It’s a familiar scenario at synagogues everywhere.
Someone creates a beautiful flyer for an upcoming program. It has an eye-catching photograph, all the important details and a QR code or registration information. It gets emailed to the congregation, posted on social media and printed for the synagogue lobby.
Then someone says:
“Can we put this on the homepage, too?”
You certainly can.
But in most cases, you shouldn’t.
There’s nothing wrong with the flyer itself. The problem is that a flyer was designed for a different medium.
What works beautifully as an attachment, social media graphic or printed piece doesn’t necessarily work when it’s dropped into the middle of a website.
Here are six reasons event flyers and synagogue homepages don’t mix.
1. They’re Difficult to Read — Especially on a Phone
Most event flyers are designed vertically, often in proportions similar to a standard sheet of paper.
A website content area isn’t.
To fit the entire flyer onto a homepage, it has to be significantly reduced in size. And when the flyer gets smaller, everything on it gets smaller too: the event description, date, time, location and registration information.
On a desktop computer, the result may be inconvenient.
On a phone, it can be nearly unreadable.
Visitors can sometimes tap the flyer to enlarge it, then pinch and zoom their way around the image. But they shouldn’t have to.
The important information should simply be readable in the first place.
2. A Flyer Turns Useful Information Into an Image
Think about what an event promotion actually needs to communicate.
What’s happening? When is it? Where is it? Why might I want to attend? How do I register?
When that information is presented as actual website content, visitors can easily read it, select it, interact with it and follow links from it.
When everything is embedded inside a flyer, all of that useful information becomes part of a single image.
That’s particularly problematic for accessibility. Visitors using screen readers may not have meaningful access to text that’s baked into an image, and detailed flyers can be difficult to adequately describe with alternative text.
Important information belongs in the page itself.
3. Flyers Aren’t Very Interactive
Websites are designed for interaction.
A visitor should be able to see an upcoming event and immediately take the next step:
Register. RSVP. Purchase Tickets. Learn More. Add to Calendar.
A flyer often contains those instructions visually without making them particularly useful.
There may be a URL printed at the bottom. There may be an email address someone needs to copy. There may be a QR code — which is useful on a printed flyer but rather awkward when someone is already viewing that QR code on their phone.
Website content can do better.
Give visitors an actual button that takes them directly where they need to go.
The fewer steps between “That sounds interesting” and “I’m registered,” the better.
4. Too Many Flyers Make a Homepage Feel Chaotic
Each event flyer is typically designed to attract attention.
That’s exactly what a flyer is supposed to do.
A Purim carnival might use bright colors and playful typography. An adult education program might have a completely different look. A social action event uses another style. The sisterhood event has its own design.
Individually, each flyer may look terrific.
Put six of them next to one another and you have six designs competing for attention.
Different fonts. Different colors. Different image styles. Different amounts of text. Different visual hierarchies.
The result can make an otherwise thoughtfully designed synagogue website feel cluttered and disconnected.
Instead, let the website provide the visual consistency.
Each event can still have its own personality through photography, artwork and content, while the typography, spacing, buttons and overall presentation remain consistent with the rest of the site.
5. Flyers Don’t Adapt to Different Screens
One of the fundamental advantages of a modern website is that content can respond to the device being used.
A row of event promotions might appear three across on a desktop computer and stack vertically on a phone. Text can remain readable. Images can resize appropriately. Buttons can remain easy to tap.
A flyer can’t do any of that.
It’s one fixed image.
Make it smaller and everything gets smaller. Crop it and you lose information. Change its proportions and it becomes distorted.
That’s because the flyer was designed as a finished composition.
Website content is designed to adapt.
That’s an important difference.
6. The Website Can Present the Same Information Better
This is really the heart of the issue.
You don’t need to choose between promoting the event and maintaining a clean, usable website.
Take the ingredients from the flyer and let the website do what it was designed to do with them.
Use a strong photograph or graphic from the flyer.
Add the event title.
Show the date and time.
Include a short description.
Add a clear Register, RSVP or Learn More button.
Then link to an event page or calendar listing with all the additional details.
You haven’t lost anything important from the flyer.
You’ve simply translated it into a format that works better on the web.
Keep the Flyer — Just Use It Where It Works
None of this means you should stop creating event flyers.
Flyers can still be extremely useful.
Attach one to your weekly email. Share it on social media. Print copies for the synagogue lobby. Include it in a bulletin. Make it available for congregants who want to share the program with friends.
Different communication channels call for different kinds of content.
The mistake isn’t creating a flyer.
It’s assuming that because the flyer works well in one place, it will work equally well everywhere else.
Design for the Medium
A synagogue website isn’t a digital bulletin board.
It’s an interactive, responsive environment where people should be able to quickly understand what’s happening and take action.
So when someone sends over the latest event flyer and asks to put it on the homepage, don’t throw away the flyer.
Use it as the source material.
Take the photograph. Take the event information. Take the registration link.
Then let the website present those things in the way websites do best.
The result will be easier to read, easier to use, more accessible and more consistent with the rest of your synagogue’s online presence.
And the event will still get the attention it deserves.