More and more companies are moving away from print advertising and moving forward with digital marketing. It’s a smart decision. The internet audience is growing on a daily basis, it’s more cost-effective, and it even provides the opportunity to have conversations with your audience rather than just a one-way transmission of information. So it seems for now that digital is the way to go. But do you know what it takes to make your digital creative most effective?

Digital and print advertising are two very different beasts. Before you suddenly decide to abandon your print efforts, it's a good idea to investigate online marketing best practices first, or put the professionals to work and ask your vendor for help.

With print advertising people get the whole page view and can quickly scan the entire page for interesting points. And in print you don’t have to worry about the way something renders because you have full control over the final product before it gets into readers' hands.

But with online marketing there are different things to consider. For example, sometimes readers can only see your work in small portions, like what’s above the fold. So if you have 2-3 seconds to capture interest, do you really want a fraction of those seconds spent on reaching for the mouse to scroll down the page? Let’s just say the answer is “no”. So what do you do to remedy this, and improve other elements of your online design?

• Use clear and relevant subject lines, titles and headings
• Provide a condensed version of important points or an abstract in your email communications with links that click-through to more detailed information on the landing page, or the whole article on your Web site
• Have call-to action buttons and links to attract readers' attention and engage them
• Use images that are relevant and consistent across all elements of your campaign
• Use fonts that will render in major browsers and email clients
• Consider different screen sizes
• Acknowledge varying computer speeds

If you take the time to investigate online design best practices you’ll see that they are vastly different from the best practices of print design. If you come into the digital space thinking you can imitate your print work, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

The online space provides great opportunities, but you have to approach it with an open mind. So do your research or ask your vendor. Either way, be willing to evolve.

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About the Author

Ghia Espino is an account manager at Lyris. She strategizes with clients to improve their online marketing performance and works as their Lyris advocate.

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