A lot has been said about the importance of visuals within the content and digital media, but what is it that makes graphics so important for your business?
Graphic design is now omnipresent and used across verticals in growing businesses. Brands can leverage it in different ways and its versatility makes it a highly valuable digital asset. With the right graphic designs at your disposal, nothing is “hard to explain” anymore, making it very important if you are looking to make a great impression or connection with your customers.
With powerful graphic designs you can:
#1 Establish brand name and identity
Every business wishes to stand out from the rest of its competitors in unique ways. Graphic designs can help you achieve just that while establishing a distinctive brand identity in your customer’s mind. Setting up a visual identity is one of the first things that you should do as a brand as it is the element that your customer is going to primarily associate with you.
Look at the example of Coca-Cola – an iconic brand with an equally iconic graphic design style that has remained consistent around the world. Their signature red and white aesthetic may not be the most unique color scheme, but Coca-Cola has found a way to make it synonymous with the brand through consistent graphics and visuals across channels.
If you want to leverage graphic design for your business growth, using them to build an identity that highlights your brand name and ethos is crucial. If you do not want to build an in-house team for graphics, you can still leverage it easily by hiring a team like DesignBro to take care of all your diverse graphic needs.
#2 Weave powerful stories and narratives
Unique brands have highly powerful stories and narratives to share with their audience. For thousands of years, humans have learned important lessons and information through stories. While everyone can tell stories, it is a bit more complicated when you want to tell stories that prompt actions from your audience.
There are many elements that you can use to make your narrative more compelling. Supporting your stories with the right graphics can be a great way to accomplish this. In 2019, more than 70% of marketers reported that they supported their content with visuals of some form, mostly graphics and videos.
Communicating your marketing messages through simple narratives and visuals can be a good alternative to urging your customers to buy your product simply because ‘you are the best at what you do’. Here is an example of Slack, a popular team management tool promoting its most basic feature with a simple story:
Source: Slack
You can capitalize and control your buyers’ journey by supporting the initial stages of your marketing communication with well-curated and detailed graphics and visuals that can narrate the story of your brand.
#3 Create consistent, trustworthy, and memorable impressions
Every brand that has ever made it to the top will tell you – graphic designs are definitely essential in creating lasting impressions. You can use carefully created and highly sophisticated language for your messages but nothing will establish credibility and impress your audience as a visual representation of what you are describing.
You are also much more likely to make a great impression on your audience by opting for visuals to guide your communication. Moreover, maintaining consistency and quality in graphic designs across all your channels is likely to inculcate a higher level of trust for your brand within your customers.
To understand this point better, think of a new footballer who just scored three goals in a single match. Impressive, but you are still going to think it was a stroke of luck, right? But if you saw the same footballer performing equally well in 30 more matches, you will be convinced of his talent.
It is this logic that your customers are going to apply to your brand. But this is so much more difficult in the case of brands because if you do not make a good impression with the first visual, it is highly likely that your audience will not look any further than that.
#4 Make content navigation easier
According to recent research, people are 323% more likely to follow text and directions accurately when they are supported with illustrations. Supporting your digital content with the right graphics can help you achieve similar advantages and additionally, enhance your online presence.
If your content is full of statistics and numbers that are key to the narrative, creating an infographic is a much more effective way to ensure that your audience retains all the information. Infographics can also make it easier for your readers to download crucial information for future reference, making you a valuable resource for them.
Such graphics can also be repurposed in your blogs or social media channels to boost your brand reach and awareness.
Wrapping up
Creating a powerful visual identity might sound complicated in theory, but it can be as simple as creating the right graphic designs for your brand communication. The benefits of implementing a solid graphic design strategy are manifold, and the shrinking attention spans of netizens while reading content is one of the many indications that brands need to start shifting their attention towards creating powerful visuals.
Image: Depositphotos
This article, “4 Reasons Why Every Business Should Invest in Graphic Design” was first published on Small Business Trends