zooms digital

contact us
contact us

Category: Marketing Tips

What is landing page? Why do your business need one?

What is landing page? Why do your business need one?

ZoomsDesign

You’re an airplane flying around the internet at breakneck speeds. Suddenly an ad catches your eye—it’s a free webinar for that new skill you’ve totally been meaning to learn for the past six months! You click it and immediately, you’ve landed. You’re scrolling down a new page, reading about everything the webinar covers and, finally, you’re at the bottom looking at a big bright button. Click it to reserve your spot in the webinar. You’re not on just any page; you’re on a landing page. But, what is a landing page?

Exactly what the name implies, it’s where internet traffic “lands.” If a website’s a city, its landing page is the airport where inbound flights meet the ground and let their passengers out. And just like people get their first impressions about a city as they walk toward the airport’s exit, so too do visitors get impressions about you, your brand and what you’re offering the moment they arrive on your landing page.

What is landing page?

A landing page is a web page that’s focused on marketing a specific product or service or otherwise getting the viewer to act on a “call to action”. Often, a person’s journey to a landing page starts when they see an attractive beacon like a social media ad or a link in an email. When they click it, they’re taken to a landing page.

Landing page

A landing page isn’t the same as a homepage or a splash page. A landing page is hyper-focused, optimized to get viewers to take one specific action—all the text, images and navigation are directly related to whatever outcome the page is driving. Every element is designed for the logical progression leading the visitor towards a button to click or a form field to fill in.

Landing pages exist to drive conversions. And they’re transparent about it. When you’re on a landing page, you know exactly what you’re being offered and what you’re being asked to do from the moment it finishes loading. 

In this contrast, and that’s why your landing page has to be on point. It’s where you grab readers’ attention and drive them to do what you want them to do. An effective landing page not only impresses, it also suggests, guiding visitors to a particular location, convincing them to “sign up”, “buy” or “subscribe”.

In this guide, we explain the ins and outs of landing pages: what they are, how they’re used and more importantly, how to make them effective.

Anatomy of a landing page

Every landing page is unique, but the successful ones usually contain the same key elements. Each of these elements plays a role in driving the reader to take a specific action.

Headline

Your headline is your attention-grabber. it piques the reader’s interest and makes the idea of scrolling down irresistible. here’ where visitors first meet your unique selling proposition (usp), or what you’re offering to them that they can’t get elsewhere. even if you’re offering a common service your usp could be your low price or some other perk/feature offered by only you.

Subhead

Underneath the headline, you’ve got your subhead. This is a follow-up to the headline that adds details and/or further persuades the reader to continue engaging with the text. The subhead is ideal for putting all the essential information about you that didn’t make the cut for the headline.

Supporting copy

The supporting copy follows up your subhead by explaining your offer in more detail. It discusses your company, why you’re great at what you do and how the reader benefits from taking the action you prescribe. Here, you explain exactly what the reader can expect to get by taking you up on your offer.

In the supporting copy, you also build urgency. Tell readers how long the offer’s going to last and what will happen if they don’t act now. Maybe they’ll have to pay full price, maybe they’ll miss the opportunity completely. The point is, give them a reason to click on that lead capture right now—not later, not tomorrow, now.

Images

Show your readers what they can have with some high quality images. Depending on your offer, you could use images of the items for sale or photos about how your company improves people’s lives.
Don’t cheap out on images. Your landing page isn’t the place for generic stock photos; make sure you have eye candy that underscores your offer’s value.

Benefits

Here’s where you really “sell” your offer. Often, benefits are in bullet lists for standability because that makes them really easy for readers to glance at and take in. The benefits may be part of your landing page’s supporting copy or they can be a section of their own. Their purpose is to quickly explain exactly why your offer is so great. 

The benefits may be part of your landing page’s supporting copy or they can be a section of their own. Their purpose is to quickly explain exactly why your offer is so great.

trust builder

Trust-builders are images and text you include on your landing page to get the reader to trust you. Often these entail testimonials from previous buyers or logos from famous clients (known as social proof), as well as stats about your success or your customers’ satisfaction. You can also include badges showing your credentials, like proof of a secure checkout system.

Lead capture

Finally, this is where your visitors convert—or don’t. Your lead capture is the action you want them to take, the culmination of all your landing page’s hard work. It could be a form right on the page where readers share information or it could be a button that brings them to another page where they give you the info you’re after. 

Whichever it is, it needs to be big, bold, obvious and visually appealing—the whole purpose of the landing page is to drive readers here. A common trick is to use a contrasting color to draw attention to your lead capture.
Lead captures should also have clear calls to action (i.e., “sign up now”) nearby to encourage people to engage the lead capture through the power of suggestion. You can improve conversions by telling your reader explicitly what you’d like them to do, just be careful about not sounding pushy.  

Keep in mind that a landing page doesn’t have to have all of these elements in this specific order to be effective. Some landing pages have the lead capture form at the bottom, others have it along the right-hand side of the page. Some landing pages have lots of text explaining the offer, while others explain it through a video.

It will probably take a few tries to find the arrangement that works best for you. Figure this out faster by split-testing two designs at once and taking a look at which performed better. Tools like Google Analytics can help with this.

Your virtual web designer & developer

Why is landing page matter?

According to truelist.co, readers spend about eight seconds on a landing page before they decide whether to keep reading or X out. Only about 50 percent of landing pages are optimized for mobile devices, and targeting a page correctly can increase conversions by 300 percent. A one-second loading delay can lower conversions by seven percent. 

If you’re not certain what those phrases mean, we’ll define them for you in a minute. But first, take a look at a few more landing page statistics:

The average landing page conversion rate across all industries is 2.35 percent
Of all the visitors who read a page’s headline, 90 percent also read its call to action
Videos on landing pages can improve conversions by 86 percent
Landing page conversion rates vary by industry, so be sure to research the average rate for yours to set realistic goals. 

as you can see, landing pages are a critical part of online marketing. they enable you to get valuable information about your prospects and often they’re key milestones in your scales funnel. let’s quickly define a few important concepts to understand when you’re developing an online marketing strategy: 

Sales funnel, a sales funnel is a series of steps designed to turn people who are interested in your product or service into people who actually buy your product or service. The term comes from pictorial representations of this process: imagine a wide pool, like all the people who see your brand’s posts on Instagram. That’s the top of the funnel, the people who are aware of your brand. Within this pool, a smaller group of people—your brand’s Instagram followers—are interested in your brand. They’re a step down the funnel, a step closer to buying from you. Within that group, there’s a smaller group who’ve decided to buy from you. And of those people, there’s an even smaller group of people who actually do buy from you—the narrowest segment of your funnel.

In this scenario, you might create a post offering the opportunity to get access to your next launch before it officially launches. Interested followers click the link in the post and reach a landing page where they can get access by giving you their email address. This landing page sits at the threshold between interested and dedicated, bringing visitors closer to becoming buyers.

Leads. Leads are the people who’ve shown interest in your brand and are likely to be converted. Using our sales funnel example, they’re the people who’ve shared their email addresses on the landing page. In other words, leads are the individuals who’ve chosen to engage with your brand and expressed that they’d like to continue a relationship with you.

Lead generation. Lead generation is all the effort you put into cultivating leads, like posting to social media, running ads, creating landing pages and building brand awareness in general. It’s the very top of your sales funnel, the widest part where you introduce your brand to the world.

Conversions. A user “converts” when they take the action you want them to take. On a landing page, a conversion would be clicking a button or sharing an email address. On a sales page, a conversion is a purchase. Depending on your goals, conversions could also be clicking an ad to reach a landing page or following your page on social media.

SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a category of strategies to help your landing page (or any kind of page) rank higher on search engines. SEO strategies involve:

  • Using high-ranking keywords in your title, metadata
  • Including quality content on your page
  • adding images and videos to your page
  • ensuring your page loads quickly

Call to action. A call to action is a piece of copy that directly tells the reader to take a specific action. Call now, read more, click here—these are all phrases used as calls to action. Calls to action are a crucial part of any landing page and the best practice is to use them in multiple spots, like right below the benefits, immediately following the supporting copy and on the button readers click to submit their info. In fact, the landing page as a whole is a call to action.

What make a good landing page?

A good landing page doesn’t leave any room for readers’ questions. It tells them everything they need to know so they feel like clicking that lead capture button is a great choice. With this in mind, you need to carefully research exactly who your target audience is after and what they respond to. Refer to the ideal customer persona you’ve created and imagine you’re speaking directly to this person when you’re writing your landing page copy.

Regardless of your customer persona, certain design and copy choices are proven to work for landing pages. These include: 

  • Clear, catchy headlines (that include keywords)
  • Uncluttered page layouts
  • Short, simple forms
  • Clear, frequents calls to action

An effective landing page also makes clear what your company does for visitors who aren’t already familiar with your brand. again, a landing page is a confusion-eliminator_ if there’s any possible way a reader can reach the end of your landing page and still have questions about who you are, what you’re offering and why it’s an amazing offer, you need to rework the copy to make these points clear.

What make a bad landing page?

Just like eye-catching copy and direct calls to action make great landing pages, wishy-washy copy and passive suggestions make lousy landing pages. Here’s what else can ruin a landing page: 

 

  • Cluttered design
  • irrelevant images 
  • no images 
  • poor seo
  • unclear calls to action
  • slow loading speeds
  • not being optimized for mobile

As of 2020, about half of the world’s web traffic is via mobile devices. That means about half of your audience—possibly more, depending on your niche and your brand—is engaging with you on their phones. Make sure your designer optimizes the page for mobile as well as desktop screens. 

In the same conversation, make sure your images and videos are compressed small enough so they don’t slow your loading speed. Loading speed does impact SEO, as do images that aren’t tagged properly. 

Final thought

I have a landing page now what?

A landing page isn’t something you plop into a marketing strategy; it’s an integral  part of  your marketing campaign from drawing board. As you develop marketing strategies, think about where landing pages fit into them. If you think about these strategies like funnels, think about where in the funnel a landing page could help most.

If you’re looking to add subscribers to your email list, add a link to a landing page that tells readers to “subscribe for more great info” at the bottom of each of your blog posts. Similarly, if you’re offering something your followers want, like an E-book or valuable PDFs, you might create a social media post that links to the landing page where they can get the E-book or PDFs.

Drawing more traffic home with awesome an landing page

When you’re selling a product, building an audience, seeking clients or giving away great content, a well-designed landing page isn’t optional. The internet’s buzzing with thousands of people who’d love to engage with your brand, so you’ve got to give them a clear path to follow to reach you. A landing page is a direct route to you, and a direct route to conversions for you.

Graphic Design: Why motion graphic is matter?

Graphic Design: Why motion graphic is matter?

ZoomsDesign

With the data explosion, getting your business message out is much harder. While lots of great animations published on social media, there is far less cool motion in apps or web-based platforms. You as a stakeholder should consider introducing great motion design in the first place. Animations can be used for whatever point you want to make and break through overproduced content in a split-second.

In this article, Zooms Design has shared ideas on why animations matter for apps and web platforms. You will read about what cool motion graphics is, and how to use it effectively so that your business can gain benefits from it.

What is motion graphic

Source by Luka Primorac

In simple words, motion graphics as a great source of storytelling combines animation and graphic design. As animation design uses not only simple visual elements such as text, shapes, or images but also engages auditory receptors to communicate ideas, it is more memorable for viewers than just static pictures.

The magic of cool motion graphics animation for brand apps and web platforms is that it showcases complex pictures, ideas, concepts, and a great deal of data in a short, simple, visually appealing video. As a result, it helps convey a message in the fastest way, easily grab and hold the viewer’s attention. Great animation design can be used in whatever areas you want—business, marketing, IT solutions, motion picture industry, education, healthcare, social networks, or entertainment.

Benefits of applying animation design

Applying animation design helps you raise brand awareness, increase people curiosity in what you’re doing and why, cause the urge to buy apps, products, or services, prompt to take actions. Videos can be used on any platforms at your fingertips—promo items, online ads, tutorials, titles trailers, news teasers, web, and mobile devices, business presentations, or any other creative ideas. Let’s go step by step.

Benefits of cool motion graphics:

  • It is cost and time effective. With great animation design, you need far less time, money, and efforts to create eye-catching motion pictures.
  • It raises brand recognition. Viewers easily comprehend complex pictures, ideas, and stats if they are presented in simple terms and engaging way. People retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video in comparison with 10% when reading it in a text.
  • It makes brand content shareable across social networks. People share social video 1200% more than simple text and static pictures combined. Facebook videos, in turn, have approximately 8 billion views daily.
  • It drives people to comment and discuss content. 85% of consumers are eager to see more branded video. Real-time feedback as a great communication channel allows figuring out ideas of what should be improved and updated in your app, product or services.
  • It allows an app or a web-based platform to come up high in Google search. A website is 53 times more likely to be shown on Google’s first page if it includes motion.
  • It increases sales via a better return on investment (ROI). Animated content drives 300% more traffic generating more leads.
  • It helps your brand stand out among competitors as well as set cool trends. People spend approximately 2.6x more time browsing pages with videos than without. As forecasted, videos are expected to reach 82% of internet traffic by 2021.

How to use animation design effectively?

For effective use of animation design, figure out what business objectives you want to achieve, and for how long. Before adopting animation ideas, ask yourself some simple questions:

  • Who is my target audience? What are my clients’ values and pain points? How can my product solve customers’ problems?
  • What business message or concept do I want to convey? How can I do it?
  • What are the main ideas the audience should remember?
  • What business objectives do I want to achieve?
  • What benefits will I gain from applying animation design?

After you have answered all the questions, choose the relevant type of video that will showcase your main concept in the best way. Let’s dig deeper into the main ones. 

your virtual graphic designer

Animated storytelling gives you an opportunity to tell people about your brand vision highlighting the most vital factors, points, ideas.

A promotional video, if it is done thoughtfully and attention-grabbing, compares favorably to typical business ads. It lasts from 30 to 60 seconds. You need to strictly follow the length requirements to attract the viewers immediately to showcase your app or web platform strengths and benefits.

With educational videos, your brand shows customers how to solve their problems either with your product or other tools. Each animated video contains a complete step-by-step guide. An educational video is longer than a promo. The point is that it drives an entirely different volume for viewers.

An explainer video, in turn, is the best choice if you want to reveal the insights on your product or services simply and engagingly from one perspective. Such animated short film creates eye-catching in-app or website content thus earning viewers’ loyalty and trust.

A testimonial video helps you build trustful relationships with your customers before deciding why to purchase your product. The more natural and simple your customer’s review on positive experience in cooperation with your company is, the more credible it will be.

If you have a complex product or service, then it is difficult to explain it in simple terms. This is exactly where a live action video comes in. It will demonstrate rather than explain how your product or service works, its features as well as what benefits your customers can gain by using it.

Cool animation design proved to be the golden mean between overproduced videos, trends, and simple static content. If done correctly with the accurate use of visual and audio effects, it conveys your message effectively. It’s simple —the more people watch, read, engage with your content, the more they trust your firm, your product, or services. As a result, you become an advisor people want to rely on and follow, not just a company that tries only to sell them some brand stuff.

