To simplify this process, we’ve curated a collection of over 25 flyer templates for businesses to help you communicate your message effectively. These templates cater to various business needs, so you’re sure to find one that aligns with your brand’s identity and needs.

These templates are easily customizable, allowing you to match the design to your brand’s style. And the best part? They’re all free!

Whether promoting a new product, announcing an event, or raising brand awareness, these business flyer templates can help you create informative and memorable flyers that will help your business grow.

Top Free Business Flyer Templates for Designers

Multipurpose Corporate Business Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

This flyer template consists of a free PSD file that you can customize and use for traditional print flyers, newspaper ads, and more. Change the fonts, text, photos, and graphics to suit your needs.

Clean Corporate & Business Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

This clean, corporate flyer is ideal for businesses that want to convey a message in the simplest way possible. This flyer template is in PSD format, uses free fonts, is set to 300 dpi and CMYK, and is fully printable.

Business Summit Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

This Business Summit Flyer is a great way to announce an upcoming business event that you want prospects to have on their calendars. This template is available in PSD format and is easy to customize.

Minimal Business Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

The minimalist design of this business flyer template lets the information about your event or announcement stand on its own.

Creative Digital Agency Flyer Template

In InDesign Format

The Creative Digital Agency Flyer template is in the InDesign format and is fully printable at the A4 size. The layers are well-organized, and the design is print-ready so you can get this flyer out to the masses ASAP.

Abstract Business Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

As its name would suggest, the Abstract Business Flyer template features abstract geometric designs on opposing corners but is otherwise straightforward in its presentation. This vector file is editable in Illustrator and is fully ready to print.

Abstract Business Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

This flyer template has geometric background designs with triangular shapes pointing downward to grab your eye and direct it to vital info. This PSD template has well-organized layers, and you can add custom fonts, images, and graphics. This template is fully printable at 300 dpi.

Creative Agency Corporate Flyer Template

In Photoshop PSD Format

This Corporate Flyer template offers plenty of opportunities to feature custom information, but its presentation is still relatively minimal. It’s customizable and scalable in Photoshop, set to A4 size at 300 dpi, and print-ready.

Dark Business Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

This dark business flyer template is destined to make a statement. It includes paragraph styles, is fully layered, and works as a beautiful one-page document. It’s editable and multi-functional.

Business Promotional Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

This Business Promotional Flyer template is editable in Photoshop and can be used for various industries, including medical, real estate, photography, web design, and more.

Corporate Business Promotional Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

This flyer is a promotional tool that could be used to announce something big for your company. The PSD file is fully editable and printable at A4 size at 300 dpi. The well-organized file could easily be customized for any professional or corporate announcement.

Excor Creative Corporate Flyer Template

In Photoshop PSD Format

The Excor template is ideal for corporate settings but could easily be customized to suit just about any situation. This flyer is in PSD format and can be edited to include custom text, images, and graphics. It also includes free fonts and icons to make your life easier.

Minimal Corporate Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

Another option you may wish to consider is the Minimal Corporate Flyer Template. This template is in PSD format, is print-ready, and can be edited to suit any type of industry, including real estate, healthcare, or web design.

Corporate Flyer Template

Free to Download, in AI Format

This corporate flyer template is bright and bold while still maintaining a minimalistic style. It comes with both PSD and EPS files, is print-ready, and offers plenty of spots to add bullet points, icons, graphics, and more.

Two-Sided Corporate Flyer Template

In Illustrator EPS Format

This two-sided flyer template has custom designs for both sides (that you can then customize), uses free fonts, is set to CMYK at 300 dpi, and is layered, so editing is a snap. It’s also in EPS format, so you’ll need Illustrator to use this one.

A4 Corporate Business Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

This corporate flyer template is colorful and gives you plenty of space to highlight a lot of information in a small area. It comes with three different color options, is in PSD format, is sized at A4, and is ready to print immediately.

Creative Agency & Corporate Business Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

Another option is the creative agency and corporate business flyer template. These PSD templates include three color options and can be used for announcements, events, advertising, and even business listings. It’s truly versatile.

Business Flyer Templates

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

This Business Flyer is an excellent free option for those looking for something simple. This flyer template is in PSD format and allows you to add information about your company, contact info, and services. The file is print-ready in CMYK and at 300 dpi.

Creative Business Corporate Flyer Template

In Photoshop PSD Format

This corporate flyer template has a creative edge you might want to try out for your business. It has large color stripes across the flyer at a diagonal, increasing interest in your content and images. This Photoshop file is fully customizable, uses free fonts, and uses smart object layers for your convenience.

Business Advertisement Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

The Business Advertisement Flyer template features bright colors and engaging typography to set off any images you choose to include. It also comes with five different color options, is sized at A4, and is print-ready in CMYK. You can edit every part of this template using Photoshop.

Business Promotion Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

The Business Promotion Flyer template is a multipurpose flyer that can be easily customized for businesses, agencies, or medical professionals. The template uses well-organized layers, and is sized at A4, and is print-ready.

Corporate & Business Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

The Corporate and Business Flyer template consists of a PSD file and includes free fonts, so it’s free to use as-is. It’s also fully editable and printable and can be customized to suit various industries, from design to real estate.

Bold Corporate Flyer Template

In Photoshop PSD Format

The Bold Corporate Flyer template is simple yet effective. It’s in PSD format and is fully layered, so you can customize it easily. This template uses only free fonts, is sized at A4 and A5, and is print-ready at 300 dpi. Make this template your own, and you’ll be promoting your business in no time.

A4 Size Corporate Business Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

This corporate flyer is sized at A4 and is ready to print. Edit it in Photoshop, thanks to the well-organized layers it includes, and select from one of the three color options it provides. You can use this template as a flyer, business ad, or even a company poster.

