Human beings are visual creatures – this is simply a fact of nature. When we see images, our brains store the details in two ways (one verbal, one visual), increasing our chances of remembering the information.
There’s a catch to this trend, though. People don’t recall decorative or arbitrary images well. Pictures with meaning, that illustrate facts or provide instructions, are much more easily committed to memory. It probably doesn’t take much proof to tell you that people process information better when there’s visual aid. Chances are, it was the colorful graphic at the top of this article that got your attention in the first place (kudos to Alissa Herman, the brilliant designer who created it).
So, how does the graphic design fit into your marketing strategy, exactly? That all depends on what types of tactics you’re employing.
Let’s take a look at some of the most important marketing channel you’re likely using, and what role visuals play in them:
Branding
Before you build out your marketing strategy, start with the basics: your brand guidelines. your style guide should be a starting point for creating every piece of marketing collateral that follows. Without it, it’s all too easy for your brand image and the of your communications to become inconsistent, making it much harder for your target audience to recognize your organization.
It’s never too late or too long early to make a brand guide. if you’re already established, it can be helpful to create some rules to keep your communications aligned. if you’re just starting out, having brand guidelines from the get-go can reduce complications and inconsistencies down the line.
Brand guidelines are incredibly helpful to your graphic designer, whether you have an in-house professional or are working with an external agency. when first launching your business, work closely with the graphic designer to create a logo, choose colors, fonts and more.
A graphic designer will have a good understanding of color theory to help you choose hues that don’t clash and also reflect the values of your industry. The same goes for typography, your graphic designer can help you choose fonts and typefaces that support your messaging. Thought they may seem like small details, colors and fonts can have a large impact on how your brand is viewed.
Consider a small legal firm. Clients walking into the legal firm seek sound advice. They need to know that the professionals at the firm are trustworthy and proficient at their jobs. If the firm’s logo is hot pink and neon green, written in bubbly, whimsical letters, those clients may second-guess the professionalism of the attorneys who practice there. Are they at their lawyer’s office or a beach party?
Image via marketingdonut
Instead, serene blue and gray tones will put forward an air of strategy, intelligence and seriousness. The typeface should be fairly traditional and easy to read.
Website
Your website is the virtual fronts door to your business. when visitors arrive, you want them to know that you’re the real deal, that you know what you’re talking about and that you’re trustworthy.
Many things contribute to a good design look of a site. If it’s confusing to navigate, contains irrelevant information or the tone of the content doesn’t match the organization’s goals, these factors will detract from its credibility.
Image play a major role in a site’s look as well, but it’s critical to consider the purpose of each picture and graphic. People don’t like filler photos, and they don’t pay them much attention, either. Nielsen Normal Group eye-tracking studies found that people generally ignore pictures that serve no purpose, such as stock photos.
When businesses first started using stock photography because they couldn’t afford real photography, it was a big deal,” Brafton Design Director Ken Boostrom explained. “But now people look at stock photography like it’s a plague.
Blog
Your blog is a component of your website, but it’s used to in a distinctly different way. This may be the entrance to your website for many users who find your company through a google search. Also unlike the rest of your website, which has static, information pages, your blog is (or, at least, should be) regularly updated with new information that captives reader’s attention.
As we know, great visuals are an effectively way to do just that.
After reviewing more than 1 million articles, BuzzSumo found that adding a visual every 100 words or so makes your content twice as likely to be shared. But, there’s one important rule: The image must be relevant. Luckily there are plenty of resource of curating appropriate pictures and graphics. you could add a GIF to illustrate your point (and entertain readers).
Image via FreePik
A quick GIF may be enough to break up the text and bring a visual appeal to your article. But you can also use these moving images to illustrate a point or give instruction. As far as your blog goes, your graphic designer can create a moving image to highlight an important point, making it much more memorable and shareable.
There are others impactful types of visuals to includes. Nielsen normal Group pointed out that information-loaded images do well, and data from QuickSprout backs up that claim. In an analysis of seven types of images, chat and graphic turned out to be the fourth-most sharable , after animated graphics, hand-drawn images and infographics.
Blog posts with chats and graphs also had the most trackbacks -258 percent more than any others type of image, on average. People love data, especially when it’s broken down into one or two details at a time and decorated with attractive design elements. which brings us to another valuable form of visual content: infographics
Creating infographics can also be a boon to your blog. They have the potential to increase your site traffic 12 percent. A powerful infographics can take many forms, and what’s right for your audience depends on what you want to tell them and how you want them to respond. Flow charts, timesline, comparisons- the possibilities are limitless.
Social Media
Facebook posts that include a graphic get 2.3 times more engagement according to BuzzSumo. This is particularly important, considering 88 percent of respondents to Content Marketing Institute’s 2018 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends- North America report said Facebook was the most effective platform for helping them reach specific goals. but, again, there’s one simple rule to seeing this kind of benefit: relevance is key. Choosing any old stock image is not the way to win followers.
Short videos also perform well on social, and they don’t have to be particularly fancy to generate interest. In fact, the majority of Facebook videos are played with the sound off, meaning the audience is much more interested in watching the show than hearing it (provided there’s text to give the video context). Similarly, those informational GIFs that help boost your blog can also make great social posts.
Image via FreePik
Pinterest also a great platform for ecommerce ads. Online users today can typically spot an ad right away, and this is true for avid pinners, too. Even though they recognize an ad for what it is, they don’t seem to mind. if they’re like it they’ll pin it just like anything else (and may even buy the item in the photo later on, too).
If there’s one thing every organization has in common, it’s a need for effective graphic design to propel their marketing and communications efforts. Beginning with strategic brand guidelines and following through into your website, blog, social media strategy and beyond, consistent and strategic graphics can support your messages and make your company more memorable.
you’ve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but how many impressions, engagements or leads can come from great graphic design?
We think it’s worth it to find out.