We at Zooms design know how to translate complex data into a simple language with animation design best solutions—from research, script development to storyboard design and motion release.

So why does your business need great motion design?

Cool animation design proved to be the golden mean between overproduced videos, trends, and simple static content. if done correctly with the accurate use of visual and audio effects, it conveys your message effectively. it’s simple_ the more people watch, read, engage with your content, the more they trust your firm, your product, or service. As a result, you become an advisor people want to rely on and follow, not just a company that tries only to sell them some brand stuff. 

We at Zooms Design know how to translate complex data into a simple language with animation design best solution.

Why you should stick to design principles for market success?

Why you should stick to design principles for market success?

ZoomsDesign

People often make way for creativity and experimentation in place of respecting principles and conventions. But this might not always be a smart strategy. Read why sticking to the basics in design can bring you greater market success. From simple social media graphics to complicated projects such as web design and experience design, clients working with design teams might have ideas and wishes that are brave, experimental and break common conventions when it comes to graphic design.

However, these guiding principles have been around for a long time, and though they may seem to constrain sometimes, they can help your design decisions, as well as assist you in getting the right actions from your target audience.  

Through using good principles in design, as well as doing market research, you will be able to design products and assets that will impress audience and as a result, have a good market and monetary success. 

Here are main reasons why sticking to principles is important. 

Ease the design process

By sticking to the ground rules, the process of designing your product or asset will go smoother and quicker. Call it simple deduction: by ruling out things that aren’t compatible with the principles and creating within what is allowed, you will be able to focus only on the variants that are most fitting.

Whether you are a team member that has no experience in design, or a project manager that needs to make the final decision, learning the design principles will also you recognize the most quality version of a design.  You’ll probably need to grasp the main design fundamentals to be able to provide helpful criticism. Rather than assessing by emotion or aesthetic taste, assess the most fundamental design principles and evaluate if a design job adheres to them.

A quicker design process or iteration will result in more effective preparation for putting your product on the market, which increase the chances of success.

Improve user experience design

UX/UI design

Good UX design is incredibly important if you want your business to succeed. This is especially true for Software-as-a-Service businesses, as they don’t have a brick-and-mortar business where customers can be impressed. UX design influences the experience customers have when trying to discover the business, get informed about its products and services, make a purchase or stay in the know about all news related to it.

So, a website or app is a one-stop station for all these things. You need to employ good design principles to make sure that the look and feel of them serve the purpose and usability too. It’s not just about looking good, it needs to be easy to understand and use. the same goes for the design of products themselves: the final user needs to have a good experience with the product, and that is the utmost goal of their design.

Create an intuitive user interface

Similar to the ux design, ui also incredibly important and it can make or break a product on the basis of its intuitiveness. While ux concerns the phycological and experiential aspects of using a product, user interface relates more to the visual part of it.

How easy can a user navigate on a website? Is it easy to spot buttons in a particular shape and color? Are the transitions between screens in an app smooth, or disruptive? Does a landing page wireframe make sense for someone seeing it for the first time with no information about the business?

Through design principles like balance, proximity and white space, for example, a UI designer can focus the eye exactly where they want it, hence achieving the wanted result.

Improve the marketing materials

There’s no market success without good market presence. Marketing (and with it advertising) are the most important disciplines that can help a product be discovered and wanted. But, in order to produce marketing materials, whether they are social media ads, packaging or even business cards, graphic designers stick to good principles that help achieve the right result. 

Color theory, lines, shapes, textures, sizes, dimensions and movement are only some of the techniques that can give a visual product a purpose. The final audiences will easily notice and learn the marketing messages through the help of these principles. 

Helps attract the right audience with color theory

Spectrum of color theory on white background

The rights colors and their correct usage according to principles, could also help you attract the right audience. 

For example, blue is believed to give audience a sense of calmness and reliability. This is why many banks and brands in the automotive and technology industries use it ( samsung, BMW, IBM, etc) Red, on the other hand, makes them hungry. That is why it is one of the most widely used colors in the fast-food industry ( burger king, pizza hut, McDonald’s, KFC, etc). 

Other colors also have different effects on human psychology and combined with design principles you’ll be able to use the them sparingly or in abundance, as the focal point of the design or perhaps to add balance to the overall look, depending on what you want to achieve.

How to improve digital marketing with graphic design

How to improve digital marketing with graphic design

ZoomsDesign

Learn why graphic design is so important for digital marketing and discover how to use visuals to improve the performance of your campaigns. 

Digital marketing means promoting your business online. It’s different from traditional marketing (e.g. television, radio or newspaper0), mostly because in digital marketing potential clients interact directly with you.

Since traditional marketing is often expensive and doesn’t offer a chance to target particular audiences, digital marketing is definitely the most important type of marketing for small business and startups. And since graphic design is an integral part of effective marketing, it’s very important to understand how can you use it in digital marketing efforts. 

Why is graphic design important for marketing?

Marketing design is the creation of branding, advertising and other visual elements used in promoting your brand.

In that definition alone you can see that design can often help to get people interested in your services or products, or help them discover your brand in the first place. Here are just a few critical reasons why you need good design in digital marketing. 

It's all start with branding design

Yes, branding design also falls under marketing design. Your brand identity consist of your mission, vision and values, but also the way your brand looks, or your brand design. an established brand guideline will help you create every marketing asset or branding asset more quickly and effectively, and raise brand awareness with you target audience. 

Creating a brand guide is an essential first step of any marketing strategy. It will make the decision-making process much quicker down the line, and save you a lot of time. A brand guide includes all the visual elements you should use regularly in designing for your brand (logo versions, colors, fonts, illustrations) as well as the tone of voice and key messages relevant to your brand. 

apple nike logo

Source by pinterest 

Design speak loud than words

Our attention span is only about 8 seconds long these days, so making a strong first impression is more important than ever. Moreover, it’s well known that people tend to remember only 20% of what they read, compared to 80% of what they see, so if you want your marketing messages to stick, you need to present them in a visual way.

If you think about some of the most iconic logo designs you’ll immediately see just how powerful graphic design can be. Nike’s swoosh represents movement and determination; Apple’s pictorial mark demonstrates a thirst for knowledge and superior design. The art of communicating visually means that you’re able to If you think about some of the most iconic logo designs you’ll immediately see just how powerful graphic design can be. Nike’s swoosh represents movement and determination; Apple’s pictorial mark demonstrates a thirst for knowledge and superior design. The art of communicating visually means that you’re able to relay your brand identity in a more universal way.

your virtual graphic designer

Good design help you stand out

Many people confuse marketing with advertising, which is actually just a component of marketing where of promoting specific products or services to a specific target market. 

However, both marketing and advertising should help you differentiate yourself from your competitors. Hopefully, you’ve already identified your unique selling points (USPs) in your business or marketing plan, and you can use design to make that even more obvious for prospective customers.

Are you a mobile bank is youthful, modern and digital bank compare to tradition banks? Use playful, hip designs to tell that story. Perhaps you have a family-run restaurant with long tradition?  Use retro pictures and drawings to inspire a sense of nostalgia and create an emotional response with your guests.

Digital marketing vs inbound marketing

Digital marketing is a collections of tactics you use to attract potential customers online. Inbound marketing is a style of digital marketing that involves attracting customers to your business organically. by presenting solutions to their challenges or convincing them that they need you and not the other way around.

Practically speaking, inbound marketing involves regular blogging and SEO optimization, social media posts that engage users or offer informational or educational value and most importantly regular updating of your buyer persona intel, to allow you to provide value for potential as well as existing customers. 

