Even if you have no interest in design theory and fundamentals, for the sake of your business there is one point that should never be forgotten: the purpose of design is communication.

Communication Demands Relevance

Each industry has a unique audience, with unique needs & expectations. What works for a law firm website will not necessarily translate well to the design of a catering company website. In an industry flooded with generic templates and unqualified or (worse) apathetic service providers, this simple fact is often overlooked. For this reason, we present to you the first in a series of Web Design Anatomy articles. Motivated by the short and frustratingly familiar script referenced here, our first article will deal with Restaurant Websites.

Why Does a Restaurant Need a Website?

We’re not talking generalities here – in today’s marketplace just about EVERY type of business needs an online presence if they want to stay competitive. More specifically, we are asking the question: what is the purpose of a restaurant website?

The reductionist answer is twofold:
• To create an attraction between diners and your restaurant
• To provide the information they need to spend their money there

Attraction

This is the point that far too many restaurant owners get caught up in, at least superficially. It’s no secret that we are not supporters of Flash to the detriment of accessibility or functionality. How can you attract when you can’t be seen? It’s best to consider Flash as just one specialized tool in a very well stocked toolbox… it serves a niche function, comes with a ball of strings attached, and with advancements in the capabilities of JavaScript is quickly becoming obsolete.

It is important to present an impressive online image that represents everything great about your restaurant. But in order to make that impression, diners need to be able to actually VIEW your website. If they are out driving around, browsing for a restaurant on their iPhone, they will not be able to view your Flash website. At all. If they are using a search engine to find a restaurant, yours will likely be way down the list, as search engine optimization techniques for Flash sites are crippled, at best. There is also the issue of not being able to copy/paste, or bookmark individual pages. Statistically, Flash sites have an exponentially higher abandon rate than XHTML/CSS based sites.

Information

Following is a short list of requirements that every restaurant website should have in order to provide customers with the information they’re seeking:

• Restaurant Overview
  A basic introduction to your restaurant is a must. Even if you think the name of your restaurant is self-explanatory, people still like to see how you describe yourself. If you have any unique selling points (local-sourced or seasonal ingredients, fair-trade, vegetarian options, etc.) this is a great place to mention them.
• Location
  Diners need to know where you are, and how to get there. You don’t need to provide directions from every corner of town, but an address, basic map, and link to a direction-giving site like Google Maps is very helpful indeed. BONUS: include a photograph of the front of your restaurant, so first-time visitors will recognize it easily from the street.
• Hours
  Basic stuff, here. And this is very near the top of the list of priorities when a diner visits your website. Make them easy to find.
• Menu
  Your food is your business! If ever there were an influential and unique selling point, it would be a mouth-watering menu. Words paint a picture, here. Don’t just scan your paper menu into an annoying PDF file, either – invest in having a digital menu designed to complement your physical one. This is the page people will want to bookmark.
• Photos
  A picture surely does speak a thousand words. Show what you’ve described in your menu, and make the imagery so vivid that it elicits a Pavlovian response in your visitors. Show your food, show your restaurant, your staff, and your dining room. The food is the star, but the experience is the whole package.
• Reviews
  This is not a must-have, but it certainly is nice. Reviews are the first thing many people look at when considering a new restaurant to try. If your restaurant has been reviewed in print, you definitely want to boost the influence that press affords by including it in your website. If you’re not in print, patch in reviews from consumer sites like UrbanSpoon or Restaurantica, or any of the other dozens of options available in any given city. And if you’re brand-spanking-new, include a reviews page with a simple request and link for people to visit a chosen review site, and let the world know what they thought of their experience with you.
• Reservation/Contact Info
  This area can be the deal-closer in many cases. If you make it easy and painless for people to book a table, guess what they’ll be more likely to do? Provide an easy-to-find phone number, of course, but also consider bookings by email, or requests via a form on your website. You can even program in live reservations through services like OpenTable.

How to Annoy Your Customers

Some food for thought, straight from the horses’ mouths:

“I’m always taken aback when music emanates from my speakers when I’m viewing a site”

“Flash required. Biggest irritant of a restaurant website. Even more so if they have an “Intro” graphic/animation. Two of my fav places use flash for their sites and it’s very very annoying. Even more annoying with flash is not being able to copy/paste phone numbers.”