Corporate Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

This corporate flyer template is editable in Photoshop and comes with three different color options, so you’re sure to find something that speaks to you. It can be easily customized, printable at 300 dpi, and used for many industries, including web agencies and tech businesses.

Modern Grid Business Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

The Modern Grid Business Flyer template is fully editable and makes creating a mockup for your flyer easy. It’s editable in Photoshop and customizable, so you can easily present your flyer ideas. This is great if you’re trying to visualize how it might look in the real world.

Flyer & Poster Mockup Templates

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

The Flyer and Poster Mockup template is an opportunity to present flyer design ideas. It’s editable in Photoshop and offers a straightforward way to create a flyer design before committing 100% to it.

Stand-up Mockup Flyer Template

Free to Download, in Photoshop PSD Format

Last on our list is another flyer mockup template. This standup flyer mockup allows you to insert your custom design into an awaiting scene. There is no better way to try a flyer design for size than by utilizing free resources like this, right?

Conclusion

That was quite a collection! Hopefully, you now have a greater understanding of what corporate business flyers can look like and have downloaded some of these free templates for your business. Good luck with all that you do!

The post 25+ Best Free Business Flyer Templates for Creatives in 2025 appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Whether you’re looking to present the story of your company, highlight your services or products, or simply establish a professional online presence, there are numerous free WordPress themes available to suit your needs.

In this collection, we’ve compiled the best free corporate and business WordPress themes for your company. These themes offer a wide range of features and customization options to help you create a professional website, without breaking the bank. Check out our selection and start building your business website today!

Elegant Business Theme

Free to Download

The Elegant Business Theme uses a beautiful grid layout for the different sections on the homepage. The sections have plenty of space to share a brief blurb about your company, highlight services, and share your contact information. The theme can be customized with Live Customizer and is fully responsive.

Meridian One One-Page Business Theme

Free to Download

The Meridian One is a one-page business and corporate theme that’s easy to customize with the built-in Live Customizer. The theme comes with 11 premade homepage sections, it’s fully compatible with WooCommerce, and has been optimized for speed.

Business Startup WordPress Theme

Free to Download

As the name suggests, the Business Startup theme is an excellent choice for startups, but it can also be used by freelancers and creative agencies. The theme features a dark and a light mode and uses WordPress Live Customizer and Elementor Page Builder, so you’ll have no problems modifying the page layouts or the styles.

Illdy One-Page WordPress Business Theme

Free to Download

The Illdy theme is another one-page WordPress theme designed for business websites. The theme features a responsive and flat design and offers plenty of sections to showcase your services, company history, contact information, testimonials, and more.

ClubHair Business Theme

Free to Download

The ClubHair theme is a perfect choice if you want a unique and creative theme. The theme is responsive and integrates perfectly with WooCommerce. It also features pricing tables, a skills counter, and much more.

Camille Multi-Concept WordPress Theme

The Camille theme has more than 20 unique demos, so you can pick and choose the one that’s perfect for your business. On top of that, you will also find features such as multiple blog and portfolio layout combinations, one-click demo install, responsive design, mega menus, and more.

Primer Powerful WordPress Business Theme

Free to Download

The Primer is a perfect choice if you’re looking for a theme for your business blog. The theme is fully responsive and easy to customize, and you can even use it as a starting point for a child theme design.

Septera Multipurpose Business Theme

Free to Download

The Septera theme is a multi-purpose theme that has been optimized for search engines, and it’s also translation-ready, making this theme a great choice for multilingual sites. The theme integrates with WooCommerce and includes more than 100 options to customize and style your site.

Anima Highly Customizable Business Theme

Free to Download

The Anima theme comes with an impressive number of customization options and includes both wide and boxed layouts. The theme also supports a variety of popular plugins, including WooCommerce, WPML, qTranslate, Polylang, and more.

Dash Creative Business Theme

Try the Dash theme if you’re looking for a modern and professional design. The theme includes four individual homepage styles and includes the Visual Composer page builder so you can easily create your own unique page layouts.

Auberge Business WordPress Theme

Free to Download

Consider the Auberge theme if you’re running a restaurant. The theme offers beautiful full-width image areas and stunning galleries, which are perfect for showcasing your dishes. The theme also includes easy-to-use menus so you can show visitors what your restaurant has to offer.

Ixion WordPress Theme

Free to Download

The Ixion theme is best suited for non-profit and charity organizations that want a modern and elegant design. The theme includes custom social media icons, the ability to create a unique static homepage, and a plethora of customization styles.

Game Studio WordPress Theme

Free to Download

The Game Studio is a great choice for game developers, but it can also be used for any software development company website. The theme makes it easy to showcase your services, book appointments, and sell your games, thanks to the integration with WooCommerce.

Crafter Corporate & Business Theme

Free to Download

The Crafter theme features beautiful CSS animations, which are sure to make your entire website stand out. The theme is fully responsive and includes detailed documentation that will help you get your site up and running in no time.

North Business WordPress Theme

Free to Download

The North is a minimal business theme that’s perfect if you want to include an online shop on your site. Aside from the WooCommerce integration, the theme includes widgets such as a slider, contact form, and more to help you present your business information.

Pioneer Multi-Concept Corporate WordPress Theme

The Pioneer theme offers several different homepage layouts geared for different industries, so you can easily choose the one that fits your business best. You will also find a filterable portfolio, WooCommerce integration, and SEO-optimized code.

Make Business WordPress Theme

Free to Download

The Make theme is a drag-and-drop builder theme that makes it easy to create custom layouts without having to learn the code. The theme is fully responsive and offers a number of premade layouts and widgets to help you build your site.