Digital marketing strategies checklist

Every digital marketing campaign follows a set of steps, from planning and goal identification to measuring the results of your performance. However, every campaign should also correspond to your digital marketing strategy and help move your business along a course you’ve defined. Here’s a quick rundown of all the key elements of a digital marketing strategy: 

  • Create branding guidelines
  • Define and track KPIs
  • Create a calendar of marketing campaigns
  • Create an email marketing strategy
  • Review your website and SEO
  • Create a social media strategy
  • Develop a PPC ad strategy
  • Consider a PR strategy

How to use graphic design in digital marketing

So, now that you have a better understanding of what digital marketing entails, it’s time to deep-dive into one of its most important components: graphic design. We’ll guide you through examples of using graphic design to improve your marketing game and explain why and how each one works. 

Graphic help website rank better

If you know anything about SEO, you’re familiar with the importance of using the right keywords and useful content that will help your business rank better in search engines. However, now that search engine algorithms are a lot more refined, it’s no longer enough to just stuff your text with target keywords (in fact if you overdo it, your site will be penalized for it and rank poorly).

Another part of that is that search engines like Google can also crawl (or rank) images, which means an informative and useful graphic will come up in search engine results and potentially drive people to your website.

Finally, it’s well known that people need only about 50 milliseconds to make a first impression of a website. This is hardly enough time to read a significant part of the copy, but it can be more than enough for a user to make an impression about the professionalism of the company. So, better graphic design can mean lower bounce rates and more time spent on browsing your pages. Which in turn, will lead google to favor your site and rank it better.

design makes content marketing more compelling

Content marketing involves in producing content, whether textual or visual that attracts people to your business. It’s closely related to keyword research and SEO, but graphic design is also an incredibly important part as well.  

Understanding how to use visual storytelling will make your content more digestible and appealing to audiences with an ever-decreasing attention span. Designing for content marketing can mean appealing blog covers that will make your site look professional and regularly updated, or different types of data visualizations, such as infographics, graphs or charts that help break down complex processes and information into smaller chunks.

There's no social media without design

This is something you probably already know, but when it comes to social media good design is a must. Consistency will help you build a brand image, and quality, creative graphics will ensure your posts aren’t drowned out by thousands of similar ones you’ll be competing with.

Having a well-designed social media post doesn’t just mean people will stop and notice. Good graphic design can also ensure your posts get more engagement and shares. Even something simple like a product photo can be better with the help of colorful backgrounds or illustrative elements. 

Investing in design can increase profit

When you’re advertising products online, people won’t be able to experience them first-hand (e.g. hold them) before they decide to make a purchase. Instead, you can use design to help encourage purchase decisions. we already mentioned that good web design will help keep people on your website, and attractive social media images can boost engagement, and ultimately sales (90% of people buy from brands they follow on social media). 

Where to get digital marketing design for my business

So you understand why design is important, and even have some ideas on what kind of design you’d like for your marketing channels? Awesome! But that still doesn’t make you a designer. These days, there’s no shortage of DIY design platforms that allow you to create your own marketing assets, even if you have no design skills or experience. The most famous one, Canva, is a delightfully user-friendly program and there’s no doubt you’ll have fun using it. 

But should digital marketers really design their own ads? Probably not. 

First of all, as a non-designer it will be difficult for you to maintain consistency in graphic design (without sacrificing creativity or versatility that is), which will harm your brand image. Next, the results might look uninventive and similar to thousands of visual assets people see from other companies every day.

Finally, no matter how hard you try or how many times interactions you make it, the finally results usually isn’t nearly as good as you’d want to 

We’ve heard this many times from our clients who attempted to create their own graphics before turning to Zooms Design. More often than not, the effort became a waste of time (and money, since a CEO or marketing manager need offer their expertise in different areas), as well as unprofessional graphics. You can hire someone in-house, or opt for an outsourced option such as a freelancer or a design agency.

You will be able to get the professional in designing to support your digital marketing. 

The graphic design  service offer the most in terms of quality, flexibility and affordability. If you’d like to know more about it, be sure to check out the scope of work or book a personal consultant to see how we can help your business with design.

Everything you need to know about outsourcing web design

Everything you need to know about outsourcing web design

ZoomsDesign

Whether you’re already looking into outsourcing companies or simply considering of outsourcing web design, this guide is here to answer all your burning questions!

You can really outsource anything these days: from customer service and sales teams to marketing and design. However, It services (including web design) remain the most commonly outsourced business service. There are several reasons for this. While any small business owner can at least attempt to tackle graphic design or marketing (even without a basic knowledge), when it comes to web development there’s only so much you can do. Next, it’s quite clear that websites have become a necessary requirement for any business: 70-80% of potential customers could be lost to a business without a website.  

Of course, you might already know that this is something you can attempt to yourself. There are several website builders, including WordPress, Shopify and Wix, which allow you to create a useful website with sometimes quite extensive customization options. 

But if you’re looking create something from scratch. or perhaps design a mobile app, then you’ll have to hire a web design and development team.

In this guide you will learn: 

  • What is web design
  • Why outsource web design
  • Where can you outsource web design

What is web design

Web design incorporates two things: web design and web development.

Web design relates to the way a website or app looks. But getting it to actually work is the responsibility of web development teams. 

If you’re looking to outsource, you may want to consider outsourcing one or the other or both. If you’re a design company and have a skilled UI/UX designer on hand, you might just need a developer to help you bring your vision to life.

Web design

While creating the look of a website is essentially a graphic design task, it requires a particular set of skills (for example design software like Sketch or Adobe XD) and an understanding of what this type of design needs to achieve. 

A well-designed website or application includes a great user interface (the look of the app) and user experience (e.g. making it clear how a website or app should be used). 

Web development

If you’ve ever seen funny stock photos of people sitting in a dark room surrounded by mysterious lines of code: this is the representation of a web developer.

Web development refers to building the backend of the site: you must know how to use coding languages such as HTML or CSS. It’s not something you can easily pick up from a YouTube tutorial. Rather, you might have to take courses or acquire formal training in order to provide web development services. Still, since this is a more practical job. web developer are generally paid less than UI/UX designers who have to have the relevant technical design skills, but also a much broader knowledge and practical experience in designing for this type of use. 

Web development, programmer engineering website
Your virtual web designer & developer

Why outsource web design?

Outsourcing is not a sign of bad management or taking on more than you can handle. It’s a popular practice even with giants like Apple, that outsource the production of their hardware, which are then sold under that Apple brand (this is called white label outsourcing). This allows the company to focus on design, branding and marketing, which allows Apple to retain the full ownership of their brand without the “hassle” of simple production tasks. 

Deloitte’s 2020 outsourcing survey suggests that the key reasons for outsourcing remained the same, even in a year as unpredictable as that. Most companies outsource to: 

  • Reduce cost 70% 
  • Reach the market more quickly 20% 
  • Achieve more flexibility 40%

When it comes to website design, these benefit becomes even more apparent. Let’s take a closer look.  

Reducing cost

The average salary of a UX/UI designer is $85k annually, while web developers make around $75k per year.  On the other hand, UI/UX design services on freelancing platforms like Fiverr and Upwork stands at around $20-$75 per hour, while web developers make an average of $25 per hour, In the case of website design, however, clients usually pay on a per-project basis, and the average cost of a website setup is around $6k.

Of course, on top of that, you’ll need to add the expenses of hosting the website (which are usually quite small) and web maintenance (regularly updating the content), but we’re assuming you have a content or marketing team taking care of that. And naturally, the more complex the project, the higher the price tag will be.

