Technology doesn’t sit still. Chips get faster. Hackers get more creative, so software makers try and keep ahead. At the same time, these tech trends spawn their own design trends. Not long ago, whenever a new Photoshop filter came out, you’d see it in every single ad and image until you were quickly sick of it. Ditto for video effects like “the Matrix slow-mo” or the more recent “narrow focus to make big things like cars and cities look tiny.” 
 
These are trends. Meaning, they come and go. 
 
Same thing happens when you focus on the realm of website design. New technology spawns new trends. Long ago, there was a big clamor about “Web 2.0”: it was a then-revolutionary idea that someone viewing a web page could actually alter that web page. Today, that’s, um, “Facebook.” 
 
So the tech trends, in website design, continue. There were “frames”; remember those? It was revolutionary at the time: within the same website page, you could, say, scroll through content in just the right column. Today, that’s largely, um annoying. Although it does persist in what are hopefully apt applications. 
 
More recent tech trends include animation that any processor (think “mobile phone”) can easily handle. This began as the “carousel” atop a home page, wherein, say, four or five key images and headlines would appear, sequentially switching to the next. More processing power (specifically, GPU or graphics processing unit) translates to more video power; that’s why you’ve recently seen more and more websites that actually include a loop of video running behind text on their home screen. 
 
It’s really easy to see the boundaries of this type of technology, as well as the limits they place on designers. If you come to a website with video playing as its “key art” imagery atop the page, simply count off the seconds to yourself until it repeats. That’s the “magic number” for how much video can be included. And guess what? If that @%$% video took forever to load, then that site made a mistake. They over-assumed for your device, your operating system, your browser. 
 
Here’s one more tech innovation which you’ve probably seen emerging as a website design trend: That “layered look” as you scroll down a screen. The text scrolls quickly, while the images behind it scroll a little slower, giving it a “Disney multiplane animation” effect to it. 
 
Designers have a say, too
 
Not all website design trends are technology-based. There are cultural phenomena at work, too. Any hot franchise or look will affect designers. Back when Ken Burns’ breakout Civil War miniseries aired on PBS, it seemed you couldn’t find an ad that wasn’t presented as a sepia photo, with some announcer speaking, memoir-like, over a rustic piano score. 
 
Fast-forward to when Apple introduced the iMac. Remember that translucent blue plastic beach ball? Every product, from kitchen knives to vacuum cleaners, soon sported transparent blue plastic, and dopey names like the iKnife or iVacuum. (We just made those up, but wouldn’t be surprised if they really happened.) 
 
More recently, take a cultural phenomenon like Mad Men. It alone helped to bring back the look of the “Swinging Sixties,” in everything from iconography to fonts to color palettes. 
 
All of which leads to the million-dollar question: 
 
Which website design trends are most profitable for your business?
 
Asking in reverse
 
If you’ve read enough of these Copel Communications articles, you’ll know that we’re downright religious about taking a customer-back approach to marketing. Always start with the target customer: What they want. What problems they need to solve. Then back your solution into the answers to those questions.
 
Website design is no different! You don’t want to ask, for example, “Should we use that huge-scrolling-page/no-links-whatsoever approach, or go ‘old-school,’ with a nav bar and discrete website pages?” 
 
That question will get you nowhere—or, worse, to the wrong place diametrically—because it’s the wrong question. You want to understand what your prospects want from your site and design for them.
 
Take the choice noted above. Are your prospects more likely to visit your site from a desktop computer or a tiny little phone? A traditional layout suits the former, whereas the “big scroll” may better accommodate the latter.
 
Here’s a good litmus test: Pretend you’re a prospect of your business, and then “visit” your proposed site yourself. How quickly can you get to the information you need to find? How easy is it to see and to digest? How clear and compelling is the call-to-action? 
 
Using this measuring stick, you’ll be able to quickly discard the trendier options. And we mean “trendier” in its most disparaging sense: stuff that was created just to stroke some designer’s ego, with zero consideration paid to the person actually consuming the content. Don’t opt for low-contrast text-on-background that’s pretty but hard to read. Don’t employ floating graphic bars or blobs that don’t help the viewer separate sections by color or intuitively drill down into content. Do cater to your visitor’s need to get a quick lay of the land, and drill down to what they need. It may sound old-school, because it is, but something as simple as an outline—as in big headline, medium-sized subhead, and then smaller bullet-point text—goes a lot further than some flashy mishmash of fonts, graphics, and countdown animations. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve clicked away from a website in frustration over junk like that which finally sent us packing. Your prospects will do the same thing. 
 
