Why Paying for Quality Banner Ads is a Good Investment

Posted Posted in Banner Advertising, Blog, Web Marketing     

Many designers already know that one can order fast and cheap but poor quality work or order more expensive, slower work that is much higher quality. While the business of any business is to turn a profit by cutting corners as much as possible, cutting your design budget for things like your website and your banner advertising is a mistake. The website is obvious; you want an attractive, functional site so that consumers won’t become frustrated and leave or consider your site ugly and leave, but what about banner advertising? Why should you be prepared to pay more and wait a little longer for quality advertising that is only a portion of your campaign?

Banner advertising is a very important part of any business campaign. It’s easy to spread across the internet and they are usually very cheap to post on other sites, including the giants like Google. And when they are well done, they are very effective in bringing traffic from the open plains of the internet to your front door and even more effective in building up your company brand. But therein lies the rub: they only do this when they are well done.

Small businesses may have a hard time justifying the expenditure into a graphic designer, but don’t go with your knee jerk reaction of ‘no’ and go for the cheapest product. Here’s why…

Poorly designed banner ads do as much damage to an online business as a well designed one helps. Poorly designed banners include ones with the following elements:

  • Clashing colors
  • Overly cluttered
  • Irritating flashing animations such as animations that are too slow or too fast (which also tend to slow down site loading time)
  • Images that have nothing to do with your business (and in some schools of thought, clip-art which is seen as juvenile)
  • Spelling mistakes (believe it or not, banner ads that are posted sometimes have spelling errors!)
  • Confusing messaging. Banner ads should be able to get the point across about their parent site in seconds

Notice something? Banner ads that you buy for really cheap are probably going to have at least one of these problems! This is because designers who charge very small prices tend to have ways to cut corners so that they can do lots of banner ads in order to make enough money to break even. Clip-art and boring text are the common hallmarks of these discount designers and banner ads in this style will end up costing you far more in the long run than it would have to have hired a good banner designer.

And this is assuming you know what you want from your banner ads. If you don’t… well, that’s a whole other bag of fish! Make sure you understand the benefits of a good banner ad versus making mistakes with them and you’ll be more inclined to avoid the bad designers.

How Paying More Now Helps Later

The idea of paying a few hundred dollars for banner ad designs may seem horrifying at first, but stop and think about it. By paying a reasonable amount of money, you will get the following out of your money:

  • A good design (or a few designs) that incorporates everything you want in your advertising
  • A design which becomes a foundation for branding
  • A happy designer with whom you can ferment a long term relationship for other projects
  • Someone to bounce ideas off of, particularly if you have no ideas!
  • Someone you can trust to have your business’ best interests

Now, while these things often seem very intangible, they are well worth the extra money. It’s always good to have a banner designer you can trust in your court and knowing that you’ll get a good design the first time it comes into your inbox is priceless. Certainly the initial investment is higher than a cheap design, but a good banner ad will bring in more traffic and make your business more successful. Plus you get the knowledge that you helped a small (or solo) business succeed as well.

Banner advertising is no longer just a way for companies to attract consumers; they are now being used as a way to build a brand and grab up curious shoppers at the same time. The change means that you need a graphic designer who can keep up and that means paying fair prices and keeping your designer happy, respected, and challenged. It’s very much a two way relationship when done properly and it’s well worth an initially higher price tag. Good luck!