More flexibility

Outsourcing web design means two things in terms of greater flexibility: you can focus on top-tier tasks (like Apple’s example) and you can diversify your service. 

This might mean creating a mobile application to reach more users or even adjusting features on your website to acquire more leads and ultimately more sales. Knowing that your ideas can actually be realized means that you scale better.

Reaching market quickly

A survey from Kinvey shows that an MVP (minimum viable product) for an iOS or Android application takes around 4.5 months to complete.

The time your in-house web design team might spend on creating an, for example, web application, has to be rationed between performing necessary daily tasks (e.g. maintaining your existing website). An outsourcing service has the benefit of tunnel vision, focusing only on the task at hand and producing results more quickly. 

Finally, one of the biggest advantages of outsourcing is access to a hug talent pool. You are able to choose the people with the absolute best qualifications for the job, which means the work often gets done faster.

Why consistent graphic design makes marketing effective

Why consistent graphic design makes marketing effective

ZoomsDesign

Consistent graphic design is a keys to a successful marketing strategy. Learn how consistent graphics help you build a strong brand and market your business. 

You’ve probably guessed that good graphic design is necessary for marketing, but there’s more to it than that. When weighing their options of where to get graphic design work, many small business owners consider freelancers due to their flexibility, versatility and affordable hourly rates. However, working with several freelancers at the same time can make it quite difficult to keep the design consistent and unified. And why is it important to have consistent graphic design in marketing? Read on to find out.

Building brand image and awareness

Just in case you’re unsure about it, here’s a couple of terms you should be clear about before you start working on your marketing strategy: 

  • Brand identity: the term that encompasses the look of your brand (logo design and everything else), your mission, vision and values that you communicate to your target audience.
  • Brand image: the view other people have you, how they perceive your brand identity.
  • Brand awareness: the recall factor associated with a brand; what are the first things that come to mind when people think of your brand.

While you need to create a brand identity and a branding guide before you start, the other two are highly dependent on your marketing efforts—you need to get people to hear about your product or service in some way, right?

There are many technical aspects that can increase your brand recognition (how many people know about your brand), such as search engine optimization for your website or detailed targeting on social media. But once you get people’s attention you need visuals that will help them form an impression about your brand. 

If you Google McDonald’s ads, you’ll see plenty of different and creative designs, sometimes with very clever copy. But the basic idea is always the same: you’ll always find their iconic product in the center and the signature.

your virtual graphic designer

Creating loyalty and trust with your customers

It’s 5 times more expensive to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones. That means you’re much better off nurturing existing relationship that constantly coursing new ones. 

One way to do this is through consistent marketing design. People who’ve purchased from you previously will respond well to the same design elements that may have prompted them to make the initial purchase. It shows them that what they see is indeed what they get, and if it worked once, chances are they will remain loyal customers.

Of course, don’t mistake consistency for lack of creativity. A great example is Coke’s famous, Share a Coke campaign. The iconic packaging that so many people recognize and love was given a simple twist by adding names to personalize the experience of drinking and sharing a Coke. The brand design was still intact with the red color and the signature logo design, but this little element did a lot: this campaign is credited with an impressive 11% rise in sales in the US!

share a coke

Providing a better user experience

One of the key elements of a positive user experience (UX) in product and website design is consistency. Consistency allows people to feel in control while using a  service or product and makes the outcomes of their actions easier to predict. That’s why brand consistency is especially critical in designing websites. Not only does it enforce your brand identity and help build awareness, but the importance of graphic design here lies in the actual way users interact with the website. We’re going to use example from our own experience to illustrate the point. In our content marketing efforts, we’ve created several in-depth guides on topics that are relevant to our target audiences. Previously we had a separate lead capture landing page for this, where people could download the guides in exchange for their email addresses. We wanted to improve our lead generation system so we creed guide forms placed in the blog with the specific guides relevant to the article at hand.

Naturally, we made sure that the design is in line with our brand so that the forms don’t disrupt the overall reading experience and provide a simple call to action. This is an example of bad UX. The different font and image sizes completely disrupt the readability of the blog and make it hard for the user to skim through the key information. 

bad ux good ux

source by careerfoundry

A brand guide save money and time

A brand guide or brand book is the final step in the brand creation process. This document contains all the design elements used in branding and digital marketing, such as colors, fonts, usage of logo and photos. It’s an extremely useful asset to have if you plan on outsourcing design projects to agencies or freelancers since it provides them with the guidelines on how to design for your brand. 

With this in mind, it’s clear to see how consistent graphic design can also save you time and money. Instead of a lot of back and forth with your designated graphic design service, you can just provide the guidelines and wait for the final result to be delivered. Similarly, and especially if you’re working with freelancers who charge extra for revisions, you can minimize the number of revisions needed by giving them an established framework to operate in and create the necessary marketing assets.

consistency in social media graphics

Social media is one of, if not the most important marketing channels for contemporary businesses to use. Creating graphics in this field, however, can be tricky for a number of reasons. Firstly, you usually have to adhere to a predetermined size quality and format guidelines.

Next, as social media user are experience a visual  overload, it can be a tricky to get your business to stand out.

Making your content and visuals consistent with your brand will. Create a unique look and experience that people will appreciate. It doesn’t have to be the most complex and fancy graphic. Being unique is what really matters.

Take a look at these great ads from Slack. It perfectly captures everything the brand is about. You see people in professional clothes, which suggests Slack is built for professional teams. However, it’s also modern and fun to use which the humor of the ad also captures. To top it off, the ad is created with Slack’s signature colors (purple, yellow, pink) which ensures a powerful brand image is formed in the audiences’ minds.

slack display ad
slack social media ads

Source by Cooler nation

Images communicate faster than text

Did you know that people remember only 20% of what they read and 80% of what they see? In other words, if you want people to remember your brand, you’ll need to communicate visually.

Moreover, visual communication is often a way to bridge language barriers if you’re marketing to a global audience. No matter where you come from, or what kind of local knockoff you used to drink as a kid, everyone has a similar response to a “sweating” bottle of Coke on a hot day!

Absolute vodka had one of the most successful and longest-running campaigns in history. From iconic city landmark to a nod to Andy Warhol’s art, these ads were created to sell the same product to different target audiences. Thanks to one simple trick in consistent design (using the distinct shape of the vodka bottle in different ways), this campaign had huge success and helped Absolute become the market leader in the US.

absolut vodka
absolut vodka
The important of good web design in digital marketing

The important of good web design in digital marketing

ZoomsDesign

Wondering how web design can improve your digital marketing effort? Keep reading to learn why web design is important even to improve your overall marketing plan?

Wondering how to improve your digital marketing strategy even more? you might be looking too closely and missing the forest for the trees. Very often, companies have amazing marketing campaigns that go to wastes, because they lead to a website or landing page that is poorly designed or isn’t optimized. Good website design can do a lot for your overall marketing> From increasing conversions and helping you rank in search results, all the way to helping you nurture your brand image. so, needless to say, a good web design is more than necessary. here are some of the biggest reasons why. 

It reflects your brand online

Let’s assume that you have a great digital marketing campaign that is posted on different online channels. It probably leads to your website or landing page. And if they aren’t designed well, or are completely different from what viewers have been seen on.  Say, social media, it will seem inconsistent or strange. 

You need to use the same branding guide in your web design too, to make sure that you create a virtual space that seems known and related to your brand for audiences. This website or landing page needs to certain brand elements that reflect your company well. Here are some of them: 

Logo: The logo is an integral part of a brand image and story. It is the first element of branding, and the rest is built around it. When you see a good piece of graphic design that betters the overall digital marketing strategy. There is also a logo included. Since it is a symbol that will always be tied to your company story, you should make sure that it is included in the web design. 

