Setting
up an agency is hard. But, keeping it in business, harder.
No
matter who you are as a business, a solopreneur, or an agency, with the
industry reaching new heights of competition each day, hitting the nail on the
head is becoming more challenging.
So
the million-dollar question here is how do you address the problem?
Enter
Branding!
Branding
is the one-stop sustainable strategy that enables you to establish a long-term
relationship with your consumers making sure your agency garners the strength
to glide during the next wave of disruption. But setting up a brand identity is
much more than a cluster of visual identity; a set of logo, color scheme,
typography, and a catchy tagline.
AsForbes explains it, a brand is everything that sets you apart
from your competitors. It is the tool that helps you communicate with your
audience and an opportunity to be an indispensable part of their lives.
So
the question here arises how do you overcome this critical point?
The
answer lies in brand surveys.
Brand
Surveys make it easier for you to understand your consumers; their preferences,
likes, and dislikes. It gives you a complete understanding of the lives of your
target audience, and their motivation towards a relationship with your brand.
1. What Is A Brand Survey?
A
brand survey is a valuable tool for gathering information about your target
consumer’s business, product, target market, competition, and other valuable
information that gives you an insight into how you can add value to their
business.
A brand survey typically hosts a series of questions related to the service you provide as a service provider. It often has questions related to feedbacks of previous services, past brand experiences, and how the audience feels about the brand.
2. What Is The Purpose Of A Brand Survey?
There
are two primary goals of a brand survey: provide a thorough understanding of
how your brand is perceived by your audience and understand your targetconsumer preferences.
After
all, it is your audience whom you are trying to serve with your products.
Brand
surveys act like a guide leading you to ask the right questions to your
audience to better understand them and come up with improved products and level
up your brand value.
Here
are a few merits that you can readily achieve:
It
helps you measure the brand image in the eyes of the stakeholders from time to
time
It
helps you to measure the efficacy of your brand policies
It
helps you devise a strategy to boost your brand equity in the long-term
It
tracks campaign effectiveness
Keeps
you informed about your competitors
Helps
you measure R-O-I of marketing initiatives
Keeps
you connected to your customers
3. 5 Brand Surveys for Graphic Design
Business
No
matter if you are a newbie design agency or a very established one here are 5
brand surveys that your graphic design company cannot fail to execute.
a)Brand perception survey:
This type of survey allows you to understand your
audience’s perception of your brand. It gives you a clearer picture of how your
customers think and feel about your brand and products.
A brand perception survey is an important
tool in brand management That assists you in building the right image of your
agency. Also, it is a one-stop solution
for receiving real-time feedback from your stakeholders.
Some of the key benefits of this survey
are:
Tracking brand performance
Competitive advantage analysis
Delivering
superior customer experience
Improving brand loyalty
Optimizing target audience communication
Here is a sample questionnaire that can give you an
insight into a typical brand perception survey:
Are you familiar with our brand?
Are you familiar with our product or
service?
When you think of our brand, what is the
first thing that comes to your mind?
How likely are you to recommend our
product to your friends?
How was your last experience with our
brand?
b)Brand positioning
survey:
This
survey is a critical data collection tool for improving brand equity. It helps
in the strategic alignment of your brand addressing business organizational
decisions.
The data obtained from a brand positioning survey is
critical in determining how you present your product or service to your
audience. This survey should essentially solve the unique challenges of your
organization, the vertical you operate
in, and the target market.
Some of the key benefits of this survey are:
Helps in developing brand strategy
Helps in developing a unique selling
proposition for your target audience.
Reinforces unique brand features and
helps to develop a key differentiating factor in your product or service.
Strengthens your core business and
establishes you as an industry differentiator
Develops an emotional connect with your
stakeholders
Here is a sample questionnaire that can give you an
insight into a typical brand positioning survey:
Why do you buy from us?
What kind of brand appeals to you?
What are the brand qualities that stand
out for you?
How would you read your experience with
our brand?
What is unique about our product that
appeals to you?
c)Brand awareness survey
This survey directly helps to measure the level of
awareness or popularity of your brand in the industry. This survey gives you a better idea of
devising a strategy for improved outreach to your target audience.
