Graphic design is an essential element of marketing. Cognitively, consumers are drawn to visual content. Not only that, but images in marketing materials are easier for people to recall.
The main reasons why graphic design is so important in marketing is because visuals help to communicate a message, raise brand recognition and project a professional image of your company.
Furthermore, graphic design differentiates you from your competitors. Providing you understand the power of branding, the visuals you use in your marketing materials attract your target audience.
Let’s take a closer look of ways in which you can use graphic design to enhance your marketing efforts. The ideas below are for online and offline marketing – a combo all businesses should have in your marketing locker.
Company Logo
An eye-catching logo that communicates to your audience is essential. Logos form the basis of your brand and create a blueprint for all your marketing materials.
Company logos are how consumers recognise brands. They must be memorable and stand out from your competitors. Because you should include your logo in marketing campaigns, the design should be flexible enough to use across multiple platforms.
Your company logo should:
• Reflect your brand and business
• Capture the eye of consumers
• Differentiate you from competitors
• Adjust to various sizes and formats
Business Cards
Business cards give you and your business more credibility and make a convenient tool for all manner of advertising strategies. You can hand them out when you meet people, leave them lying around at events and slip them in with other marketing materials.
Consumer psychologists say that individuals have to experience a brand between 5 or 7 times before it sticks in the memory. Most people keep business cards in case they come in useful, and may occasionally rifle through them, each time adding to one of the seven experiences.
A business card should:
• Identify what type of business you have
• Have a simple design
• Include no more than two or three colours
• Provide contact information
Brochures
When you are designing a brand identity, it is important to consider look, feel and sound. The visuals come in the form of graphic design, sound comes from the brand voice and feeling comes through evoking emotions in images and written content.
Top quality graphic designs help to draw consumers in. The visuals guide them to the text, therefore encouraging them to read. With good copywriting, brochures create more leads and conversions.
Designs for brochures should therefore:
• Capture the attention and the imagination
• Support the story and marketing message
• Promote brand image
• Selectively conceal and reveal information
Flyers
Flyers are the simplest marketing materials to create and capture attention. Because they are either one or two-sided, they are brief, thus consumers are more likely to read them.
The graphic designs on flyers should be:
• Noticeable and instantly engaging
• Include a memorable design that sticks in the memory
• Promote events
• Offer incentives
Leaflets
Leaflets are a cost-effective means of delivering plenty of information to customers. Because of the higher percentage of detail you can include about your business and product, leaflets are an effective medium for marketers.
High-quality images in leaflets help to create leads and acquire customers. Engaging graphic designs in a leaflet increase your chances of converting browsers into buyers.
Marketing leaflets should:
• Include visuals that capture the eye
• Create intrigue
• Enhance text
• Leave a lasting impression
Packaging
How many times have you selected a product from the supermarket shelf because you liked the look of the packaging? You are not alone. That’s what we all do.
Because we all have preferences to colours and images programmed in our unconscious mind, packaging is a powerful tool that attracts your target audience.
Packaging should:
• Reflect your brand
• Differentiate you from your competitors
• Match the product
• Evoke emotion
Website
In the digital age, it’s hard to imagine how a business can survive without a website. And now consumers are accessing the internet on mobile devices, graphic design is the most important element of a web content.
Not only do high-grade graphics project a professional appearance, they can be used to communicate offers, services and guide customers along the purchasing path.
Your web design should:
• Give you credibility
• Engage visitors through visual graphics
• Highlight products and services
• Enhance the user-experience
Social Media
Graphic design is not limited to your website and blog in the online space. Businesses need to captivate your audience through digital marketing channels in order to drive them to your website.
The best way to do that is to publish graphically designed content and post it on your social media networks. Engaging graphic designs compels your followers to click on the link to your website.
Furthermore, you should also include a graphic design in the header space of your social media accounts that reflects your brand and stands out against rivals.
Graphic designs in social networks should:
• Draw attention and engage readers
• Identify your brand
• Promote special offers
• Highlight product info
Graphic design has always played an important part of marketing. And now internet technology makes it easier for businesses to reach a wider audience, there is more marketing material everywhere.
I cannot stress enough that graphic design in marketing has to be premium quality. Otherwise nobody will pay attention to it. And you throw your marketing budget into somebody’s else’s bank account with no returns into yours.
Enhance your marketing campaigns with eye-catching graphic designs.