Branding colors: Similar to the font, your brand’s colors should be integrated into every branding material of your company. Including the website. Make sure that the design of your website carries your brand’s colors palette too. 

Branding fonts: Sure, not everyone can have custom fonts for their website, and sometimes they can be expensive. But using one group of fonts for your branding or social media, and a completely different one on your website looks sloppy and inconsistent. Make sure to infuse the same fonts. at least in headers, hero images, and similar. 

Usage of photos, images and illustrations: When you hire a web design agency or design company, it is important to include your exact brand guideline in your brief. If you use stock photos on social media, content and email marketing, it will make sense to include these elements in your website too. However, if you are more prone to using illustrations, try to unify that look all across the brand.

It betters your search engine optimization

By optimizing your website and landing pages, you will rank better on search engines as well.

There are multiple textbook tricks that will help your website rank better with good web design, some of which are easier to achieve than others. Of course, most techniques for good SEO have more to do with copywriting, content, and backlinks, but web design can make a big difference too.

Here are some things to keep in mind when working with web design companies.

Ask for a design that you can use and update on your own

Chances are, you won’t get a new website every now and then. It is expensive and bad for brand building. So, when you ask for a website design, you should make sure that it is going to be intuitive for you too.

You should be able to add content, change CTAs and add time-relevant elements to the pages on your own. This refers to the functionality of a website too, and not just the web design. Still, first and foremost the look of it needs to be taken into consideration.

Supply them with good headlines, meta titles, tags, and descriptions

Web designers are in charge of designing, not in writing the client’s headlines and copy. So, make sure you include relevant keywords about your industry and location in your headlines, and add tags and meta descriptions for images and articles. This is a common practice of what is known as on-page SEO.

Your virtual web designer & developer

Avoid large files to assure quick loading

It is common to add images and videos in the best resolution and size possible, but this can be counterproductive. The reason for that is that large files take a long time to load, which then makes the search engine think that the website isn’t optimized and ranks it lower.

And it’s not a great experience for visitors either: no one likes waiting for minutes for a hero image to load on a website. 

Optimize for mobile devices

More and more people are searching for a business or making a purchase on the phone by the day. According to a report, up to 70 percent of web traffic happens on a mobile device. Furthermore, 80 percent of shoppers use smartphones during physical shopping, 70 percent of smartphone users have bought something in a store after using their phone to discover more information and 69 percent of smartphone users would buy from stores that have mobile sites which cover their questions or concerns.

So, it is pretty clear that people are using their smartphones to learn more about a business. That means that your website should be responsive to other devices too, not just computers. 

Make sure there are no broken links in calls to action and landing pages

There is no bigger red flag to search engines than broken links: they affect the website’s ranking and are generally a very bad experience for visitors. So, when your design is done, and the website is developed, click on all the CTAs and landing pages buttons during your big quality check to ensure every link that is active.

It helps your social media marketing

A good-looking and optimized website or landing page that is the final destination for your marketing campaign will bring a better result for many reasons. 

First and foremost, it will give social media engines a reason to believe that your website should be seen by the audiences you are trying to reach, and deliver to more people.

Secondly, when people land on a bad website that isn’t intuitive and doesn’t offer them a good experience, they are more likely to bounce, i.e. leave the website. This also influences the overall success of your marketing campaign.

Lastly, when the audience of your social media campaign lands on a website and finds exactly what they need, they will be likely to visit again. If they see something completely unrelated or a website where they can’t find what they are looking for, this will leave a wrong impression.

Its improve the user experience

Always keep users in while creating your website and developing your website. Make sure it’s intuitive, easy to navigate, and simple to use. Users will lose interest and quit if your website doesn’t have a simple interface. By making sure audience can quickly discover and click all of your website’s links, and that the site loads quickly, people will have a much better user experience while visiting. This will significantly improve your marketing too. In its search results pages, Google now considers website loading times and mobile-friendliness as major ranking criteria. This will significantly improve your marketing too. In its search results pages, Google now considers website loading times and mobile-friendliness as major ranking criteria.

Optimize your website for these characteristics if you want it to rank well on Google. Users prefer to access websites on their mobile devices and want them load quickly.

It boosts your conversion rate

Because of all the previous reasons, a good web design and an intuitive, branded website or landing page will have a much better chance of higher conversion rates. 

From good navigation to using color psychology to attract people into making a certain action, and of course, using the right wording to inspire them to make a purchase, each and every elements on your website can help you balance out the overall marketing success of your business.

Branding for business success

Branding for business success

ZoomsDesign

Whether we talk about a small local business or a big multinational corporation, branding can significantly influence their success in the market, from setting one company apart from its competitors to driving more loyal customers. Find out how branding can affect your business. Suppose someone asks you to name a fast-food chain, a brand of soda, or a smartphone manufacturer. In that case, the chances are that you at least thought of McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Apple. Of course, this comes as no surprise since these three brands epitome good branding.

Branding is equally important as the products or services the business offers. As combination of symbols, text, colors, and graphics, the branding and visual identity have the power to distinguish one company from its competitors significantly. Branding, in essence, determines business success.

Let’s take Coca-Cola as an example. Even though its main rival Pepsi turns more profits year after year, because of its diversified products portfolio, Coca-Cola still manages to outsell Pepsi on every global market. Yes, Coke’s annual marketing budget is double that of its main competitors. However, it’s the powerful branding that makes it stand out in the market for over a century.

Effective branding is not just for big plyer

mockup-brand

Brand Identity By Zooms Design

Branding is not only for companies with large marketing budgets. If you look closely, you will see that every local business in your neighborhood has its brand identity. From your local pizzeria to the real-estate agency, they all play the branding game with more or less success.

You might believe that great branding is usually associated with excellent service or products. Nonetheless, you can find a plethora of similar businesses in your area that provide the same level of service, with one being more popular than the other.

Today it isn’t hard to develop a good company name, logo, website, and promotional materials. There are plenty of free options if you are a creative type and know your way with words and design. If not, you can always find a design service that fits your budgets and help you set up your brand without paying an arm and a leg.

Is branding really that important to a business?

The simple answer is yes. Branding most certainly affects every business. Do it right, and you will quickly become a community staple. Do it poorly, and you will have to increase your marketing budget to attract customers to keep your light on. 

Good branding can change the way perceive your company. By becoming more recognizable, you can drive new business, increase brand recognition and get more loyal customers. 

your dedicated branding designer

Making your brand more recognizable

One thing that all successful brands have in common, no matter the size of the business, is brand recognition. Good branding helps you stand out from the number of similar companies. It gives your potential initial expectations about your service and helps them easily identify you in the future.

The visual elements play a vital role here. your logo and brand colors need to be aligned well with your brand identity. Your company slogan needs to be memorable and easy to understand, without any room for interpretation.

Establishes credibility and loyalty

No matter the type of business you have, your clients will always pick you if you look professional and polished. Branding helps you create a particular image you want your potential clients to see. It will help you inspire and credibility in your potential clients and convince them to pick your business over competitors.

when you create brand recognition and credibilit. You also gain loyal customers. There is a reason with people frequently shop at H&M. why they purchase only apple products, drink only coke, or go to a particular restaurant every Sunday. It’s familiarity and trust with the brand. They know what they are getting and the quality they can expect.  

It helps you to get customer

Good branding helps you get more new customer in a few ways. First, it helps the word about your business spread quickly. When the brand resonates well among its target audience, word of month about it spread quickly. This is in part due to buyer’s self-concept. 