Conclusion

A proper business and corporate theme can take your website to the next level and help you establish your brand, build trust, and results in more clients and sales. The good news is that you don’t have to spend a ton of money to get a quality theme.

As you can see, there are plenty of free business WordPress themes, so be sure to check out the themes in this collection and download them for your website.

The post 15+ Best Free Business & Corporate WordPress Themes for 2025 appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

My first professional gig came after high school, maintaining the website for our local newspaper. It was a great experience, but it came with a bit of a laughable salary (buy me a beer and I’ll share the tiny number with you).

One of the things that stands out most to me from this time was how ‘used’ I felt. I believed that I was worth a lot more than I was being paid and that the work I was doing wasn’t being treated seriously. The web was a pretty new medium in terms of its use for business and some colleagues weren’t so impressed with its potential. That led me to a feeling of apathy and really made it hard to get motivated.

Some of what I felt was based on the reality of my circumstances. The other part was more about ego and entitlement. That’s the side of things we often don’t like to talk about. But it affects many of us – especially when we’re starting out in our careers.

A Snail’s Race to the Top

It’s no wonder some of us feel like we’re getting the short end of the stick. After all, the internet brought about an age of instant celebrity where a small effort can produce huge rewards. As an 18-year-old kid with a somewhat unique skill, why wasn’t I just rocketing up the company hierarchy?

In short, the answer for this was that I really didn’t know anything at all. Like many a youngster in an Afterschool Special, I just thought I knew what I was doing.

Web design is a field where experience really does matter. You have to put yourself through all sorts of real world situations in order to learn and improve your skills. Things have to break before you can learn to fix them. You’ll have to absorb different forms of client feedback so that you can learn not to take it too personally. There’s just so much a class or online tutorial can’t teach you. Experience fills in those gaps.

So the fact that I knew a bit of HTML and could put together a rudimentary website didn’t exactly mean I was to be regarded as CEO material. Despite my own feelings, it turned out that I was exactly in the place I needed to be – right at the bottom of the ladder.

Patience Brings Growth

Sometimes, it seems like the hardest thing to be is patient. We all want what we want, when we want it. And so the fact that building a design career takes time isn’t always so easy to digest.

But building a portfolio and gaining a good reputation takes time. And the lessons you learn day after day add up to the point where you can become truly confident in your abilities. That confidence can also help you realize the things you don’t know – keeping you humble and willing to learn.

Personally, I learned a whole lot in the time spent at that first job. When I started my freelance business a few years later, I entered a whole new phase of learning. But I had at least formed a general philosophy of what I wanted to accomplish and how I wanted to go about doing it. There were things that I knew I wanted to do differently from where I’d been.

Making the Climb

We can all recall stories of famous people who have had too much, too soon. Usually the endings aren’t very happy ones. That’s why there’s a real advantage to starting at the bottom. You can take the time to build upon your experiences and learn the ins and outs of your craft. From there, you can evolve to take on more responsibilities.

Of course, there’s also the matter of finding (and taking advantage) of the right opportunities for growth. Part of this comes from developing your own sense of what direction you want to move in. The positive traits you’ve gained can then help propel you to that place.

As for me, I wouldn’t say I’m anywhere near the “top” in terms of any sort of arbitrary ranking of web designers. That’s not necessarily what drives me. But I am doing what I love to do (mostly) on my own terms. To me, that is what’s most important.

We each have our own motivations for our careers and dreams of what we’d like to be doing. So, whatever your motivation – just give it some time. You’ll have to work your way up your own personal ladder in order to reach the top.

The post Starting Out Small in Web Design appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

PowerPoint templates play a key role in improving the quality of a proposal. They offer a structured platform for communicating your message.

This collection features the top PowerPoint templates for creating business proposals. Whether pitching to a client, presenting a project, or proposing a new business strategy, choosing the perfect PowerPoint template can make a significant impact.

2. Contemporary Business Proposal PowerPoint Template

This elegant PowerPoint template has been designed for contemporary business proposals. It includes 30 PPTX slides and has creative photo layouts, detailed infographics, tables, vector icons, and various diagrams. This template offers a mix of creativity and practicality, which is ideal for business proposals.

3. Clean & Modern Business Proposal Presentation Template

This business proposal presentation template is ideal for anyone looking for an easy way to present business ideas. It has 41 slides in PPTX format and includes various infographic elements, tables, charts, graphs, maps, icons, and much more.

4. Dark & Clean Proposal PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is a sophisticated choice for presenting business proposals. It includes 50 slides in PPTX format and features a dark and clean design. This template is perfect for anyone looking to use a contemporary aesthetic in their presentations.

5. Startup & Business Pitch Deck Template for PowerPoint

This template is perfect for startups and established businesses to pitch their ideas to clients. It is cross-platform compatible, including PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides, for your ease of use.

6. Professional PowerPoint Business Proposal Template

This PowerPoint template has over 35 editable slides, each designed in a classic 4:3 format. This time-saving template is ideal for professionals looking to present their ideas clearly without getting bogged down in design details.

7. Multi-Purpose Proposal PowerPoint Presentation

This business proposal template offers 52 unique slides and comes with silky-smooth animations for slide transitions. This PPT and PPTX template is excellent for creating professional business proposals.

8. Clean Proposal PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template, available in both PPT and PPTX formats, offers 24 unique slides in full HD 16:9 quality. The design is clean and colorful, with scalable features, making it versatile for various business uses. It’s suitable not only for creating business proposals but also for eCommerce and product presentations.

9. Creative Proposal PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template has been tailor-made for design proposals, including specific slides for communicating creative concepts. It includes specialized slide templates for various design aspects, such as the scope of work, creative strategy, usage rights, and more.

