Directional Cues to Sway and Seduce this Holiday Season…

We love the holiday time as marketers because it gives us so much leverage to get really creative. We use imagery, music, and smells to invoke a sense of spirit that will emotionally connect the product or service with the individual to entice them to engage with our brands. Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! Mele Kalikimaka! Whatever your holiday may be this season….

When designing conversion-focused landing pages, directional cues are key to leading the viewer to the most important element on your landing page: the call-to-action. The design of your landing page should direct the viewer’s eye to your form, transaction point or telephone number. There are two ways this can be done, implicitly or explicitly.  

Implicit directional cues are those that are implied. They include things like: direction of view, color, visual weighting, prioritization, repetition of color, shape and size.

Explicit directional cues are obvious. They include lines, curves, and graphical arrows.

One of our favorite implicit directional cues over the holidays is from Betty Crocker. Mouthwatering images sway your eyes in the direction of the form and lead you down the path to conversion. Seducing your audience with life size food is so creative and fun — and extremely effective!

Intuit’s cue is more explicit with a curvy arrow pointing to the call-to-action button. You know immediately at first glance what is expected of you and it’s almost like a shrug and ‘why not’ to hit that button. The combination of the blue arrow cue and contrasting orange button demand attention — high impact directional elements. 

As we close out 2012 and move into a brand new year, what fun and creative ways can you seduce your audience to convert on your landing pages? Will you be testing implicit and explicit directional cues?