Every person has a specific image of themselves. That image is usually projected on the things they buy share with others on social media. This is why every brand needs to spend time identifying its buyer personas and all the riches interests they might have. 

Few tips about branding

Good brands are never created by accident. They always involve careful planning and execution. However, this doesn’t mean that you will make it right from the start. Just like thing marketing, branding also takes a lot of trail and error until you refine your brand and find right voice and identity for it. 

Keep in mind that good research and planning will save you a lot of time and money. They will help you set the proper foundation for your future work. We have extensively covered the topic of building your brand, but here are some key points that will help you lay the groundwork for your brand.

Make diligent research of your competitors. See what they are doing, which platforms they use to address their customers and the promotional materials they utilize. Good research is half work done. It will help you see your strength and weaknesses and help you find an angle to differentiate yourself from the competitors. 

Branding is all about your customers, not your business. See what the pain points of your customers are and offer them a solution. Provide them with visuals and a voice that is specifically tailored to their persona. Make them feel empowered and allow them to “Live their truth”.

Do not be afraid to be unique. Researching your competitors will help you see what everyone else is doing. However, this doesn’t mean that you have to do the same. Instead, identity your target audience, create your buyer personas and try to think outside the box. If you have many competitors in your industry, thinking outside the box will help you stand out.

Creating and nurturing a brand is a never-ending a job. It requires research, measuring key performance indicators, and adjusting thing on the go. If something doesn’t give results, try something different. Follow the trends in your business sector and trends among your target audience. Don’t be afraid to try new approaches for old problems. 

Creating a good brand is all about dedication to your business and your clients. We at Zooms Design do the best job for to matching our clients with some of the best designers in the industry to create astonishing things. From social media campaigns to branding strategies, our designers will help you make your brand stand out. You can always book a demo session and see how we may help you.

Why you need a website even if your business is offline

Why you need a website even if your business is offline

ZoomsDesign

If you are a business owner who relies only on physical sales and has yet to set up a website or digital presence, then this is the ideal time to begin with it.

with the recent boom in e-commerce that has been further driven by the covid-19 pandemic, global online sales are projected to reach $4.891 trillion. In the future, this number is expected to go higher as more and more consumers shift towards online shopping and limit their visits to brick-and-mortar stores. While this is something quiet positive for businesses with an established online presence, it also highlights the need to have a website for those that still operate offline.

You may not realize it, but there are millions of people who look up businesses online and search for product or services before making a purchase. These could be potential customers for your business that you might be missing out on. In case you are thinking about why you would need a website if your work is offline, well, there are a number of reasons.

Promote your business 24/7

when you think about it, a website is the ideas tool for marketing and promotion that can help your business increase its reach effectively. Even if you are not selling  any products online or setting up an e-commerce platform, a well designed web page can attract a wider consumer base. People can search for relevant products or service at any time and look up the website in search engine results. So ultimately, you are promoting your business 24/7 without spending a lot on marketing through advertisements or billboards. 

Consider this for a real life example. You have a small restaurant that specialize in Italian cuisine and want your customers to enjoy the experience with a visit. By setting up an inactive web page that features your company logo design prominently. Images of dishes and contact details, you can create awareness and attract more people. Take a look at the website of Seaworthy below. It has highly- quality of the restaurant and food alone with all the other relevant information. 

SEAWORTHY

Source seaworthy

It may also make it easier for customers to make reservations and learn about new menu items. There is the option of displaying pictures of your location so that potential customers can get a sense of the eatery. As a result, you can promote your business around the clock because the website will appear in local searches for Italian restaurants or otherwise.

Make sure it represents your brand

If you take a look at the websites of Coca-Cola or Conde Nast, you can observe the way these businesses are using their web pages for branding. The website is one of the most important parts of a company’s brand identity. When people are looking for certain brands or products and service online, they are most likely go through the web page before anything else.

Your website, even if it’s not selling anything, reflects or represents your brand values and image. It tells people about the industry and nature of work and makes them familiar with your brand colors, typography and font styles. For instance, the website below of a renowned law firm, white & case, and make it easier for people to learn about the business and brand. 

The use of large images with a monochrome color palette immediately catches the attention of the visitor. With bold serif typography for headlines and sans serifs font in the body text, this web page showcases the brand values of moving forward and helping people effectively. 

whitecase

Source White & Case

Provide consistent support

One of the biggest challenges that business face in engaging potential customers and keeping them has to do with providing support. If you are unable to answer the questions in a timely manner and are slow with the response , visitors might move on to other options. It’s where a website can help you out of a tricky situation. 

You can set up a live chat option on your web page where an employee or team member could respond to queries about prices or the availability of products. By doing so, you will be able to create a positive perception of your business in the minds of the audience and provide support consistently.

Since a website is online at all the times, you can even add an FAQ [Frequently Asked Questions] page when people may find answers or solutions quickly.  

Your virtual web designer & developer

Appeal to a wider consumer base

According to recent data, there are around 4.67 billion users active on the internet across the world currently. With an engaging website, you have the opportunity to spread brand awareness within a wider consumer base and tell more people about your business. Look at it this way. 

If you are running a business that offers a service, such as a restaurant or a house renovation and repair, your web page can help you get a higher number of customers. By highlighting your portfolio or specialties, you can showcase what you have to offer in the best way possible.

This not only helps your business become credible, but also convinces people that your services can be trusted. With a web page, you can also simplify the process of getting quotes or finding prices as visitors can request them through a form immediately.

Build a digital presence

This is the biggest advantages of having a website if your business is offline. In this day and age, it can be quiet challenging to grow and increase sales without having a digital presence. You want people to know about your products or services and find physical location easily. This is an easy and simple way to build recognition and help consumers become familiar with your brand identity and name. 

Once you have set up a web page, you can incorporate links to your social media account on Facebook, Instagram, You tube or Twitter within the design. Ultimately you will be able to create a strong digital presence and gain a larger following as well.  When people see your logo or tagline on digital platforms, they may remember it for later. 

This way someone might recognize it on flyer, billboard, product packaging, or outside the store or shop too. 

Show testimonials and reviews

You may not know about this but almost 88 percent of consumers consider online reviews just as credible as a recommendation from a friend or family member. If you are running a business you need convincing testimonials and reviews to reach customers and build a loyal clientele. There are many website that do not provide the option of e-commerce but feature customer reviews for visitors. This way, it becomes easier to tell people about the work you have done and feedback received. without a web page, it can be difficult to showcase previous experiences of customers to potential clients. 

Take a look an example of a testimonial page that can be used in web design. It highlights different people talking about their success in business and offers advice as well. 

Testimonial

Source Shakil Ali

Final Thoughts

These are some of the reasons why you might need a website even if you don’t sell anything online. In this day and age, digitalization is the only way forward. In order to keep up with the times and changing preferences of consumers, you need to create a web page that not only helps you build a strong brand identity, but takes your business global.

Graphic Design: Should you outsource or hire in-house

Graphic Design: Should you outsource or hire in-house

ZoomsDesign

Many times when we need to make hiring decisions , we’re confronted with a dilemma: Should we outsource or insource?  

While some entrepreneurs rave about the benefits or outsourcing design work, others have given up due to unpleasant experiences. Well, learn in my friend. 

We’re about to tell you everything you need to know about both hiring options, so next time you have to make staffing decision, you know exactly what to do.

Why your business needs a graphic designer?

Okay, so we’re not in the ’80s anymore. 