10. Business Proposal Presentation Template

This multi-purpose proposal template offers 30 unique slides that can be customized to suit any project. This template is available to download for both PowerPoint and Google Slides, allowing you to choose your favorite platform.

Conclusion

Choosing the perfect proposal template is important for presenting your business ideas. A well-chosen template will improve the design of your proposal and help structure your content for maximum impact.

Customizing these templates to suit your needs can significantly improve the professionalism and persuasiveness of your proposals. The right template can be the key factor in winning over your audience and achieving your business goals.

The post 10 Best PowerPoint Templates for Business Proposal Presentations in 2025 appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Over the years, I’ve encountered several small business owners who declared that they needed a mobile app. They were under the impression that an app should be there to live alongside their website and cater to the needs of mobile users.

Usually, after a bit of investigation, it turns out than an app wasn’t necessary at all. In reality, a well-designed responsive website will often cover all the basics.

Still, the confusion remains. It begs the questions: What are the downsides to having an app? How do we explain the situation to clients? Finally, when should an app be a realistic part of the discussion?

Apps Aren’t Always the Answer

Thanks to the likes of Apple and Google, apps are often seen as being glamorous or a status symbol. And it makes sense that business owners want to be in this exclusive club (that boasts millions of other members, notwithstanding).

But before you even decide if a client really needs to have an app, consider the following:

Phone Space is Super Competitive
While high-end products like the iPhone or Samsung Galaxy are heavily used, not everyone has that sort of buying power. Many consumers are relegated to low-and-mid-range models. One of the biggest differences between these categories is storage capacity. Users of cheaper phones are usually quite squeezed for space.

The result is that only the “essential” apps get installed. Social media, productivity and games are where users are opting to spend their limited storage. If you’re banking on wide usage of your app, it had better be worth it to the end user.

It Can Be Expensive
The other side of the coin (literally) is that having a mobile app developed and maintained will cost you. For a small business, this can really cut into a marketing budget. If your app is superfluous, this takes precious funds away from more pressing matters.

Discussing Mobile Apps with Clients

When a client brings up the possibility of a mobile app, it’s our job to find out all we can about their potential needs. Whether app development is part of your services list or not, you’ll want to try and guide them in the right direction.

Too often, we see people go into sales mode. But in this case our clients need us to be an honest broker. That certainly doesn’t mean we can’t sell them on what we have to offer. It just means that we should only sell them what they need.

To find out whether an app makes sense, start out by asking the following questions:

What do you want the app to accomplish?
The client should at least have a somewhat clear goal for what their app would do. That could be anything from increasing sales to helping visitors find their way at an event.

Who is your ideal user?
In other words, we want to find out the app’s potential target market. However, the focus may be a bit narrower in terms of who might use it. For instance, a business may have at least some clientele who aren’t tech-savvy. This group may not get much use out of an app.

Why can’t (or shouldn’t) the website do this?
This is where we get the details that will help determine whether or not an app is needed. It’s about functionality, problem-solving and marketing. An app will show its true potential when we analyze what it will do as compared to the existing website.

So, When Does an App Make Sense?

Once we have the right information, we can then figure out whether a mobile app might be beneficial. As a primer, let’s look at some scenarios where an app could make sense:

It Takes Advantage of Smartphone Technology
One of the greatest attributes of a well-made and useful mobile app is that it makes use of device technology. For example, think about apps that utilize GPS or the built-in camera. They often help users find a specific location or document something. The need for this functionality may rule out depending on a responsive website alone to serve the mobile crowd.

It Makes a Task Easier for Users
This is the value proposition for an app. Why should someone take the time to install it on their device? If it helps them perform tasks more efficiently than a website, then it could be just what the doctor ordered.

It Has a Chance to Meet the Expected Demand
Even if this amazing app makes good use of technology and is helpful, it has to have a solid user base in order to be worth the money. This can be tricky to figure out. But it’s helpful to think about the client’s business in general. Look at customer demographics and how likely they are to use an app. Also look at potential ways the app could attract new customers.

If the app has a reasonable chance to find a solid group of core users, it could be a great investment for the business.

Clearing Up Mobile Confusion

In the last decade, smartphones and tablets have become go-to devices for so many. But it’s important to remember that not everyone recognizes the difference between a dedicated mobile app and a mobile-friendly website. To a lot of end users, the lines are still blurred.

As web professionals, we can help by making our clients aware of that distinction. From there, we can dig a little deeper to find out what they really need. That may well turn out to be an app. But it could be that their website already has what they were looking for all along.

The post When Does a Small Business Need a Mobile App? appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

If you toss together a design based off a wireframe template, hand it off to a copywriter, and then turn everything over to a marketer, you’re going to miss crucial pieces of the puzzle that can all come together to turn a winning design into a hugely profitable business asset.

There are 6 trends that are making big moves into designs from smaller mom and pop shops, up to Fortune 500 companies that, as a designer, you need to pay attention to.

Endless Scrolling Layouts

Millennials are making up a bigger sector of internet users, so if you want to get their attention — and keep it — your designs are going to have to reflect the type of personality and attention span that Millennials are known for having.

Short attention spans, and wanting information quickly without having to browse through dozens of pages, or getting put off by a huge wall of text are all qualities that Millennials exhibit.

That means they don’t want to land on your page, only to see a ton of text that they have to scroll through, or get redirected through multiple pages before they finally reach their destination.

Instead of pushing them away with a ton of information (which they do actually want), spend time focusing on endless scrolling designs.

When a visitor lands on the page and sees a short scrollbar on the right hand side of the screen, they’re not going to get discouraged knowing they have to keep scrolling to get through everything.

