7 ways that Graphic Designers can help grow your business
Graphic design can be an afterthought for many new businesses when you’re first trying to get things off the ground. Making your business look pretty might not feel like a priority, but we’re here to tell you why it does much more than that, and how graphic design can increase your sales.
Take a look at the most successful businesses in the world, what do they all have in common? Whether it’s Apple, Coca Cola or McDonald’s, they all have one thing in common, a distinctive design identity. High-quality and unique graphic design can enable your brand to build trust quicker with your target customers by creating a professional first impression and an identity for your brand that differentiates you from competitors.
In this guide, we’ll take you through some of the ways that graphic design can help you grow your business.
- Stand out from your competitors
First and foremost, graphic design that’s done well and in a consistent manner can help you differentiate yourself from your competitors. Many of the biggest disruptors in their industries have stood out, not just because of their business proposition, but also from their design.
Think about brands like BrewDog. Their design instantly stood out from the rest of the beer industry, you knew they were a disruptor before you even tasted their beer or read their brand message. Design can have a huge impact on first impressions, so with the help of a quality graphic designer, you can grab the attention of your audience long before they know how great your product or service is.
- Increase social media engagement
It’s no secret that social media is a crucial part of any business’s marketing strategy in this day and age. But with algorithms and consumers constantly changing, it’s harder than ever to cut through the noise and make your content stand out.
The first thing that you need to do to achieve this is to create a varied and engaging content strategy that piques the interest of your followers. Once you’ve achieved this, the next step to great social media engagement is quirky and quality graphic design. The data backs this up, in fact, Facebook posts with images get 2.3x the engagement that a normal post receives, whilst on Twitter they can generate 150% more retweets than text-only tweets.
But what if you can’t afford to use a graphic designer for every post? Work smarter, hire a graphic designer to build you a number of templates for different types of content. Using these templates, you can then drag and drop images into them to create professional and eye-catching posts that will stand out in your followers’ feeds.
- Perfect your pitch deck
A poorly designed pitch deck is a sure way of turning a potential client off before you’ve even presented your proposition. Make the right first impression by working with a designer to create a professional pitch deck that sends the right message before you’ve opened your mouth.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the right sales deck can be the difference between making a sale or leaving empty-handed. A well-thought-out PowerPoint template can help your business for years to come, and it really doesn’t take that long for a graphic designer to bring your ideas to life. Before you brief the designer, consider what you need in a template e.g. different ways of presenting data through tables, pie charts, and bar charts, so that the next time you’re creating a presentation, you can just add the new data to the existing formats.
- Polish thought leadership reports and infographics
One of the best ways to grow your brand awareness is through PR and one of the best ways to get PR is through thought leadership reports and visual infographics. For example, you may run a survey of consumers in your industry and then use the insights from this to put together a report. But guess what, no one’s reading your report that’s full of long paragraphs and boring tables.
So how do you bring those amazing insights that you’ve gathered to life, and make them interesting for the media? You guessed it, with the help of a graphic designer. Graphic design plays a crucial role in making your data interesting and easily digestible. Whether it’s making your report eye-catching or bringing your key data point to the fore, a talented graphic designer will be able to help you bring your hook to life and get the reach for your report that you crave.
- Web design that builds trust
We can hear some of you saying that web designers aren’t graphic designers, and we hear you. But there are many freelancers who possess the skills to do both, and the design of your website can have a huge impact on the growth of your business. There are two elements to every good website design; visual design and UX (user experience) design.
The visual design is based on your standard graphic design philosophies, making everything look professional and visually pleasing to the eye of your website visitor. On the other hand, the UX design of a site focuses on taking your customer through a journey that eventually leads to conversion. Both elements are crucial and neither should be ignored.
Consider this, a visually designed website that takes little consideration for usability will harm the SEO of your website because Google will recognise this. And for those that do find your site, they may find it visually pleasing, but they don’t take the journey that you want. But, just focusing on UX, will lead to a dull and boring website that doesn’t create the engagement you need from your visitors.
So before you rush into designing a website, make sure that your visual design and UX work harmoniously together to enhance one another. This can be done by hiring a UX and UI designer.
- Eye-catching advertising to maximise ROI
Advertising is a key part of any marketing strategy. Whether you’ve got the budget for large-scale out-of-home campaigns or you’re simply testing out some social media advertising, graphic design is at the heart of your success or failure. There’s so much noise in the advertising world, that it’s incredibly difficult to make your advert interesting.
An experienced graphic designer can help you put together a campaign that draws your target audience and makes them want to read what you’ve got to say. Trust us when we say, this is the hardest part of any advertising campaign. Take your time to find the right designer, and then even more time to brief them on what you’re trying to achieve, what your brand stands for, and who you’re trying to reach with your campaign. Then let them take over and make the magic happen.
- Premium marketing collateral that converts
Keep your business top of mind with your sales pipeline by building a library of well-designed marketing materials. Whether it’s the humble business card that you’ve handed over after a good sales meeting or a brochure listing all of the reasons why they should buy your product or service, quality graphic design can help you convert that sale.
So, there it is, our top 7 reasons for how graphic designers can help grow your business. The next step is to find the right graphic designer to help deliver all of these amazing opportunities. Explore thousands of our highly-rated and vetted freelance graphic designers, and kickstart your growth straight away.