Few of the key benefits of this survey are:
Understanding the brand’s stand in the
target market
Increasing customer awareness about the
product and brand
Improving customer engagement with the
brand
Here is a sample questionnaire that can give you an
insight into a typical brand awareness survey:
Are you aware of our brand?
Are you aware of our product or services?
When was the first time you heard about
our brand?
How did you come to know about our brand?
When was the last time you used our
product?
d)Brand identity survey
This survey entirely focuses on brand
communications. It helps you to understand how well your organization
communicates its core values and image to its direct stakeholders maintaining a
positive overall impression, authority, and credibility in your domain of
service.
Here is a sample questionnaire that can give you an
insight into a typical brand identity survey:
When was the last time you used our
product or service?
How would you describe our brand to
another person?
What is the first thing you associate or
brand with?
What unique value does this brand serve
you?
How long have you been our customer?
e)Brand loyalty survey
This survey deals with measuring the probability of your
customers repurchasing from you. It also tells you about how strong your brand
communications are on the level of emotions.
Here is a sample questionnaire that can give you an
insight into a typical brand identity survey:
a) How
much do you trust the brand?
b) How
happy were you with your last purchase?
c) Would
you prefer our brand over a competitor?
d) How
likely are you to depend on our brand?
e) How
much likely are you to switch to another brand if its alternative was cheaper?
4.Tips To Optimize Your
Next Brand Survey
Conducting brand surveys is expensive. However, if
performed right, they can bring you extensive rewards. Following are a few
guidelines that can make sure all your brand surveys drive your business to the
next level.
a) Define
the purpose of the survey: Make sure you align the primary objectives with
the type of survey that your participants take. This sets a clear expectation
for the survey respondents.
b) Map
your audience wisely: No matter what kind of survey you indulge your brand
in, your survey participants should always be the ones who have some level of
brand awareness.
c) Map
the feasibility of the survey: A good set of questionnaires in your survey
is of no use if no one is willing to take your survey. The first metric to keep
in mind is to make it hassle-free to participate, opt for online surveys. This
not only helps you collect data from a large amount of audience mapping
qualitative analysis but also improves the dropout rate dramatically.
d) Organizing
is key: One of the primary reasons for the high dropout rate of surveys is
their incapability to motivate respondents to take the survey. So what’s the
solution?
Make it human. Make it fun for your
respondents.
Empathize with your target audience and design the
structure keeping both the usability and desirability in mind. Use color
schemes, layout, and graphics to balance the goals of your questionnaire in
alignment with the taste of your audience.
5.Avoid asking leading
questions
Data is no doubt the most critical point of running a
modern-day business. It is the fuel on which your business runs.
Biased misleading data can break it beyond repair. Loaded
questions are a big no. Avoid asking open-ended questions. Make it simple and
direct.
To Conclude
Humanize
the process of your survey. Make it exciting for your respondents.
Remember
not to make the brand survey feel like an interrogation. Instead use this
powerful tool to eradicate future disputes and improve chances of brand
interactions.
Let
this survey be an opportunity for you to develop a long-term relationship with your
customers.
Customers, whether they visit your website or step in your store, turn away to competitors when they don’t find the information they are looking for.
That’s where the concept of conversion rate optimization of your website and physical marketing comes into the picture. Bringing visitors to your brand is one side of the coin but converting them to customers is another side.
Source With companies spending only $1 on conversion rate optimization for every $92 on customer acquisition, it’s clear that preference is given to bringing traffic over converting the traffic to customers.
Creating intriguing landing pages, leaflets, pamphlets, and presentations impresses the customer, making you look professional and memorable. To strike a balance between the conversion rate and optimization, you need to develop a design that sells.
5 Ways Graphic Design Can Improve Your Conversion Rates
We’ll walk you through five ways of improving your physical marketing and website conversion rates.
For physical marketing
Create flyers and posters with selling capabilities
The best flyer marketing starts with the way you present the offer visually to the target audience. A strong flyer or poster design is one that is beautiful, thought-provoking, and memorable. As your customers can touch and feel a handout, it creates a lasting connection with the customers, resulting in higher conversion rates.