Instead, they’ll start consuming the information, and the long-scrolling will continue bringing in new information as the user continues down the page. By the time they’re done reading and browsing, they’ll have taken in a lot more information than they thought they were going to, and you’ve substantially increased their engagement.

Replacing Carousels & Sliders With Hero Shots

Carousels and sliders were never really a feature that worked, but it didn’t stop countless designers from putting them into their projects. Both tend to slow down the design, and distract visitors away from the end goal — making a conversion.

Instead of loading your pages down with heavy carousels and sliders, new designs are making good use of the hero image. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s the massive pictures you see that take up the entire screen as a visitor lands on the page, and instantly grabs their attention.

They’re becoming popular because they take up minimal bandwidth, and don’t slow down the visitor’s browser like Javascript heavy carousels and sliders do. With smaller screens, they also make a bigger impact than functionality that may not be supported.

Designing & Adapting To Active User Interactions

User experience requires you to focus on getting inside of your user’s head, and delivering exactly what they’re looking for so that their engagement with your design is practically seamless. You want to be accused of reading their mind, while you’re leading them down the path you want them to go.

While highly experienced developers that are working together with marketers and customer research teams can put this together, most designers aren’t going to have the information they need when they’re putting the project together. That’s why you have to spend time testing different aspects of your design on the open market.

You need live feedback from customers who are actually using their site. The best way to get this information is by using heatmaps to determine where your visitors spend the most time, where they’re clicking, stopping to read, and what may be missing along the way to converting them into a customer.

In a live fire situation, heatmaps, combined with live chat and outright asking the visitor how your design can help improve their engagement and user experience are practically invaluable — and information that you won’t necessarily have when you start the project.

Focusing On Micro-Commitments

Getting a “yes” out of your visitor is the first step you need to be taking to getting them to convert into a paid customer somewhere down the line. They’re the heart of conversion rate optimization, which is a skillset that all designers and developers need to have in their arsenal.

Check out this post by Ryan Levesque on Crazy Egg. In it, he breaks down the smaller steps that you need visitors to take before you can get a major commitment out of them — a purchase or entering into your marketing funnel so you can convert them into a purchase later on.

The best way to get a “yes” out of them is to simply ask a question. Questions instantly connect you to your visitor, and let them know that whatever you’re offering is speaking directly to them, and reduces the chance that their fear responses are going to be triggered.

Implementing Artificial Intelligence

We’re in the big data age, and if you’re not collecting data on how your visitors interact with your designs, you’re missing out on huge opportunities to keep them engaged.

Take a look at Netflix for instance. Their active engagement from users is through the roof, and it relies on a combination of artificial intelligence and collecting data about their users. Every time a customer watches something new, it’s tagged in a database and other related titles are brought up so they can keep the person entertained.

The best example of this is their “Because you watched…” panels. Their end goal is to make sure visitors always have something to watch and engage with when they’re using the platform.

Copywriters & Content Marketers Working With Designers

Getting engagement out of your visitors doesn’t just fall on the designer’s desk, anymore. Full teams are required to get the most traction out of a web design project, and that requires everyone who is going to be working to convert the visitors into customers to work together.

Building a design that works to keep from frustrating your visitor is one thing. Creating copy that not only gets in your visitor’s head, addressing their pain points and concerns, while also making the marketer’s job easier is a completely different story altogether.

Most projects are built one step at a time. First, the designer takes a wireframe and puts it together. Then, a copywriter comes in a puts a bunch of words on the page. Finally, the marketer takes what he’s been giving and tracks down an audience.

Those days are gone, though, because the flow between the design, the copy, and the marketing all need to work hand, in hand, and that’s only possible when all 3 teams are working together during the development stage.

Conclusion

If you’re willing to work together with the other professionals that will be involved in making sure your design delivers on the promises you’ve made — the copywriters, and marketers — and takes data from visitors using the site, as well as customers that have been converted, your life will be a lot easier, and you’ll have a lot more happy clients.

A reputable web design and marketing agency will understand the subtle nuances and what is required to grab a Millennial’s attention, and then keep it. This type of in-depth branding goes a long way toward making your marketing campaign successful not only with Millennials, but with visitors of all ages. Brand Builders specializes in delivering a custom user experience that helps turn your visitors into paying customers.

The post UX Trends For Small Business Websites appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Emerging channels such as digital marketing enabled many companies to reach their target audience across the globe and drove them to expand to deliver its corresponding demands. Also, the techniques provided by digital marketing are highly measurable, especially in determining traffic and quantifying results.

On the other hand, traditional marketing channels such as tri-media advertising remain relevant and effective. It may be true that measuring the success of a campaign that relies on TV, radio, and print can be a challenge, but they still make for good alternatives, especially for customers that do not always have Internet access.

Face-to-face interaction is another edge traditional marketing has over digital marketing and is still preferred by many consumers when dealing with transactions.

Case in point: with the variety of techniques available to us, each with its own set of advantages, the field of marketing has evidently expanded, and the possibilities are practically limitless. It also made connecting with clients, customers, and other business partners easier. But what if you can combine all the techniques effective for your business to form one powerful marketing strategy?

This is where multichannel marketing comes in. A promising marketing approach with the strategy of achieving business success by making the customer’s journey as convenient as possible. In this post, you will learn what multichannel marketing is, its importance, and how you can pull it off.

Multichannel Marketing Defined

The core premise of multichannel marketing is providing your customers with multiple channels – both direct and indirect – and giving them the power to choose, which means they prefer communicating with you throughout the buying process.

Say, for instance, you’re running a real estate business. Apart from having a website, you also have an office where you can accommodate potential clients. While clients may have learned about you online and first made inquiries through email, they may prefer to visit you at the office or receive a catalog via post to learn about your services.