“Can’t stand it when a site starts with music or that stupid talking character/video. I’ve got my own playlist going already, thanks. I don’t want your music. And when I’ve opened a ton of tabs at once, skimming through to find a cool place to eat, it’s always a pain to figure out which ones are making the noise.”

“I have my windows set up so that everything is sized and positioned the way I want it. Nothing bugs me more than when a website takes over your browser and forces it to fill the screen.”

“Flash, flash, flash. I don’t care about your intro. I don’t want to watch a video of leaves unfurling. Atmosphere is nice, but I usually end up closing these sites before they’re even done loading.”

“Where’s the damn menu?! I scour the site for ages, then when finally find it, it’s a crappy PDF.”

Who Does It Right

Here are just a few examples of restaurants with websites that walk the walk in terms of design, attractiveness to their own target customer base, and serving their purpose through the provision of convenient, easy-to-find information.

Each of these sites has a design that appeals the demographics the restaurants are trying to attract. They look great. They work the way they should. And information is very easy to find.

The central lesson in all design, whether it be for print, digital distribution, or the web, is that (the right kind of) communication is king. The goal for any company’s website is to sell a product, service or idea. Obviously you want to look good doing it, but dressing up for a job interview will do you no good if you can’t communicate with your prospective bosses. And let’s face it… the customer is the boss.

Led by Dieter Rams, the Braun of the seventies embraced a design sensibility that was both minimalist and modernist-inspired, leaving us with a collection of timeless pieces that are fast disappearing into the homes of collectors worldwide.

Though product design is slightly removed from what we do at Sage, their approach to what Rams called ‘Good Design’ translates quite well.

Ten Principles of Good Design

1. Good Design is innovative
2. Good Design makes a product useful
3. Good Design is aesthetic
4. Good Design helps us to understand a product
5. Good Design is unobtrusive
6. Good Design is honest
7. Good Design is durable
8. Good Design is consequent to the last detail
9. Good Design is concerned with the environment
10. Good Design is pure and simple

For nearly 30 years, Dieter Rams served as head of design at Braun until his retirement in 1998. Many of his designs have found permanent homes in museums and galleries around the world, including MoMA in New York. And much like his designs themselves, the principles he helped to define for the industry have a lasting, timeless quality.

Famous for defining ‘good design’ as ‘as little design as possible’, Rams had a full appreciation for the importance of clarity over cacophony – and that’s a tenet that travels incredibly well. I have a feeling the man’s influence will endure for years to come.

Effective strategic design is somewhat like a composition written for a symphony orchestra, in that it requires several instruments working symbiotically in order to achieve the desired result.

What is User Experience? Dozens of definitions and formulas have been put forward over the years, but what they all have in common are the premises that (a) the customer experience is the ultimate loyalty/sales motivator – for better or for worse, and (b) that a positive user experience depends on the correct ratio of a number of different elements. It is only the labels given those elements that differ between theories.

For example, Robert Rubinoff’s definition contends that the user experience is made up of four factors:
* Branding
* Usability
* Functionality
* Content

Rubinoff argues that none of these factors in absence of the others can make for a positive user experience. While originally intended for the context of web design/development, this formula can also be extended to products and services.

Branding is at the forefront of what we do at Sage Media. Your brand is your identity – not only the aesthetic or visual elements of your business materials, but also the messages your company projects. It is your ethos. It is you.

Good branding provides customers with an engaging and memorable (positive) experience. Visually, it has a strong and instant impact that is consistent with your company’s brand identity. All of the graphics, collateral materials and multimedia used in your materials are carefully considered and tailored to your specific audience, adding relevant value to the experience.

If your branding is strong, it makes clear promises that your company consistently delivers on, and your materials all leverage the capabilities of their respective media to enhance or extend your company’s brand.

Usability has become a buzzword in the world of web design and development, yet I’ve found its execution to be somewhat less than elegant in most cases. There are thousands of web sites, newsletters, brochures and other business materials that are just as easy to use as they are useless, because the “designers” responsible simply stopped at usability, without consideration for appeal, aesthetics, connection, content, message, functionality or relevance.