Steps of creating a flyer and poster
Use software like Piktochart’s presentation maker to create professionally and aesthetically looking posters with brilliant colors, the right font style, and size.
Focus on the benefits you offer in the poster. Use powerful words such as ‘free,’ ‘save,’ ‘discount’ and guarantee to keep the customers interested.
Keep the content simple by using bullet points and catchy titles.
Use images that lift your flyer or poster.
Finally, remember you’re selling and not telling. So, close it with a call-to-action. It could be a prompt for the customer to purchase, participate, or register.
With 48% of customers responding to flyer advertisements creating a beautifully designed flyer that sells is imperative for businesses looking to build their customer base.
2. Create memorable business cards
Surprisingly, a little card can make a massive difference in the conversion rates.
For companies small and big, these little cards are handed to potential clients, left on the windshield of cars, pinned to a board at a coffee shop, slipped into magazines or books at a store, or left in shops relevant to your business. A business card provides incredible marketing value.
According to data, 72% of people judge a company based on their business card’s quality, and 39% of people prefer to ignore businesses with a cheap looking card. And, with sales increasing by 2.5% for every 2000 business cards handed out – you’re missing out a lot if you ignore an aesthetically designed and eye-catching business card.
For websites
3. Use the right colors
Of all the visuals cues, color is probably the one that differentiates a successful brand from an unsuccessful one. What color comes to your mind when thinking about Airbus?
Blue, right?
Visit their website, and you will see the brand using shades of blue in their web and graphic design to relate with the customers. In the above picture, the designer presents a contrast between text and background colors. It ensures the legibility of the text, which is essential for conveying a business message.
Performable increased their conversion rates by 21% on changing the CTA button from green to red.
Apart from improving readability, using the correct contrast psychology helps you create an emotional impact with the customer. In website design, follow the 60-30-10 design rule for increasing conversions. It’s a scheme of using colors to create the maximum effect.
60% – dominate hue,
30% – secondary color
10% – accent color
This helps in striking a balance allowing the eyes to move from one focal point to another effortlessly.
Using too many colors is one of the most common graphic design mistakes. It’s more like trying to convey a million emotions on a single webpage. Therefore, before choosing the color on your website, study your target audience because men and women like and dislike specific colors. Many colors have opposite effects in different parts of the world. White is considered positive in western culture, but it’s an indication of sadness in the Asian region.
Rely on the power of usability testing to gather information about the customers and make an informed decision.
4. Use direction cues toward your CTA.
Visual cues are a part of graphic design that draws attention to the critical areas on the website. It helps the website visitor to interact with the brand.
Here’s a great example of a visual cue from Google’s marketing platform. These people are talking to each other. Just near to their hands is the CTA to talk to the sales team of their marketing platform.
The way they’re seated makes your eye look towards the bottom of the page to the CTA.
From the above example, it’s clear that visual or directional cues help direct a person’s attention to a particular area for increasing the conversion. Instead of searching the entire webpage, the visual cues narrow the scanning space of the visitors. The visitors know where to click to get more information.
According to research, there are two types of visual cues in graphic design, which drives maximum customer attention, and they are:
A human-looking at the CTA or the form
A hand-drawn arrow pointing towards the CTA or the form
Human beings are naturally inclined to follow traditional cues like eye-gazes, arrows, and more as it helps figure out the next step. Whether it’s a signup form, CTA button, or a social media share, visual cues have come a long way to help the website increase their conversion rates.
Finally, focus on performing usability testing to understand the directional cue resulting in maximum clicks on the CTA.
5. Religiously follow the 8-second design rule
Websites have just 8-seconds to grab the visitor’s attention. With such a small window of opportunity, make every millisecond count. From using action words to making large CTA buttons, leave no stone unturned in creating a positive first impression through your design.
Focus on including eye-catching images, interactive content, or information videos for winning their attention. You can even use animated exit-popups to re-engage a customer who loses interest.
The few seconds of customer interaction are crucial for boosting sales and conversion rates.
Conclusion
Graphic design is not bread and butter, and getting it right in an uphill battle as it differentiates a successful business from an unsuccessful one.
According to Adobe, 66% of time-starved and skeptical customers crave content that is beautifully designed. Such is the power of design.