By offering your customers several ways to inquire, browse, shop, and avail of customer support, you increase the chances of achieving your business goals faster.

Regardless of the channels you make available, the whole point of multichannel marketing is to give your clients a holistic and satisfying customer experience by giving them options and control.

Importance of Multichannel Marketing

The multichannel approach to marketing may still have a lot to prove as a successful strategy, but it has shown its share of advantages. Here are three of those benefits:

1. It makes You Omnipresent

One of the limitations of tri-media advertising is the time it takes for traction to occur. This changed when the Internet was introduced to modern marketing and applied to traditional techniques. Since then, customers can quickly look up a product or service from the comfort of their homes.

Using multichannel marketing means being accessible from every place your customers believe is convenient, whether it’s your website, your social networking profiles, your mobile app, or your brick-and-mortar shop. Utilizing these channels would mean better exposure for your brand since you are easy to find and can give you an edge over your competitors.

2. It Shows You Which Channels Work Well Together

Multichannel marketing, as a practice, encourages putting at least two channels to work together when used in a campaign. If in the past, marketers were compelled to customize – for example, ad copy – according to specific channels (TV, radio, print, website), with multichannel marketing, you integrate one channel with another to come up with copy that will either work for every platform or complement its match.

This allows marketers to experiment with different channels and figure out which ones are effective when put together.

Take, for example, a magazine ad that comes with a QR code. While the print version works as the main advert, the QR code will allow your target audience to access your website, a promo, or other information pertinent to the print ad.

3. It Makes Your Brand Customer-Friendly

Going multichannel gives you the opportunity to cater to the multitasking slice of the consumer pie. These people are also the ones who have the best access to information using the best devices available. Enabling your customers to get in touch with you using their preferred devices significantly increases the chances of conversions.

Also, being omnipresent across multiple platforms can draw attention to your brand. It also increases the possibility of your customers communicating with you, whether it’s in the form of inquiries, orders, or feedback – all of which are critical to running a business efficiently.

Challenges to Multichannel Marketing

As multichannel marketing becomes more prevalent by the day, those who implement it have the headway of making improvements to the technique. However, speed bumps are also encountered, and included in them are these risks:

1. Mediums Management

Many marketers would probably agree that handling a campaign using a preferred medium can be overwhelming, but supervising a campaign distributed through multiple channels is a different story.

Ideally, the use of multichannel marketing is to help brands communicate a clear message through all mediums used, but sometimes a generic copy that isn’t modified to suit each channel can risk sending irrelevant messages.

2. Knowing Your Audience

It is crucial to any marketing campaign to know who you’re talking to, and this is why it’s imperative that marketers determine who their target audience is. Some build audience and buyer personas, while others go as far as conducting surveys to make sure they know to whom they should address their message. However, not all marketers are keen on identifying their target demographic and simply rely on the assumption that their ads will not go amiss just because it’s highly visible across platforms.

While this is possible, multichannel marketing isn’t just about reaching out to as many people as possible. For it to be effective, marketers should be able to identify their target market and tailor the brand’s message into what appeals to every portion part of that demographic.

3. Optimizing the Channels

Having a marketing omnipresence is like having powers, but they can only be considered special when you know how to use them. One of the pressing challenges of multichannel marketing to practitioners is the optimization of preferred channels.

Optimization of the mediums you use in multichannel marketing will give you a good and accurate idea of how your channels are performing and/or what kind of results they are getting. These are essential types of data that will help you improve certain aspects of the campaign, and you can learn more about this later in this post.

Multichannel Marketing vs. Cross-channel Marketing

Many people often confuse multichannel marketing with cross-channel marketing and use them interchangeably as they share the same meaning. But the fact is, while these two have similar characteristics, they have different meanings and shouldn’t be traded off for the other.

Multichannel marketing means having an active presence across several marketing channels or platforms. These may include promoting through your website, sending brochures via mail, or meeting with clients in person.

Cross-channel marketing is a lot like the multichannel approach in the sense that cross-channel means that you are present in various advertising platforms. However, its main distinction is that in cross-channel marketing, you should be able to interchange these platforms so that they practically work as one effortlessly. Either that or one platform supplements one platform until customers convert their interest into sales.

Take online shopping, for example. A customer may have been browsing your online catalog but eventually abandons the cart without buying anything. You can use a cross-channel strategy to remarket your products by posting your ads on websites the customer will visit next so that they will be reminded of the items they were initially looking for.

You can also make use of email marketing as a cross-channel. Basically, the goal is to complete the buying process by redirecting the customer back to the online catalog and making a purchase.

How to Do Multichannel Marketing Right

The thought of using several channels in every marketing campaign may sound like a lot of work, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Below are fundamental steps to making sure that your multichannel marketing efforts are on the right track.

1. Identify Your Target Market

Knowing your target audience is the cornerstone of every marketing campaign. If you have been familiar with different marketing strategies for quite some time, you might already have an idea of how to determine your audience, who and where they are, their socio-economic status, age range, and buying behavior. These are all important when tweaking your sales pitch depending on the platform so as to appeal to the share of the audience who prefer that channel.

2. Choose Your Channels and Set Your Goals

Some marketers fail at using multichannel marketing because they fall short in setting goals for each platform they use. While a marketing campaign set to utilize a multichannel approach should serve a general objective, you should also set goals for every channel in the program and make sure that these channels work together.

It’s also important that you choose the channels involved in your campaign. Just because there’s a wealth of platforms available doesn’t mean you have to use all of them. You should only enlist those that will best echo your brand message and that your target audience prefers.

