William Rodgers
Category: Design Tips
Design and marketing are already one holistic thing. Design does not make sense without marketing, at least if you are pursuing a business and not an entertainment goal, just as marketing becomes lame without design. The visual component is the first thing that users pay attention to when starting an interaction with you, even independently from the channel of attraction. Therefore, in this article, we decided to tell how to strengthen the connection between design and marketing even more in order to get the maximum efficiency from this actually inseparable combination.
Create a Strong First Impression on Social Media
The modern reality is such that many users begin their acquaintance with the brand precisely from social networks. They immediately want to find out how the company lives, what its values are, how the business interacts with its users and what content it offers them. Therefore, when thinking about marketing for social networks, take into account that very often this is your chance to create a strong first impression.
For this purpose,
- the graphics you create should be as attractive as possible, but not intrusive
- all graphic elements must be created in a single brand style
- all pictures should be unique since users have long learned how to distinguish authentic graphics from photographs downloaded from photo banks
- your text content should contain an important marketing message and be integrated with graphic elements, but we will talk about this later.
Make Sure All Your Graphics Fit Your Corporate Style
This is such simple and obvious advice, but for some reason still not all companies follow it and believe that the more creativity, the better. Creativity is certainly good, but it should have its own reasonable framework. This framework is your brand style, and it should be felt everywhere, independent of the channel of interaction with users. This includes your website, blog, social profiles, application, even communication in instant messengers.
Therefore, in order for your marketing message to be the same for all channels, your style must also be the same. Moreover, it makes you more recognizable and builds stronger subconscious associations among users.
Get to Know the Insights of Phycology of Colors in Marketing
The psychology of colors in marketing is what you should start with when creating any kind of graphic. There are a lot of studies on this topic that explain which colors men and women like best, which colors evoke certain emotions, and contribute to better conversions. Examine these materials, and you can find exactly those colors that maximally correspond to the spirit of your company.
As an example, let’s look at the PayPal website design. It is made using white and blue colors. From the point of view of psychologists, these colors evoke a sense of confidence, stability, and security, and in the case of PayPal, they help users to subconsciously trust their money transfers to this system.
Find the Balance Between Printed and Digital Marketing Campaigns
Printed marketing campaigns are still alive. And if your business interacts with customers at a real point of sale, then you definitely should use a tandem of print and digital marketing campaigns.
Here, as elsewhere, it is important to maintain a balance, understand your goals and monitor effectiveness. And by the way, it is completely optional to use the same graphic materials for each of the campaigns. The most important thing is to observe a single style and give a single marketing message, but graphic elements, for example, for street and targeted advertising should, of course, be different.
Develop a Concise Message
Graphics and text are what works in a single bundle when developing a marketing message. The best example is product packaging design. In this case, you influence users with the help of three instruments at once – this is color, shape, and text. And here it is very important to be able to combine these three components in such a way that together they carry a holistic marketing message, plus affect the subconscious, plus talk about the value of your proposal. Only with this approach, design, and marketing have a chance for a successful collaboration.
Make Sure Your Designer Understands Your Marketing Goals
We have already said a few words about the psychology of colors in marting and we really hope that your designer, or you, if you create graphics yourself, also know the basics of this discipline. Because the most common mistake is to hire a designer just to create unique materials. Some companies seriously believe that uniqueness is enough, and certainly, it is important.
However, the uniqueness of your graphics will not have value if the designer does not understand what goals it is necessary to achieve through its creation. You probably heard the results of studies that the red Buy button, for example, converts better than green. So, this is the result of different approaches to design based on marketing goals. To make your graphics as marketing-oriented as possible, you need to hire a designer who will understand the meaning and goals of your marketing efforts, and not just realize the creative potential at your expense.
Check Whether Your Graphics Look Perfectly on Mobile
Mobile marketing does not lose its significance, and the share of mobile traffic continues to grow. That’s why you need to make sure that all of your graphic marketing elements look good on mobile as well as on full-screen devices.
Perhaps the only exception is graphics for social networks. In this case, you create the visual component for the post once, and you can be sure that it will be displayed correctly regardless of the device. But as for the rest, you will have to think independently.
If you create a graphic element that will lose its attractive appearance on mobile, then maybe this will not stop users from reading your text marketing message. But the impression will still be spoiled. As we have already said, the brain perceives the visual component faster and more efficiently than the textual one, and if everything happens in the reverse order, then it’s like trying to jump immediately to the second step without going through the first. By doing so, you lose the part of the audience that simply will not want to interact further without receiving preliminary visual support of your message.
Therefore, make sure that all your graphic materials are well displayed on mobile and do not lose your marketing message. Needless to say, for this, your site must be adaptive, and all the graphics created for the application must also be in their place.
Make Text Content and Graphic Design Holistic
In fact, text content and graphic elements are inseparable from each other in the marketing plane. It is impossible to create a holistic impression and convince the user only with the help of text, just as it is impossible to do this only with the help of visual material.
Therefore, it is necessary to write such textual content that will be close in spirit to the graphic elements that you create. The picture should evoke initial emotions, and the text should reinforce, stimulate and convince the user to perform the target action.
We already said a few words about the fact that it’s wrong to hire a designer just to create pictures. And in the same way, it’s wrong to hire a copywriter who will simply write texts without understanding your marketing goals.
Conclusion
As you can see, design without marketing, or marketing without design, is like a bird without wings or a fish without water. Do not forget that they cannot exist separately from each other when planning your marketing campaigns and strategies.