Materials must be accessible to be effective. However, I see too many companies hiring separate ‘usability experts’ (because their designers don’t understand usability), and sorely unqualified designers (because they’re cheaper). What this causes is a perpetual war between someone who doesn’t understand design, and someone who doesn’t understand usability, which inevitably costs the company untold amounts of money and wasted time, and results in (at best) a product representative of a begrudging compromise.

Functionality should be a rather obvious requirement for any product, service or marketing piece. If it doesn’t work, doesn’t do what your customers need it to do, or expect it to do… it is bound to fail. This is kindergarten level stuff.

It can even be an issue as basic as cross-browser/platform compatibility for your website. Your visitors do not all use the same browser you do. They do not all use the same screen resolution that you do. Nor do they all use the same operating system or type of computer. Crafting code that ensures your website works and provides a consistent experience to the widest possible range of visitors requires a lot of extra work, but it is a requirement. If your developer tries to convince you that a given feature you want on your website requires you to block visitors not using, say, Internet Explorer… start looking for a new developer. Seriously.

Content, finally, is often said to hold a regal position when it comes to creating brand materials. While I might not necessarily go so far as to crown it as King, stellar content is indeed a crucial element in strategic design. Overlook it, and your brand becomes that initially gorgeous creature who makes you want to turn and run the second they open their mouth.

By the same token, content alone won’t get you far. The same words coming from a clean, impeccably dressed, attractive person behind a podium will have far greater weight, impact and credibility than they would coming from an unkempt, unpleasant looking person on a street corner.

Think of your content as the closer. If you’ve branded your company right, you’ll have their attention. Now you need to choose your words very carefully. Your credibility and your bottom line depend on it.

All said, this is just one of many formulas floating around in the ether. I like it because it’s clean, and easy to explain to my clients (most of whom are neither experts in design, marketing or psychology, though all very nice people).

The amount of psychology that goes into the design of everyday things would amaze most people. What I find amazing is the fact that so many people think they can create effective, influential design without understanding what motivates the people they’re trying to influence.

Unfortunately, the design field is filled with people who don’t know what design for business really is – and they’re selling this lack of context to business owners taken in by a flashy (but ultimately meaningless) portfolio.

Graphic Design, or Corporate Design?

When people ask me what I do for a living, beyond my position in owning the company, invariably I describe my line of work as ‘corporate design’.

The term ‘graphic design’ has devolved into something that no longer represents our work. It’s been adopted by hobbyists and graphic artists and students and just about everyone with a pirated copy of Photoshop. Although Corporate Design requires a solid foundation in graphic design, it goes quite a bit further.

Design is communication. Corporate Design represents a strategic solution to business communication problems. This requires a working understanding of organizational and consumer psychology, branding, copywriting, positioning, marketing AND graphic design.

The Nike swoosh without all of the supporting branding efforts would be meaningless. Nike has done an excellent job over the course of its lifespan in creating a super-brand, instantly recognizable across the globe. Visual materials are incredibly important, but they are still just one ingredient in the cupcake. A logo, no matter how brilliant, cannot sustain a brand without the support of consistent and relevant content.

With that in mind, business owners need to invest equally in the content being conveyed alongside their visuals.

Define Your Message in Your Audience’s Language

Strong brands succeed because they successfully convey why company or product X is a prospects’ only solution. Failing that, a good brand needs to communicate how you are at least the best solution.

Strategic, purposefully written copy tells your prospects why they should buy from you – in a way that is personal, relevant, convincing and enticing. The words you choose need to convey real value.

Bad Copy: “Only the best.”
Sure, it could be true. But it could also be true for your competition. It’s generic, presumptuous, and unconvincing. It’s no hook.

Good Copy: “Savor the world, one cup at a time.”
A bit more enticing, no? This simple, eight-word phrase promises an exotic new adventure with every visit. Not only does it invite you to try the coffee in the first place, but it inspires you to sample all the flavours.

If your writing can in any way differentiate you from your competition (offer something that none of your competitors can claim to offer), it can even disqualify them outright.

Communication Defines You

Through branding, we form a personality, set a tone and create expectations… for better or worse.

When speaking in person, our words are given context through our body language, facial gestures, personal grooming, wardrobe and physical appearance. Consistency between the two is key. The same words coming from a well-groomed CEO behind a podium will hold more weight than they would coming from the mouth of a vagabond on a street corner.