Get help
 
We know about these trends, and which ones work and which ones don’t, because we toil in this realm daily on our clients’ behalf. Join them, won’t you? Contact us today to help your website grab you as much business as possible. 

We recently interviewed a client’s subject-matter expert (SME) to help us create some materials for a virtual trade show they’d soon be attending. As the phone interview was winding down, and we were re-capping some of its big take-aways, that SME mentioned, “This is good info; it could help at that virtual trade show.” 
 
As it turned out, he was going to be pulling double-duty: not just as an in-house technical expert, but as an ad-hoc salesman, too. 
 
We quickly realized that this SME—and others on his team—would benefit from an age-old tool: a set of talking points. The owner of the company agreed, and quickly green-lit this little project. 
 
What are talking points?
 
The best description of “talking points” that we can think of is “cheat-sheet.” That’s basically all it is. Ideally, it’s a single page of quick headline topics and supporting bullet points, meant to help someone prep for a live (or virtually live) engagement where they’ll need to appear spontaneous, yet be fully prepared. 
 
It’s important to understand what talking points aren’t. They’re not definitions or descriptions of anything. That would be far too detailed. Think of the SME we’d described above. He already knows everything there is to know about the offering he would be pitching at the trade show. Indeed, he may have known too much to handle the trade-show venue comfortably. 
 
The cheat-sheet—er, “talking points”—was just a quick guide to help him remember important topics to touch on when asked about the offering. Simple as that. 
 
In that regard, it’s kind of like a mnemonic device (such as “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles,” for example, to help you remember the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, in order). 
 
Indeed, if you can create some kind of easy-to-remember acronym, so much the better. Let’s say your offering boils down to six important things to remember. Then try and make a six-letter word out of the initials. 
 
There’s a reason for this: You really don’t want to be using the talking points when you’re actually talking. In that regard, they’re a misnomer; they should probably be called “pre-talking points.” They’re not a teleprompter. They’re something you, ideally, memorize in advance. Sure, you can keep them handy when you’re at the podium or working the booth, but if people see you looking down at them, it robs you of credibility. 
 
When should you use talking points?
 
You might be surprised at how useful these things are; you might also be surprised to learn how often we’re tasked with creating them, here at Copel Communications. 
 
The trade-show example cited above is perfect. A great sales rep is practiced and polished, but when someone else is manning that booth (whether live or virtual), they’ll need—and appreciate—help. 
 
Now, fast-forward to the soon-returning post-COVID-19 reality: Let’s say you’re going to present at the office of a new prospect or client. Sure, you’ll have your PowerPoint deck all ready to go, but what about that non-presentation time when everyone’s taking a bagel break? What about the junior members of your team you’ve brought along? They should have talking points, too, given to them in advance. They can practice in the plane, or the car, en route to the meeting. Feel free to help them. The practice will help you, too. 
 
The classic use-case for talking points is public relations. If you’re going to have an audience of any kind, whether it’s a reporter calling you on the phone, or if you’re surrounded by cameras, you want to be prepared and “on-message,” as they say. 
 
This could apply to the rollout of a new product or service your company will be offering. If it’s new, then the ink is still drying on the marketing materials, and your head will still be swimming with all of the different versions of selling points that you and your team had argued over, leading up to this moment. So talking points will be your savior. 
 
Saving the biggest for last: Talking points are required for damage-control. You don’t want to pick up the phone, or face a camera, without those talking points locked down. In such a situation, you won’t have much time to create them—it may be just minutes—but don’t shirk the responsibility. Among the kinds of points you’ll cover, i.e., the narrative you’ll spin, will be: 

• What happened (your version) 
• How you learned about it 
• The extent of the damage: Show clear boundaries 
• What you’re doing to fix it 
• What you’re doing to prevent similar events from occurring in the future 

 
Pretty straightforward, when you see it written out here. But just try and do that, off-the-cuff, when your company is caught in an awkward situation, and the lights are glaring in your face. It’s impossible. 
 
A final talking point
 
One of the many nice things about talking points is that they’re a really low hurdle. They can be crafted quickly; even when you tap an external resource—such as us—to create them, they’re inexpensive, too. 
 
But they’re worth their weight in gold. So take advantage. Get your facts straight, and keep your brand clean. 
 
Need help with those talking points, or any other marketing-communications challenge? Contact us today. We’d be happy to help.