For instance, if millennials are your target audience, it’s highly likely that they prefer to shop using their mobile phones. On the other hand, middle-aged consumers might find it more convenient to browse through an online catalog using their computer or receive a detailed brochure in the mail. These are some of the things you need to determine when creating a multichannel marketing campaign.

3. Provide a Consistent Customer Experience

Multichannel marketing may compel you to customize your approach according to the channel, but it’s crucial that your brand message keeps a consistent message and value regardless of the platform your customers are using.

Customers also tend to switch from one channel to another, and it’s important that the message they see remains consistent. This helps the customers retain as much product information as they can and keep them focused on the purchase.

4. Maximize Each Channel’s Capacity

Your chosen platforms are only as effective as how you utilize them. Multichannel marketing is about giving people choices to make their experience as convenient as possible. This means that you need to utilize each channel optimally, not just for the sake of using them. For instance, if you’re selling makeup, you can shoot tutorial videos using your own products and post them on your YouTube channel. This is an opportunity that other social networking sites will not afford you.

However, you can still use your other social media profiles by promoting different types of content from your other sources. Twitter may have a character limit, but it’s an ideal place to launch hashtag campaigns. Pinterest is perfect for photos, while Facebook is good for promos. The point is, whatever channel you decide to use, take full advantage of it by putting up the type of content that fits it best.

5. Optimize and Measure

Using one or two channels for your marketing campaign can be demanding; you can just imagine how much time, effort, and money you’ll have to spend when you go multichannel. This makes measurement and optimization a critical part of your strategy because this is how you’ll find out if your chosen platforms are holding up their end.

Upon deciding which channels to use, you should also devise a metric that will help you gauge the success of that channel. As far as your online platforms are concerned, your best ally in optimizing them is analytics. Analytics will help you identify which parts of the world your traffic is coming from, as well as the keywords your market use when trying to find you.

Another benefit of knowing your exact target audience is you can split a particular demographic into smaller segments and, from there, modify your delivery of the brand message to appeal to each segment more effectively.

The results of your metrics will also tell you which platform is the least efficient and help you decide whether you should improve it or replace it with a different approach.

Multichannel marketing is exponentially more challenging to succeed in and necessitates more investment. The upside is if you do it right, not only will you enjoy a good brand reputation, but you will also solder a strong relationship with your customers – a factor vital for a business to prosper. However, not everyone is capable of executing a multichannel marketing campaign that works.

Also, if you don’t have a website, you could always build one. All you need is reliable hosting, a good domain name, and a website builder like WordPress, and there are lots of helpful sites with step-by-step guides on how to create your own site.

The post Multichannel Marketing 101: What Is It and Why You Need It appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

So rather than focus on particular content management systems, this article will highlight some key areas in which you, as the webmaster or decision-maker, should concentrate.

1. Ease of Use

Many would quibble with the positioning of ease of use as the first big item to take into consideration, but if you’re shopping for a CMS, odds are you’re doing so in part because less computer-savvy people are going to be adding to and editing the content of the site.

If these people have trouble with these basic tasks, your CMS will become more of a hindrance than a help.

1.1. Editing

It’s hard to talk about ease of use without mentioning the editor, as this is the part where most users of the CMS will be spending the bulk of their time. Some CMSs use editors, which allow the user to change every aspect of the appearance of each page. Though this may sound good in theory, in practice, it can cause problems.

Most sites like to maintain a standard style throughout all pages. If users are allowed to change the basic layout and appearance of each page they edit, your site can quickly end up looking like it was thrown together overnight and not carefully created with a standard style.

For sites that encourage creativity, such as community sites that allow each user to have a blog with a page layout of their choice, the ability to completely change the look of a page may be an asset, but for sites where users want to quickly write information and include bold, headlines, pictures, etc. without changing the basics, look for an editor which preserves the style and layout while allowing the user to format the content the way he or she wishes.

The other necessity of a good editor is that it easily allows for the attachment of pictures, videos, and documents to a page. Not only should it handle the most common file formats, such as .avi, .flv, .jpg, .png, .pdf, .doc, and more, it should allow the user to include a description with each file they upload.

If the user uploads an image, it should be easy for them to include an “alt” tag. These requirements are not particularly robust, so you should have little problem finding a CMS that either includes such an editor outright or allows you to replace the existing editor with one that does meet these standards.

1.2. Back End

To the average user, the back end of a CMS can be a daunting place. They’re almost expecting to have a hard time finding and modifying the setting they need, and in many cases, this turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, it need not be this way.

There are several CMSs specifically designed to minimize clutter and confusion on the back end. If you’re running a blog or a small site with minimal features, do yourself and your users a favor and select one of these basic CMSs.

If you need additional functionality, such as e-commerce, be sure the CMS you pick has enough user levels so that page authors and designers will have access to only the areas they need. This will prevent them from getting lost in the wilderness of your backend and accidentally altering a vital setting.

The organization is the key to a good back end. Even if a user isn’t particularly savvy, if the setting they’re looking for is in a logical place compared to other settings of the CMS, there’s a good chance they’ll find it without much trouble.

But there are some back ends out there that, while they may offer impressive customization options, will thoroughly confuse anyone not well-versed in the system. Unless your system is used almost exclusively by advanced users, you owe it to yourself and your users to choose one with a logical back end that not only groups things in a rational manner but refers to items uniformly throughout the interface.

For example, if a page is referred to as such in one place but as a node somewhere else, your average user is going to wonder which is which and will probably ask you or your support personnel for help. There are several CMSs out there that adhere to this principle, so you should be able to find one that’s perfect for your particular needs.

1.3. Permissions

Content management systems vary widely as to the number of roles they offer.