Between the lines, the words you choose should project a clear verbal identity, reflecting who you are and who you strive to be. The sum of what you wear and what you say represents what you stand for, and what you promise to deliver.

When a potential client visits your website, for example, you have less than one second to make a first impression. If the design is effective, they’ll want to hear more about what you have to say. When you do open your mouth, make sure the words that come out are both compelling and consistent with what they expect to hear from you.

In branding, copy is the conversation, and design is the context. If one neglects the other, both become irrelevant.

My mother was a carpenter and a forest ranger… also an intellectual, a bit of a flower child, and an intensely caring individual. So as you might imagine, I was raised with a certain amount of appreciation and respect for the natural world. When it became apparent that more people in my own demographic seemed to be acknowledging and embracing concepts like social responsibility and environmental awareness, I was thrilled. I thought, finally – the middle class is starting to open their eyes.

Now, I feel rather ill at ease with the whole thing. I’m not implying that people don’t care – quite the opposite. A growing number of consumers want to do the right thing, but there remain two major problems with this. The first is a question of motivation… why do they care? How many of them are just being trendy? The second problem is the fact that we’re all being lied to. Over the course of one year, the number of products making ‘green’, ‘natural’ or ‘eco’ claims increased by 79% – which would be fantastic were it not for the fact that most of these claims are either fraudulent, unverifiable, or otherwise misleading (check out the latest Greenwashing Report).

These problems are not new, but given the context it’s taken on a new level of malignancy. I don’t want the world we live in to become the next discarded fad.

For those of us who run our own companies there are significant hurdles to face in terms of the decisions we make both personally, and professionally. On the personal front, as business owners, what we do in our personal lives inevitably bleeds into our work. Many of our clients have come to our company after having researched not only Sage Media as a business, but also the individuals who work here. Social media has rendered the faceless CEO extinct.

Be aware that everything you do publicly reflects on your professional life in some way. If your company is making corporate social responsibility claims, eschewing slave labour, for example… and you’re then seen shopping at Sprawl-Mart… well, you do the math. I’m not saying these big box stores use slaves directly (forget about their treatment of their own employees) but through their pursuit of the lowest price and their phenomenal buying power, they pressure their vendors to engage in increasingly cheap and unethical manufacturing and procurement strategies, which means – you guessed it – irresponsible raw material sourcing and sweatshop labour in some poor country overseas.

As a business owner, you need to be honest and authentic when making any claims, of any sort. Just because the FDA hasn’t yet written any rules for usage of the word ‘natural’, it doesn’t mean you should use it on everything simply in the hopes of duping well-meaning customers. Poison Ivy is natural, as are any number of toxic or poisonous elements. They’re not good for you.

When marketing a product with a ‘green’ advantage, make damn sure you can both justify and back up your claims – not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because almost nobody will believe you right off the bat now that consumers are wising up to the game.

If third-party endorsement is important to you, then go through the steps to actually get it. Don’t have an unscrupulous designer draw up a fake certificate or label. Don’t try to make a customer feel ‘green’ about a choice that is harmful or unnecessary, and make sure you have an honest understanding of all of the environmental impacts of your product, across its entire lifecycle. Check out The Story of Stuff – it’s really getting around, and more of your customers are going to be asking tough questions as awareness builds.

You don’t need to wear a hemp poncho or stop using soap… all you need to do is be educated and honest.

I’ve always been a strong proponent of transparency in business. My own model is simple: Say what you do, and DO what you say. Being honest is so much easier than pulling your hair out trying to back up a tangled web of exaggerations and false claims. And if you’re lying to your customers, they WILL find out. As they say, one bad review is more influential than twenty good ones.

Top Image: Matteo Cibic’s desk tamagotchi, each of which is one-of-a-kind and custom blown to match its individual cactus’ shape. A green design that also just happens to be adorable.

Many people are simply tired of words at this point. And that’s fine, but your tagline is important enough to warrant your full attention. So take a break, and come back to it when your mind is refreshed.

Think about your unique selling points. What do you stand for? What makes you special? What simple little group of key words sums you up in a nutshell? If you’re planning on a web presence (you are, right?) it’s also helpful to think about what words people might search for when looking for what you provide. This is just another exercise to help you target the right word choices.

Remember, your tagline needs to be a relevant and memorable phrase that will both encapsulate the tone and premise of your brand or product, and reinforce your audience’s memory of the same.

