Why Graphic Design Is Vital to Your Marketing Strategy

I’m sure you know that the visuals that represent your business are important. But do you realize HOW important graphic design can be? Let’s take a closer look at why you should have a strong focus on graphic design for your next marketing or social media campaign.

1. Build Connections and Brand Recognition

Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, NBC. Do those names almost immediately make you think of their logos and marketing materials? This is the power of brand recognition at work. In its simplest form, it is the basic reputation your business or brand builds over time. At a more advanced stage, it allows consumers to identify your brand, products and offerings quickly among a sea of competition.

Apple is a great example of a company that has worked to build a recognizable brand. In fact, millennials feel the strongest emotional bond to Apple partly because of its graphic design. Its sleek website is a graphic design choice that puts the products in the forefront. Plus the signature apple logo is included on all products and even used as the home button on Apple’s website.

Graphic design and visual content form the basis of this recognition and connection-building process. It is the power of persuasion at its finest, and it’s absolutely necessary to succeed in today’s market.

People form a first impression of something within a mere 50 milliseconds of viewing it. You need to be fast and bold if you want to grab their attention.

2. Communicate with Clients Better

Content, in general, is designed to do one thing — get a message across to your audience. You may go about achieving this in many different ways such as emails, blogs, infographics, images, social media or videos to name a few.

You are essentially creating visual aids to represent and communicate your ideas to the general audience. You know the saying a picture is worth a thousand words. When used appropriately, an image or visual content can portray and communicate much more than a block of text.

3. Instill Professionalism in Products

Let’s say you want to create an advertising campaign that shows off a customer using your product. Hiring someone with no creative or visual talent to draw a stick-figure next to your product is not just silly, it’s unprofessional.

That’s not to say every single marketing campaign or visual piece you produce needs to be serious. It’s okay to have fun. The point is that you want your company to seem and appear professional, to everyone including vendors, clients, and partners.

Consider graphic design for banks or credit card companies. Professionalism is key in these businesses as they handle finances. Discover does a good job of using a clean and simple logo that also looks professional. The orange color makes it fun, but the plain black text gives it an element of security.

4. Visual Stimulation to Build Curb Appeal

How many times have you walked by a business or store you’ve never heard of and thought to yourself, “That looks cool I’m going to check it out!” This is a form of advertising and marketing.

This suggests that the graphic artistry and visuals you present to potential customers can directly influence their desire to engage and do business with you. An attractive and appealing website, for instance, can bring attention and keep bounce rates low. Good video and visual marketing strategies can keep customers engaged and interested.

Much like the visuals allow your business to seem more professional and communicate more openly, they also give your brand a certain initial aesthetic, which is important for snagging new clients.

5. Lay a Strong Foundation

Before you launch any new campaign or strategy, you first need to sit down and plan out the entire rollout or process. Designers will also hash out the particulars of the visuals. This creates an incredibly strong foundation that the rest of your marketing and development can stand on.

Nike’s new rollout for their Air VaporMaxFlyknit 2 sneaker is a clear example of a strong marketing plan that leans heavily on graphic design. The company’s homepage is a collection of elements such as videos, sketches and text that are all working together to lead toward the announcement of the new shoe.

Nike even created an Air Max Day to celebrate the official release of the shoe. It’s obvious that many different teams at Nike were involved in pulling all the elements together to create one successful marketing campaign that relies on graphic design.

6. Money, Money, Money

The final — yet most important — reason why graphic design is so vital relates to the one thing you’re after, money. You see, poorly designed graphics are incredibly costly — both for the time and work invested and for the impact it could have on your brand.

Competent designers and visual artists can deliver something that is going to be effective and positive for your brand but also won’t break the bank. In the end, a strong focus on graphic design and visual content — as well as choosing the right people for the job — will have an immense wave of benefits for your organization and brand.

Get Creative

Now is the time to emphasize graphic design if you haven’t given it much thought. As much as you can’t have a business without a product or service, you can’t have a marketing strategy without the content — visual or otherwise. Using graphic design to market your company will not only bring in more money, but it will also benefit your brand, curb appeal and most importantly, your customers.

About the author: Lexie is a freelance graphic designer and blogger. She enjoys covering the latest design trends and has a large cup of coffee in arm’s reach most mornings. Check out her design blog, Design Roast, and follow her on Twitter @lexieludesigner.