For instance, an ideal CMS would have several roles pre-defined: administrator, module editor (who has complete access to each module but can’t edit the most sensitive settings,) page editor (who can edit individual pages but can’t customize the look and feel of the site,) designer, (who can change the template but may not be able to edit the content,) and graphic artists, (who can add pictures or video to any page but can’t edit the content.)

This may be overkill for what you need, or it may not offer you fine enough control. The bottom line is that you need to ensure that the CMS you end up with gives you the ability to customize several permissions based on your particular situation. If you have a simple blog, these more complex roles may not be necessary.

2. Feature Set

Choosing a CMS based on its features is always a tricky proposition. You’re trying to plan for future growth without saddling yourself with excess baggage you’re never likely to use.

The first step in this process must be to make a list of your requirements. You’d be surprised how many webmasters and other decision-makers fail to do this. But you should look at this as you would any other project, whether you’re writing a new application or buying a new computer.

In this case, the question is: What are you going to do with this CMS? Is it primarily a blog you’d like to eventually expand into a complete web presence? Are you selling products online? If not now, is this a possibility in the future? How many users are going to contribute to this CMS, and at what level? You get the idea.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that every CMS out there will let you organize pages the way you see fit. In fact, some blogging platforms assume you want things sorted by date and don’t allow you to change this behavior. This is fine if you’re building a blog and only a blog, but if you plan to expand, you’re going to want a CMS that gives you more control.

Now for some things you might not think of. Are you going to need multilingual support? If it’s something you think would be nice, remember that you or someone is going to have to provide this content. Translators are notoriously inaccurate, so don’t expect to simply be able to run site content through one of these to create a multilingual site.

Will you conceivably be launching another website in the future, whether it’s related to your current site or not? Most CMSs offer multiple-site support, and this is something you should take advantage of in most cases. This way, when you launch your next site, you’re already familiar with the system, and you can bring other people up to speed quickly.

A search feature is a search feature, right? Sadly, no. There are some CMSs that rip through pages and display results quickly while allowing you to customize their order and appearance. Then there are some that lack both functionality and speed.

Remember, the search function is used by many people as soon as they come to your site. You don’t want them skulking away in disgust because your search engine made it too difficult for them to find what they wanted.

In short, when it comes to your search engine, you’re looking for thoroughness, speed, limiting ability, and customization. If it can search through uploaded files as well, so much the better.

3. Customization

There are CMSs out there that allow you to customize every last aspect of how they create and display pages, and there are those that keep all of this hidden from even the savviest programmers. Which one you go with depends largely on you or the person who will be charged with maintaining it.

Some systems put out sloppy code and don’t offer you a way to change that. This can not only damage your search engine ranking, but it can cause your site to be inaccessible to those using alternative technologies in order to access it.

Clean code is one of the keys to a solid CMS. If the CMS you like in every other way doesn’t serve pages in a manner you like, that’s ok as long as it allows you to get in there and change this behavior.

Some systems offer plugins to do this, many of which are designed to better optimize your pages for search engines. These work well, and accessibility aids will also benefit from this optimization. There are several more customization options you should look for when choosing a CMS, and many have to do with search engine optimization.

4. Search Engine Optimization

Speaking of SEO, this is another key aspect to investigate when choosing a CMS. SEO goes beyond putting out standard code; it also includes several aspects of the page layout to which a CMS may not conform:

Keyword-based URLs:
Probably the most important SEO tweak your CMS will need is the functionality to create URLs based on the title of a page. Even better, some CMSs allow you to create a custom URL for each page on your system, which you can load with appropriate keywords.

Page Title:
Make sure your CMS allows you to input descriptive page titles and also lets you customize the titles of pages for each section of the site. For instance, you might want your blog to have titles like “<SITENAME> <TITLE OF BLOG ENTRY>” while your e-commerce SECTION has pages entitled: “<YOURSITE> <Product-name>.”

Customized Meta Tags:
Your CMS should at least allow you to customize the meta description and robot tags of each page to ensure the description includes helpful keywords and that pages that shouldn’t be indexed are not.

Other Custom Tags:
There are many situations when you don’t want a crawler to follow a particular link, in which case you’d use a “nofollow” tag to indicate as such. Some CMSs don’t allow for this level of customization. You also want to ensure that your CMS uses heading tags to denote headlines in page content, as these are particularly helpful when search engines index a site.

Customized Site Structure:
Ideally, a CMS will let you group the site into whatever categories best suit your content. This will allow crawlers to navigate your site in the most logical way possible and translate into higher search engine rankings.

Redirection Capabilities:
Sometimes, you’ll have pages that become outdated or are moved to a more logical location inside your CMS. When this happens, your CMS should automatically redirect from the old page to the new one. Surprisingly, some CMSs lack this feature.

Optimizing a CMS for search engines can be a full-time job, but if your CMS supports these basic features, your site will be at least fairly well-optimized for ranking on the major search engines.

In The End

After all this, you’re probably a bit overwhelmed with the sheer variety of choices available to you when choosing a CMS. If you make that list of requirements, the process becomes a bit more manageable.

Also, whenever you get the opportunity, try out your desired functionality on other sites. Put search engines through their paces. If you have editing permissions on some sites, give their editors a thorough going over to see if they offer all the functionality you need.

Lastly, if you have the time and resources, install one or several on a test machine and see what happens. If you are managing a small to the medium-size site, you don’t need to pay for your CMS, so feel free to try each one that makes the grade as far as your requirements are concerned.

More often than not, you’ll run across one that simply feels right to you; it’s easy to use, flexible but not convoluted, has a great editor, and is easy to optimize for search engines. Choosing a CMS is a critical decision for the future of your website, so take the time to give it all due consideration.

The post How to Choose the Right CMS for Your Small Business appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.