A lot of our clients follow the short, three word list model. While these nice little lists are great (we have one on our homepage), they shouldn’t be treated as your primary slogan. Why? They don’t stand for you on their own. Place your competitor’s name over that sweet little list instead of yours, and what do you see out of place? Probably nothing. The three word lists are too generic when used as slogans. They may describe you, but they don’t describe you uniquely.

My own tagline might not follow all the rules in a strict sense: ‘Driven by Design’. But although the specific choice of the word ‘driven’ may not link back to my company name in a literal way, as a slogan it works. It’s unique, relevant and very much representative of how we operate.

One could argue that phrase-based slogans have the same pitfalls as the list model, but the same could be said for any option. A thoughtful phrase is just the better choice. Coke’s old slogan “It’s the real thing” on its own could easily apply to any product based company. But they’ve taken strong ownership over time through effective marketing and visible reinforcement. Remember, it’s not enough to craft the perfect slogan… you have to own it. Use it or lose it, as they say.

I often wonder why so many of the business owners and brand managers who approach us are so obsessed with the overall machine, without giving so much as a nod to the cogs that make it work. I’m not talking about employee recognition here (that’s another topic entirely) but rather, the less tangible qualities that impact the customer’s experience in doing business with you.

How many times have you avoided returning to a restaurant with a shoddy bathroom? And how wonderful is that free tea or cappuccino at your favourite spa?

In another analogy, building a successful business is in many ways like building a house. You start with a plan and an overall vision, but there are a million little things that need to be done (and done well) before you’re anywhere near having a habitable and stylish abode. So too in business must you “sweat the details” in order to achieve a big picture worth hanging on the wall.

The following list outlines just a few of those little things… specifically, the equally minute and influential details that may have passed your notice, but won’t go unnoticed by the customers who walk through your front door.

Your Store / Office / Restaurant / Physical Space

1. Clean Exterior with Clear, Visible Signage
2. Thoughtful Lighting (not too dark, not to bright, with focus in the right spots)
3. Neat, Clean Interior
4. A Pleasant Smell (clean, fresh, VERY subtle, appropriate)
5. Comfortable Seating
6. Up-To-Date and Well Maintained Decor
7. Appropriate Background Music (genre, type, and volume)
8. A Comfortable Temperature and Noise Level
9. Breathing Space (wide aisles, clean lines, elbow room)
10. Impeccable Bathrooms
This is a big little thing. Bathrooms need to be clean, functional, relaxing, not treated as storage or a decor afterthought… and for the love of god, don’t skimp on the toilet paper.

The People You Employ

11. Smiling and Friendly
12. Well Groomed (clean-shaven, minimal makeup… they should look like they care)
13. Clean
14. Knowledgeable
15. Well-Spoken
16. Involved
17. Attentive (they don’t just hear, they listen)
18. Committed (passion shows)
19. Appropriately Dressed (i.e., if you’re selling jewellery, jeans won’t cut it)
20. Nice Smelling (this means little to no perfume, with any halitosis kept in check)

Your Business Away from the Office

21. A Modern, Simple, Useful Website
22. Pleasant Surprises (little extras have minimal cost and big payoff)
23. Up-To-Date Materials (an old card with new address in pen doesn’t inspire confidence)
24. Clear Vision
25. Quality Papers (cover stock with gloss for your catalog, or that thicker business card)
26. Free Perks (works in the office too; free refreshments while waiting make a big impression)
27. Impeccable Writing (no spelling errors; appear knowledgeable, authoritative, positive)
28. Brevity (say more with fewer words)
29. Takeaways (something keep-worthy to take with them, and hand out for you)
30. Understand Your Customer (and more importantly, make sure they know it)

None of these should come as big shockers, but it’s surprising how many times things like lighting, smells and toilet paper are overlooked. Success in business is closely tied to success in life, and your customers will reward you for a consistently enjoyable brand experience that speaks to them, and makes them feel good about doing business with you.

Remember, a happy customer is often a return customer.

While new business owners invest substantial amounts of time and resources into product and concept development, package design, advertising, PR and distribution, the act of choosing a name for their brand is often treated as an afterthought. As a result, we end up with generic and damaging brand names like ‘x place’ or ‘y barn’… or names that are already shared with dozens of other companies.