Whether it’s infographics, web design, leaflets, presentation, flyers, landing pages, or posters, the need for the hour is creating a design that resonates with the customers.
Using these five graphic design principles, you can give a massive boost to both your physical marketing and website conversion rates.
After implementing these principles use usability testing to test actual customer behavior and validate against your instincts. It helps in understanding what’s visually attractive and what’s not.
Try and test to increase the conversion rate exponentially.
It’s said that a picture is worth
a thousand words. Whether it is through the beauty of a book’s cover art or the
glitter of a commercial poster, the power of images is invaluable to businesses
for marketing, communications and other essential functions. To create stunning
images, you’ll need a reliable design program and there are certainly many of
them around.
This large range of choice,
however, presents its own issue. How do you know which program is right for
your business? Let’s take a look at the 6 best design programs for businesses.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphic design and editing program that started primarily as
a raster graphics program and soon grew into the most prominent name in the
industry. Its popularity has led to its name being used in connection with design
and editing software in general as in: ‘a photoshopped image’, ‘a good
photoshop program,’ or ‘I want to photoshop a picture’.
Photoshop is capable of
multi-layer editing and can be used with various colour models including RGB,
CIELAB, CMYK, and Duotone. It also supports masks and alpha compositing. From a
student working on their academic project, to a business organisation that
creates stunning, professional-level stickers, to a photographer looking for that refined touch to the
captured images, no one can deny the enormous value of Photoshop.
Adobe InDesign
Adobe InDesign is a leading program for layout and page design which can be used
to create and publish books, e-books, colourful digital magazines, interactive
PDF documents, posters and more. The publishing industry was greatly influenced
by its introduction in 1999. Today, millions of professionals rely on its wide
range of features to take their publishing endeavours to the next level.
It allows you to use images from
Adobe Stock or other sources and with Adobe Experience Manager, handling
production is a breeze. You can use it in tandem with Adobe Creative Cloud to
easily share your work across all your projects.
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics
Suite is an excellent graphic design and editing suite for MS Windows used for
professional vector designing, high-quality typography and photo editing. Its
pen and touch functions, support for Microsoft Surface Dial and Windows colour
management make it a perfect Windows companion. It is an all-purpose tool
finding application from apparel design to technical schematic creation and
from signage to branding and marketing.
The graphics suite is a basket of
various CorelDRAW programs such as the primary CorelDRAW itself that provides
graphic design and layout capabilities and Corel PHOTO-PAINT that incorporates
photo-editing into the workflow. Other components in the package include
CorelDRAW.app, Corel Front Manager, CAPTURE and Aftershot 3 HDR. Leveraging
emerging technologies like AI and compatibility with countless file formats
have made it a universally powerful digital design tool.
Affinity Designer
Though a new entrant in the field
launched only five years ago, Affinity Designer is an award-winning program from Apple, PC PRO and Digital Arts.
It focuses on real-time functionality, smooth workflow features and a high
level of flexibility. The file formats work seamlessly across different
platforms such as Windows, Mac and iPad.
The software provides an amazing
collection of elements for smooth vector design, photo-editing, typography or game
creation. With capabilities of handling thousands of objects without lag and highly
complex documents, it is indeed a program suitable for today’s fast-paced
design world. Single-click switching between diverse functions, more than a
million times zoom feature, and unlimited artboards are other valuable features.
Inkscape
Inkscape is a powerful and at the same time free-to-use digital design tool for creating vector graphics of excellent quality. The program has ‘Draw freely’ as its tagline and works reflecting its open source standards. It is free to download and use and is compatible with GNU/Linux, Mac OS and Windows.
The major specialization of
Inkscape is vector design which has a large number of applications including
branding/ marketing, cartoons and games, web design graphics and engineering
and CAD drawings. Inkscape is a place where you can learn, develop and
contribute, all for free. It also has a thriving community of enthusiastic users
including developers that keep improving its features. The Community Gallery
showcases the creations of numerous active members.
Sketch
Sketch specializes in features facilitating teamwork and high levels of collaboration. You are free to use the existing readymade components or build your own. Moreover, you can create your own custom rules and system that can be understood easily by your team and collaborators. With Sketch, you can design, create and modify in a combined fashion with your team, whether you are building an interactive prototype or a functioning vector.
