It is easily observed that graphic design plays a large role in one’s marketing efforts. Most of the time it is considered the centerpiece of a campaign’s performance, be it positive or negative. Strong graphic design is pivotal in gaining traction with any campaign, and should not be overlooked due to budgetary constraints. A strong marketing campaign can easily fail with poor or confusing design, so it is important to understand what design contributes to your marketing efforts.
Marketing campaigns are about raising awareness. Awareness of a brand, a product, a service, etc.. These campaigns are setup in a fashion to move consumers to buy. These consumers buy based on the trust they have with a business, and if said business demonstrates poor design it compromises that trust. Every piece of creative material released by a business contributes to its overall brand. If a certain piece is poorly done and misaligned with the brand standards it can do wonders in decreasing the strength of that brand and therefore losing the trust of consumers. The opposite is also true. A strongly designed piece can easily portray a business’s professionalism, quality control, and attention to detail. Beyond that a strongly designed campaign can alter a business’s market position, and help them move beyond competitors.
Great design gets your name out there; it increases visibility, and stands apart from the rest. It is important to remember that a campaign only gets traction if it is unique, inspired, and catered towards the target market. It must truly rise above the rest of the clutter to attract the correct kind of prospects. Depending on the type of audience one hopes to attract, design’s role could vary greatly. If a campaign is geared to attract children to buy a toy, the design work would be quite different then a campaign advertising wedding rings. It is important to align your campaign with audience it is to fall upon; design is the main vehicle for doing just that. It is easy to fall into the notion that a campaigns design should resemble that which others in a similar field have done in the past to avoid confusion, however the most successful design work creates trends rather then following them.
Design also plays a large role in messaging. Great design will reinforce the central message of the campaign, and produce responses. When I speak of “message” I mean much more then just words, a campaign’s message should be deeper than that. A message can be successfully portrayed using carefully chosen photographs or visual representations of stats and figures. Often times these will play much closer to an onlookers emotions then lines of copy ever could. Beyond that these elements will also help to instill the message much faster than reading ever could. A campaigns message should be the central consideration for a graphic designer and translated clearly and concisely.
Strong design delivers conversions. A strong marketing campaign should never overlook the call to action technique. Call to action’s are simple ways to convert strangers to leads, and can work wonders in measuring your ROI, while collecting useful costumer information. Calls to action generally exist on the web in the form of buttons a user can click, and be routed to a “landing page” in which they fill out the necessary information for a business to contact them. You can see how this can play a huge role in any marketing campaign. These calls to action however are not as simple as they seem, but with strong graphic design you can achieve a better success rate. Great graphic design is psychologically compelling, and most people often fail to see that. These call to actions are a great example of how this psychological aspect of design works. Perfectly designed web sites and call to action placement will contribute to users seeing this call to action and participating. It is also important that these call to actions support the central brand while providing the contrast necessary to raise a users awareness. Good design in these areas will drive conversions.
We touched on a few aspects of how design plays a role in your marketing efforts. Great design will raise awareness of your brand, in a positive light. It will also help you adequately cater to your target audience while standing out from the clutter of your competition. Great graphic design will also be a vehicle for your central message, by evoking emotional response. It is also important to consider design in the way that you capture leads and convert them into customers. There are many ways that design contributes to amazing successful marketing, but the main thing one should look for is a balance of professionalism and utility. All marketing pieces should set your business apart, and instill trust in a potential client.