Choosing the right name is your first act of public branding, and it bears a heavy burden in that it must represent your values, your aspirations and your business using a small selection of letters. That’s a lot of weight for a few tiny words to carry.

So lesson number one, then, is to treat the naming process with equal importance as you would the development of your product itself.

Important Considerations

• Uniqueness
  Confirm trademark and URL availability for your shortlisted names
• Longevity
  Research the fit and stretch of your name against long term objectives
• Expandability
  Your name needs to grow the brand, set aspirational targets and remain flexible
• Objectivity and Relevance
  Target your audience, not yourself
• Diversity
  Ensure your name translates favorably into other languages
• Connectivity
  Launch stronger with support, excitement and backing from employees and key stakeholders
• Cooperation
  Your name is your label. Your slogan is your essence. Use both appropriately.
• Coverage
  Not every new product needs a new name. Your primary name should be strong enough to serve as an umbrella.
• Memorability
  This follows from all of the above. Your name needs to endure when all else is forgotten.

Remember, it’s easy to come up with a name. What people fail to recognize, however, is that it can be an incredibly difficult and complicated process to come up with a GOOD name.

Many business owners seek out naming consultants after having tried unsuccessfully to name their product or company in-house, often after having already invested considerable time and expense. Getting a brand specialist involved from the outset will push you solidly down the right path to creating a powerful brand name.

More often than not, consumers associate brand-speak with trickery, exaggeration, misdirection and outright deception. The sad thing is, I don’t blame them. A lot of brands are disingenuous. What those brand managers don’t realize is that tricking someone into buying once is far less profitable than earning customer loyalty and trust over the long term.

Investing in your Brand for the Long Haul

Branding is so much more than just looking good. You need to pick up where we leave off.

Good branding requires ongoing maintenance. But unfortunately, too many companies slow their branding efforts to a near-halt after unveiling the new logo and website.

In a number of ways, rolling out your new visual identity is really just the beginning of one of your most important branding endeavours… that is, a long-term and focused investment in building trust.

“Investing in brand development is increasingly important to build credibility and differentiate,” says Cynthia Round, executive vice president of brand strategy and marketing at United Way of America, which recently rolled out a completely revamped brand campaign. “People are making purchasing decisions based on how closely aligned their values are with an organization and how much they trust what that organization is providing.”

Your brand platform should accurately and honestly represent your organization’s core values, but it is equally important that your actions and business practices follow in line. Trust and personal connection are at the foundation of employee and consumer loyalty, both of which have a significant and direct impact on your bottom line.

Brand Trust: as Simple as Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Building and marketing a good base image is only step one. If I’ve heard of you, I’m more likely to trust you at the outset. But trust is built over time, accrued from a consistent collection of experiences and perceptions. To get to level two, you need to do what you say you are going to do. It seems easy, but it’s a step that so many fail to reach. Finally, customer trust and loyalty are confirmed and reinforced when you simply repeat step two at every opportunity.

Deliver on your promise in a consistent way, and you’ll never lose business due to a lack of credibility.

Free Advertising: it Goes Both Ways

If your brand promises gold and delivers bronze, you’re finished. Bad news travels fast and far. So in failing to live up to the image you’ve created for yourself, you’ve not only alienated one customer, but have also lost out on potential business from all of the people your single unsatisfied customer has complained to. You may be able to hold your head above water for a while with this strategy, but it won’t last.

On the other hand, if you’ve planned your brand strategy on a basis of sustainable and honest values (i.e., you can and do deliver what you say you will) then what you’re reinforcing is a lasting impression of quality, value, and credibility. Good news may not travel as far or as fast, but the ROI (considering your investment is nothing more than doing what you do anyway) can be immense.

Approximately 80% of our new clients come to us via direct recommendations from former or existing clients. That’s a significant amount of advertising that’s being done on our behalf, at no expense to us.

Honesty and Authenticity = Tangible ROI

The bottom line is, every company wants measurable, tangible returns on their investments. This is especially true when it comes to branding strategies. Trust is a tricky thing to measure, but when the United Way undertook a campaign to determine investor and donation motives in 2003, they found that a strong brand was 67% of the reason people chose to invest in the organization.