In the current age of social media and all-pervasive digital presence,  the important of visual strategies to boost brand awareness and attract new customers is greater than ever before. Image are processed 60,000 times faster than next and people tend to spend 10% more times on website images than next. These stats alone are enough to tell you why good design matters when it comes to scaling and leveling up your game. and businesses need the  help of talented graphic- designers to do this. A skilled designer knows how and where to hit the audience with their designer to achieved the desired result. 

So here’s rule number one: don’t cut corners by asking a friend or doing it yourself. 

There are two main reasons companies hire graphic designers: 

  1. To establish brand look and create initial brand assets.
  2. To continuously create branded material for advertising and internal purposes. 

But while doing so, companies can face myriad challenges: 

  • Design work being very time-consuming.
  • Different brands and different projects requiring a wade variety of style and skills.
  •  Keeping up with the ever trends in customers design preference can be overwhelming. 

On top of that, the questions of the where to find the talent? How to gauge the talent? To in-source or outsource? 

Outsource your graphic designer

Entrepreneur.com defines outsourcing as, “The practice of having certain job functions done outside  a company instead of having an in-house department or employee handle them: functions can be outsourced to either a company or an individual”.

Meanwhile, Deloittle’s 2016 Global Outsourcing Survey shows the top reasons companies outsource: 

  • 59%- reduce or control costs 
  • 57%- Focus or core functions 
  • 47%- solve capacity issues 
  • 31%- improve service 
  • 28%- Gain access to expert talent and knowledge 
  • 17%- Manage the business environment 
  • 17%- Accelerate organizational transformation 

These are all reasons a company might want to outsource their graphic design, but that doesn’t mean it’s without its flaws. 

Let’s examine the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing designers to see if it’s the right move for you. 

The pros of outsourcing graphic design

1. Lower Costs

From a financial point of view, outsourcing graphic design is usually cheaper than hiring an in-house employee. When you outsource you have the flexibility to decide how much you spend on each task or project as each on will likely have a different scope or even a different person fulfilling it.  You can set your own fixed budget on the importance and complexity of the project at hand.

In contrast, payments for in-house designers do not have any direct correlation to the amount and complexity of the projects they complete. 

2. Flexibility

This flexibility extends to other things as well. 

The beauty of outsourcing graphic design is that you can always scale your team depending on your work volume. If it’s a busy month, hire more freelancers. If it’s a slow period, counting on only one designer should be fine. (And once again, scaling down at your whim helps you save money. You can’t do that with someone staff). 

3. Talent diversity

You can also always outsource work that requires skills your team is lacking. Suppose you have three in-house graphic designers. 

You have a new campaign that requires some custom animation, but no one on your team has experience in creating them. You can outsource this Or let’s say you’re an agency and you get a client who needs great visuals for marketing their yoga studio online, but your designers are only experienced in the fields of media, tech, and real estate. 

What should you do? 

If outsourcing is an option, you can find a designer who has experience creating this type of content. This way, you can satisfy and retain clients from across all  types of industries, even those that aren’t normally a focus of your company.

4. Fresh Ideas

Outsourcing is an interesting way to spice up your designs as well. By hiring someone from outside the company, you are exposed to new perspectives, opinions, and style. This can offer some exciting new visuals to attract a new audience or even re-engage some existing customers. 

Long terms, this can even inspire the rest of your team and boost creativity.

your virtual graphic designer

The cons of outsourcing design

1. Divided focus

One of the disadvantages of outsourcing graphic designer is that you never really know how many projects the freelancer may be working on. In most instances, you probably won’t have a freelancers undivided attention.  

This can result in poor or faulty design outcomes which could mean more revisions, wasted time, and more budget. If you are running on a tight deadline, this can ultimately hamper your whole project. So, you to be careful while outsourcing designers. it is a good practice to select pre-vetted or reputed designers with a proven track record.

2. Difficult to find a good fit

Every hiring manager who has outsourced knows it can be a bit tricky to find the right fit for the job.  Entrepreneur.com also highlighted the importance of making sure the freelancer you hire can really do the job. 

You need to get and check references. “ Ask former or current clients about their satisfaction…. Find out what industries and what type of workload the firm or individual is accustomed to handling.” But finding and verifying all this information is not always easy, so the possibility of hiring the wrong person does exist.  Another aspect that could cause concern is time differences, as outsourced designers can come from all over the world. 

Hubstaff point out that “Working across continents can mean business hours might not line up. Make sure you discuss what regular work hours are if you’re working with professionals in the other locations. “

3. Management and reliability

Another downside of outsourcing graphic designers is ultimately your lack of control. Unlike someone on your team, you can’t really control their business stability or their ability to meet deadlines. There’s a constant fear that they may go AWOL or end up providing sub-par designs. What will you do then? 

Furthermore, regardless of the length of the relationship, you will need someone to manage your freelancers as well as deal with recruitment, legal issues, payments, and to create trusting relationships.

These tasks can take a lot of time, especially if you are outsourcing directly to a designer and not through an agency or third-party business. (Note: Many of these issues fortunately can fade away if you have a long-term relationship with a designer or agency.) 

Keeping these drawbacks in mind, how can we utilize graphic design outsourcing to its fullest potential? 

Well, the trick lies in knowing when to outsource design and how to do it the right way. If you do it right, there’s a lot to gain. 

Working with in-house designers

The alternative to outsourcing talent is hire in-house designers, also called insourcing. 

This often involves strenuous hiring and training timelines, but there are plenty of advantages. For example, as your in-house designers grow in experience and skill, they can apply what they learn to future work with your company. 

Let’s dive into some of the specific pros and cons.

The pros of insourcing designers

1. Cohesion

When it comes to creating and sustaining a brand image, you want a consistent aura or vibe throughout your materials. this is exactly where a closer and long-term familiarly between the designer and the brand becomes crucial.

In-house designers tend to be more cohesive to your brand and company than freelancers as they live and work in it every day. They are more familiar with the company culture and niche. However, if you develop a long-term relationship with a talented freelancer, you can also get the same benefits. 

2. Sense of ownership

An in-house designer, as a member of your team, will likely feel a greater sense of ownership and accountability in the final product.

They likely will have a greater drive to achieve the company’s goals, which motivates them to put their best foot forward and can make their work feel more authentic. Unlike an outsourced designer who may be working with many brands, they are likely to be more invested in your project and success. 

The cons of insourcing designers

1. Hiring process

Working with in-house designers is a long-term commitment and therefore can involve more money, time, and effort than outsourcing. After all, you don’t just get an in-house team, you build one. You need to put the word out, wait for applications to pour in, sift through the applications to get to the ones that matter, and then finally start the interview process. 

So, we are talking about at least a month-long process to hire a single designer. This is a lot of time and effort. But there are situations when you simply have to devote the time and effort to hiring an in-house designer. 

2. Cost

According to Glassdoor, the average salary of a full time graphic designer in 2019 is $49,000. Unlike the flexibility that comes with outsourcing, the salary you’re paying an in-house designer is a constant. 

So before you hire someone in-house, make sure you look at your budget from an annual perspective to decide if it make sense financially and from a productivity standpoint.

Blurring the line

Ready to make a move? wait, there might be more options!

With the rapid rise of the gig economy, the lines between outsourcing and insourcing are also fading away. Many companies are adopting a dynamic mix of both to get the most out of a global talent pool and accomplish their goals.. 

As the lines blur even more between outsourcing and insourcing, one thing is clear: the end of the “classic” outsourcing model is close. The market is teeming with new, inventive sourcing models. 

For example, you can insource design work by integrating a third-party platform with your team’s workflow- or even with your own, like Zooms Design.  

At Zooms Design, we are committed to providing professional graphic designers, at a flat-rate, who are ready when you need them to seamlessly integrate with you and your workforce.