Scalability is one special feature
provided by Sketch that helps you create something small and easily develop it into
the full-fledged form you want. You can then replace it with all elements in the
previous form with a single function. Live data interactions is also possible, thanks
to a collection of useful plugins and integrative features.
Regardless of your business or sector, you’ll find
a graphic design and editing program that suits your needs. Though these
programs have common features such as photo editing, vector design and
typography, the approach and presentation can differ from one to other. Each
program can also have a specific orientation or focus on a certain philosophy
or methodology like team collaboration, smooth workflow or cross-platform
functionality. That’s why it’s important to do your research and find the
perfect design program for your business.
Today search engines are training Algos to be more ‘sapio-pathic’ for traffic retention. Allowing empathetic websites for more organic click-through action. Interactive fit-bits call for User experience designs (UXDs) that match the tone for the served contents. Designs that speak through aesthetics, and layouts that foretell the wants and needs.
If you are getting high traffic but no business, then it’s high time to rethink your website design.
Don’t worry, there is no need to redesign from scratch. Rather UX/UID makeovers allow more accessibility to your website contents. An interactive Graphical User Interface (GUI) that lingers and ensues longer interactive sessions. Of course, a great way to tap the mobile net surfers and users. Because bigger fonts, a background shader, or a ‘read aloud’ option is fun to fetish.
Know how UX/UI web designs are tapping the ranking factors for future SEO specialists. Here I am leaving 3 pro-tips to steam your interest over UX/UI designs.
Before that, know few traded false-beliefs about UI/UX design fidelity which needs to busting
White space is never a waste space
Simple designs equal to fewer elements
UX is only for usability
All web users are readers
Need for 100% design originality
The Ultimate 3-click rule for web navigation
Now feel smarter. Smash the UX/UI bluffs who try to pitch such fossil ideas.
Moving on….. UX/UI –
Improves SEO
User Experience (UX) ensures a ‘longer’ click-through.
A User-friendly design will make your users obsess over your website. For all ‘content is king’ influencers out there, trust the design aesthetics. Rich web designs with easy navigation, less page-load time, and optimized to fit any screens are a must to stage your content.
Kill the negative space on your website! UXDs understand that visual organization of web layouts will generate more leads. Serving not only the purpose of more content visibility but also increases the conversion rate for the users.
A successful landing page conversion strategy will debunk the contenders in the market. And when your web designs resonate with your visitors, you are all set for the long run. Be it event call-outs, awareness campaigns, or delivering opinions, you will always have enough virtual attendees for participation.
It is very likely that a researcher who landed at your website, hungry for answers and yet not contented. You might think that you lost a lead, this is where one can go wrong. Redirect the lead towards other curated contents. With which you can transform slug moments into a head-turning event.
Ask your visitor what they are looking for. Plant a few relatable blue links or consider a UX Design suite for your website.
Whereas using Interactive templates, you can churn-up endless possibilities. Small survey boxes to get the user’s views, a panel window with many FAQs, or even tips to improve searches online.
You might be thinking that aligning such concepts within a single-window view is an impossible feat. Instead, ask a professional UX designer to chalk-out an engagement plan for your organic web visitors. The clutter-free designs will promise an immersive user interface that adjusts the eyeballs screening the contents.
Acts-Out Emotions
Who doesn’t like to click on jolly features? Or play with elements that animate when touched? Narrating one of my personal experiences where the pet-care website had a ‘waking dog’ cursor when you land on their web page. A minute detail has touched this pet-lovers heart and that’s how UI designs imprint on visitors.
In developing quality user facets, User Experience designers rely on evidence decked by behavioral sciences. Take Nielsen Norman for example, how his design team works on evidence-based UX designs by collecting proof of events on user testing and behavior.
Ending with a happy note for the crawlers who are reading the article, look out for SEO – UX/UI collabs. The integrated application is revolutionizing the concept of what the web designs were yesterday and are now.
The cold blue light of modern touchscreens may be aesthetically pleasing, but it poses health problems. Designers and technologists should take cues from military history and embrace the orange.
