While attracting customers' attention to your business in the digital space is one thing, persuading them to stop, consume your message, trust your brand and take action is quite another.
That is the importance of marketing design.
Marketing design is not about simply creating a nice banner or an engaging social media post.
Marketing design is about combining visuals, text, layout, colour, font and psychology to get your message across to target visitors and potential clients - in a way that persuades them to take action.
What is marketing design?
Marketing design is simply a term for designing creative assets with marketing and business development goals in mind.
It includes social media graphics, ads, banners, landing-page design, campaign creatives, email graphics, brochure design, campaign design, and more.
Where a creative graphic might be purely for aesthetic appeal, a marketing graphic always has an underlying purpose.
That purpose could be to introduce a product, lead generation, drive traffic, boost sales, encourage newsletter sign-ups and more.
In short, marketing design is about combining creativity with business goals.
Why is marketing design important to sales?
There are literally hundreds of marketing messages that people are exposed to on a daily basis - however, most of them are quickly scrolled past or ignored.
That means your design has a very short window to grab people's attention - and the use of a clear headline, an engaging image, appropriate visual hierarchy and call-to-action can have a major impact on a visitor's ability to quickly consume your message.
That does not mean that beautiful design equals a successful sale - but rather that smartly executed design can remove friction from the marketing and sales funnel.
Smart marketing design understands and appeals to your target audience
Many businesses fall into the trap of designing for themselves - however, your designs should always consider your target audience.
Before creating your marketing assets, consider who you are marketing to and what they might like.
For instance, what problems are they facing?
What type of content does it engage them?
What might put them off buying from you?
What information do they want to see before taking action?
Where are they most likely to see your marketing?
By knowing these points, you can begin to create designs that resonate with your audience and encourage engagement.
CodeXmattrix uses the phrase 'User insights meets business goals meets data' to describe our marketing design approach.
Effective design makes the message easy to consume
There is a common misconception that the more text or information there is on a marketing graphic, the more valuable it is to the visitor.
By creating a clear hierarchy, you enable the visitor to see what the graphic is about, what they should know and what they should do next - without having to try and consume all information at once.
For instance, when looking at a social media graphic for a promotion, the headline text, a brief explanation, relevant image and clear call to action enable the visitor to see what the graphic is about, what action to take and where to go next.
Consistency builds brand recognition
Do you have social media posts, advertisements, website banners and emails that all appear completely different from one another?
That does not mean every graphic you create must look the same - it does mean that each graphic should fit a general aesthetic that is consistent across all mediums.
This enables your visitors to spot your brand more easily and also strengthens your brand image.
Marketing design should support your conversion goals
Ultimately, a lot of marketing is about encouraging customers to take specific actions.
These actions could be purchasing a product, booking a service, filling out a form, calling your business, downloading a manual, signing up for your newsletter and more.
That is why marketing design always has to take into consideration what action the visitor should take.
Simple calls to action such as 'Get started', 'Book now', 'Learn more' or 'Request a quote', when used at the right time, can provide a helpful action for the visitor to take when they are ready to move forward.
Social media is a prime example of marketing design
Smart social media design can help your business to highlight products and services, promote special offers and packages, post educational content, explain complicated topics visually, boost brand awareness, drive traffic and even gain more inquiries.
However, simply posting beautiful graphics is not enough - the content of your social media posts must have a meaningful purpose.
If you have a restaurant, you might want to use your social media posts to showcase new menu items - while a software business might want to use it to explain one of their product features.
A business service provider might want to use their social media content to explain how their process works.
Your social media posts always need to consider the purpose and marketing goals.
Data can empower smart creative design
Creativity and data are not mutually exclusive - in fact, they work together beautifully.
Businesses can gain valuable marketing and sales insights by analysing engagement, clicks, conversions, landing page performance and more to understand what marketing content is resonating with their audience.
If you notice that a particular graphic is receiving lots of impressions, but few clicks or conversions, that can be an indication that the message, value proposition, visual hierarchy or call to action needs to be altered.
You might notice that one of your graphics is getting far fewer impressions, but a disproportionately high number of inquiries.
Rather than guessing what is working and what is not, businesses can utilize customer engagement and sales data to make smarter design decisions.
That is why CodeXmattrix believes marketing design is about combining creative design with data and business goals.
Your marketing design and website should always complement each other
Do you have ads that look beautiful, but lead to a website that is unpleasant to look at or difficult to navigate?
That is friction and can put visitors off from engaging with your business.
Your ads, social media graphics, landing pages and website should always provide a somewhat consistent look and feel to ensure that your visitors are not turned off by contrasting aesthetics, branding or navigation.
CodeXmattrix is also passionate about website design, advertising graphics and building engaging digital experiences.
Smart marketing design goes beyond looking good
Ultimately, your marketing design should always be focused on achieving one main goal - does the design support your message and marketing goal?
A beautiful graphic that confuses your visitor or fails to communicate value will be ineffective.
A simpler graphic that clearly conveys the message and encourages engagement can be far more effective.
That is why smart marketing graphic design is all about combining creativity with purpose.
Considering the audience, business goals, communication, brand building, user experience and performance analytics can enable businesses to utilize smart marketing design to boost sales.
Final Thoughts
Marketing design has become increasingly important to online businesses that want to strengthen their brand presence and increase sales. In a digital space where almost everyone is competing for attention, it is increasingly important to ensure that your marketing design communicates your brand promise, value and purpose clearly and concisely - without putting visitors off with complicated layouts and text-heavy graphics.
While marketing design will not guarantee a sale, it can certainly support businesses to ensure they are removing friction from the marketing and sales funnel so that the right customers can make the right decisions.
