Design & Marketing Trends for 2021

We are all tired.  Tired of staying home, tired of missing our families, tired of the news on TV, tired of everything.  Did you know that there was such a thing as Zoom Fatigue? I know, right?  Another thing to worry about!  But this one, I think you will find interesting.  

So what is Zoom Fatigue?

You know that there has been a sharp increase in virtual communication this year, but did you know it is impacting our brains? No, don’t get out the aluminum foil hats yet. Zoom fatigue is the result of overusing virtual communication platforms, and it describes the worry, fatigue, or burnout associated with that overuse. This recent psychological phenomenon comes from the lack of physical cues and the delays in receiving those cues that would normally give us small chemical rewards in our brains.

What does that have to do with marketing and design? 

At this point, people who spend most of their time in front of a screen are exhausted mentally. This translates to design trends through this group’s desire for comfort and accessibility while staring at that glaring screen for hours on end. Naturally calming and relaxing colors are becoming a must, with color palettes based on soft greens, pastel blues, and warm browns peacefully floating to the top. As reducing mental fatigue becomes a new design goal, we will see content become more spaced out with limited objects on the screen at once. 

Design trends are likely to lean more toward comfort & accessibility in the future. A prime example of this is the rising popularity of parallax animation as a replacement for large background videos. Not only does this reduce page-loading times, but it also adds considerable interest to a webpage with the attention of visitors being naturally drawn to a single detail (think back to that Zoom fatigue we were talking about earlier). 

Many speculate that the recent changes to marketing will remain for the most part in the coming years, and one of those will most definitely be the shift to online shopping. Having an online store rather than a brick-and-mortar boasts a number of conveniences that many individuals have come to enjoy and expect, not to mention those little chemical rewards in the brain that you get when you press that “Place Order” button. We might even speculate that some individuals are now using online shopping to replace the boost of happy chemicals that they would normally get when interacting with others face-to-face. But what should you make of this? Well, if you sell physical items, you are really missing out if you don’t have an online storefront. 

Speaking of online shopping, did you know that most people prefer to purchase from businesses that show them that they are made up of real individuals rather than robots behind a screen? I know, crazy idea, right? Shoppers find value in knowing that there is a real human being on the other side that is benefitting from their purchase. As a result, it will help your sales immensely to personalize your website with photos of yourself (the business owner) and key staff members as well as heartfelt stories of customer successes. 

One more thing that might boost your business’s success in 2021 is adding a live chat to your website. Almost 4 out of 5 consumers prefer a live chat because they want an instant & beneficial response that can only come from a real person (not a robot). AND it’s easier than you think to add this valuable feature to your current website - free, even, provided you choose the right service! We’d be happy to help you improve your business’s success in 2021 by adding this feature and any other feature we’ve discussed today to your current website. Contact CyberSpyder Marketing Services by phone at 479-782-0005 or by email at [email protected] to get started!