Design that gets people to act—to come to an event, give to a cause, buy a product or service, or ask for information— is an art in itself. Doing it successfully is part science, part intuition, and part experience. You can’t learn intuition or get experience from a magazine article, but I can share with you what I’ve learned about the science.

1. Deconstruct the copy for “persuasion factors.”.
The ability to persuade is built on ease of comprehension leading to interaction with your message. In other words, once the reader is hooked, going on to absorb the rest of the design says the reader has agreed to be persuaded. Your job is to make the persuasive argument immediately understandable.

To persuade, you must capture readers’ attention until they convince themselves. Deconstructing the copy for persuasion means deciding how to emphasize the selling words and action words by size, color, repetition, and the use of imagery to summarize the value and emotional appeal of the copywriter’s intent.

Alice Williams Taus, longtime creative director at Rodale Publications and now a freelance designer, says, “Repetition is important in persuasion. Clever design allows the message to be repeated in different ways, until it becomes almost subliminal and imprints on the mind. Think about where the person starts and stops, where the hand will touch the material and how the hands frame the message, and then what you want the person to feel and do—turn the page, tear out the coupon, fill out the order form.”

And by the way, putting quote marks, for any reason, in a headline or subhead increases readership.

2. Find the emotion that sells; or, how to avoid puppies, kittens, babies, and babes.
In all effective creative work that’s designed to persuade, emotion is employed and is appealed to either subliminally or blatantly. Identify the emotions that do two things:

• Get attention for the ad, mailing, or website
• Keep driving the message home

Then select the images, the colors, and the type that immediately convey the emotional appeals.

Next, identify the benefit messages, and lead the eye to the benefit that links to the emotion. The design formula = Emotion to Benefit to Response. And, actually, it is OK to use puppies, kittens, babies, and babes if all else fails.

3. Create “moments of decision” visually.
To start, describe to yourself in detail the act of responding. What makes the reader want to respond? How will he feel as he decides? What is the actual response mechanism? Does the reader pick up the phone? Go to the website? Send back a form?

Find the copy that describes the act of response and visually emphasize it. Make it stand out with symbols of value and text that emotionally sell.

Text that directs the reader to respond and information on how to respond need to be featured in places where the hand and the eye come to rest. Sometimes those spots will be natural or instinctive, like the bottom-right corner of a page. But just as often your design will direct the viewer’s eye.

Add visual elements that literally point where to respond, leading from page to page or element to element. Arrows, rules, swaths of color are all visual forms that support the response impulse.

Counterintuitive tricks like including a sticker that gets moved to a response card help lead the hand to the spot that triggers response in the layout.

4. Practice weird science (designus interruptus).
Design elements that cause the reader to go “huh?” momentarily can subconsciously refresh attention and arouse curiosity. These should be subtle—not like suddenly leading an elephant into the room. Doing something slightly visually uncomfortable— like covering part of a face, printing a faux sticky note over a face, or putting a headline across the fold in a brochure—can be a powerful device to keep readers attentive without stopping the flow.

5. Use the science.
In designing for persuasion, don’t let the desire to be original persuade you to forgo techniques proven to be effective. Adding these techniques to your repertoire can activate your talent in new ways, and allow you to create design that powerfully persuades.

About the author
In this issue we introduce our newest columnist, Sandra J. Blum. Author of Designing Direct Mail That Sells, she has created winning campaigns and marketing communications for clients such as National Geographic Society, The Atlantic, JPMorgan Chase, Smithsonian, and ACNielsen. She is a noted speaker at conferences and consults on business strategy and market development. Learn more at www.blumdirect.com.