Marketers and graphic designers often have the same goals, but look at them from a different perspective. Marketing creates interest in a brand, and design communicates a brand.
Dan Slagen, VP of Marketing at Crayon explains how involving marketers in your design process is essential to a successful product, or brand. He says that when you hear marketers talk, you’ll hear words like content or copy, conversions, funnel, and brand tone. Talk about the same project with designers, and they’re focusing on hierarchy, purpose, emotion, and experience.
There’s a disconnect between the two teams, and figuring out how to collaborate is key to selling your business. “Focusing on performance can align marketing and design teams to better solve problems together,” suggest Slagen. “You can have clever copy and the best targeting, but if it doesn’t perform, it’s not viewed as a success.”
Creative graphic design is one of the fastest ways to build brand recognition and a following on social media. This in turn, helps your marketing team. A beautiful design will help you stand out from the hundreds of other companies competing for the same audience, and can be the deciding factor in how successful your next campaign will be.
Not only is it important to have strong visual content, but consistency is an equal priority. You want people to come across an image and immediately think ‘isn’t that that one company?’ Your brand should always show similar fonts, photos, colors, etc. Use the same logo – don’t constantly change the color. Each and every single element in a design piece should portray the message you’re trying to send.
Design elements also help build trust with your clients. If a client can see that your website is done professionally, and your flyers, and postcards all look well done, this helps with your credibility. Clients are more likely to trust a brand with professional graphics versus a company that just has a couple images and some text printed out on normal paper.
The most important part about all of this is the conversion. If you aren’t getting conversions, then your campaign isn’t working. Maybe it’s the graphics, maybe it’s the marketing, or maybe it’s both. Conversions are key to propelling your brand forward. A clear, concise call-to-action will help draw people in. Tell them to do something. The mere suggestion to ‘register’ will get them thinking about it.
If you’re company doesn’t have a graphic designer employed, it may be time to look at outsourcing some of your work. Take a look at your past campaigns and evaluate if there are areas that could have been done better. Take the time and invest in your company with well-done graphics that will convert and produce your audience.
If you need help with your graphic design projects or your digital marketing strategy overall, get in touch with us.
