take into consideration the next time you design something to achieve better and desired results.