Often, it’s the smaller daily interactions that illustrate how your brand is working for you. And that’s precisely what you want. Small actions (both positive and negative) build upon one another, impacting the experience your brand provides, and acting directly on its strength.

Once you’ve built the visual aspects of your brand, success is as simple as delivering consistently on what you’ve promised. People will pay more for, and choose more readily, the experience and peace of mind that a healthy brand provides.

It has also become an uber-brand that represents intangible, un-buy-able values (peace, love, joy, family, selflessness) simultaneously with supreme commercialism.

I love Christmas: hot cocoa, a roaring fire, home cooking, decorated trees, lit up streets, friends around, and the overall heightened consideration of other people (which really should be more present year-round). And of course, the unavoidable and remorseless spending of money we don’t necessarily have.

I like shopping as much as the next red-blooded woman, and I love choosing gifts for people I care about, BUT I loathe the chaos that is the holiday shopping experience. Firstly, running a fully booked design firm means I am impossibly busy, and it’s hard to find time to brave the traffic, find parking, and wait in obscene lines at the counter. So I shop for a lot of gifts online, which doesn’t seem particularly festive to me. Something is lost.

Smart online retailers are starting to catch on. In the same ways that a brick and mortar store would decorate their shop for the holidays, internet based companies are learning to create a more festive atmosphere for their customers. We all know that emotion sells. And the experience you’re providing for your customers online can be just as lucrative as one you might create in your physical store.

Now, my customers aren’t looking for the same thing as holiday shoppers. You’re business folk, and it’s not likely you’re going to hire a corporate designer as a gift for a loved one. But, I still felt like I should give a subtle little nod to the holidays… so I created a festive little holiday variant on our logo in the upper left corner. Even for those of us who aren’t selling a product, small efforts like this one show a human side that customers often appreciate.

If your business does happen to be one that caters to holiday shoppers, there are a few things you can do to improve your customers’ experience, and boost your online sales this December.

Intelligent Use of Colour
Humans are deeply and predictably influenced by visual stimulus, particularly the experience and use of colour. If you’re going to ‘decorate’ your website for the holidays, do it tastefully. Blinking flashy strings of rainbow christmas lights as text separators are not going to help your cause. A rich feature area with two or three cohesive colours in a consistent palette will create a pleasing experience, which will make your visitors want to stay and browse around.

Good Bone Structure
If your website design sucks, then no amount of tinsel is going to save it. Before you even think about holiday branding strategies, you need to make sure your base materials are solid. You need an impressive and credible visual image, a strong homepage with obvious calls to action, a simple and clean interface, an intuitive navigational structure, and a minimalist shopping process. Your visitors should not even have to think about how to use your site – you want their focus on your products, not your overcomplicated shopping cart software.

Holiday Sales!
This is a no-brainer. It’s the holidays. People expect special price offers. And if you’re not offering any, it’s nearly guaranteed that your competition is. On a recent trip to Home Depot, my husband noticed there were a lot of two-for-one sales on power tools. He wondered why one might need two of the same tool, but it was actually a pretty obvious holiday sales tactic… buy something you might have wanted for yourself anyway, and get another one free so you can tick a name off your holiday shopping list. It’s a double incentive on high value purchases that might otherwise be put off. His reaction? “That’s brilliant.”

Know Your Market
If you’re catering to a niche market, then your promotional decor should be appropriate to their tastes. A sporting goods retailer would take a vastly different approach to a high-end jeweler. Acknowledge the reasons people come to your website, think about what they want to get out of their visit with you, and adjust your design accordingly. Remember, this is about THEM, not you.

Time For Change
In Q4, users give advertisers 30% more of their time when compared with any other time of year. If you’re going to roll out a new product, new campaign, new feature or benefit announcement, now is the time to do it. On December 31st, advertisers get an additional minute overall to engage their audience. You have their attention. Don’t waste it.

Decorate Tastefully
Cut the clutter. If you have something important to say, don’t drown yourself out with background noise. In trying to say too much, too many end up saying nothing. Focus on a few big drivers, and organize yourself thoughtfully. Your customers come to your website because they want something specific from you, so make it easy for them to find.

Flash is Overrated
A little bit can be nice, but usability is much more important from a shopper’s point of view. The trick is to combine ease-of-use with a visual atmosphere that gives your visitors a good feeling about shopping with you.