How Visual Brand Components Drive Competitive Advantage
As a business owner focusing on your core business priorities, you likely don’t have the time to pay attention to how well your visual design elements are helping increase your competitive advantage. Unfortunately, missing the “visual mark” can be costly for many businesses in the end. Visuals are meant to enhance powerful messaging and inspire new clients to do business with your company. To be most effective, they should not be created in a vacuum, but instead be intrinsically linked with powerful content.
The most successful marketing firms have visual strategists and designers who know how to compellingly communicate your products and services to your target customers. This means taking into account the psychological reasons to choose certain fonts, color palettes and infographics to communicate why clients should purchase from your firm instead of your competition. And most importantly, to create an emotional and lasting connection with your ideal clients. True marketing experts take the time to research and know how your competition presents their services to the world and they creatively position your business in a way that makes your company stand out from the pack.
Below are five solid reasons to consult with a professional marketing firm and create your visual design strategies:
1. Saves Time
You have enough on your plate already. Do you really have to spend time trying to come up with creative and knock-out designs for your logo, brochures or PowerPoint templates? A professional will create one-of-a-kind designs to engage new clients and in a fraction of the time it would take someone on your team to do it who is already overloaded.
2. Saves Money
Professional visual designers know the most cost effective ways to design your marketing elements to keep your printing costs to a minimum. By the time your team has gotten around to creating a layout using Microsoft Publisher (a program printers literally hate and will charge you an arm and a leg to print), an experienced designer will have been able to create a high quality, print-ready file that will cost you less in the end.
3. Helps You Stand Out From Your Competition
Having worn out or “templated” visual design that many on-line graphic services provide, is not going to help you stand out from your competition. The only way people are going to remember you and your business is if your marketing elements stand out and are fully integrated with all other marketing elements. Having distinct and customized corporate identity markers actually strengthens your overall brand and has been proved to increase competitive advantage. Remember your clients are flooded with numerous visuals images daily, so if your visual design doesn’t leave an impact and compelling impression in a client’s mind, you’re likely not going to attract as much new business.
4. Keeps Your Brand Consistent
If you’ve gone through the effort of hiring a professional marketing firm, but then try and mimick their work on your own, your brand may lose its edge by being inconsistent. A professional designer will know which fonts to use where and what font sizes and colors consistent to ensure “memorability” in the overall look and feel of all your materials. Cohesive visuals used across all of your marketing elements – websites, social media campaigns, videos, print collateral and advertisements—has become increasingly important to build a strong brand in a digital world.
5. Generates Stronger Results
Many clients have an idea of what they want their business materials to look like, but have no idea or clear way to convey them. Great visual strategy and design means taking into consideration your target clients and what causes them to engage with your company and not with others. And last, if you have business development professionals on your team or a dedicated outside sales team, great marketing and visuals give them an extra level of confidence and pride in your organization and support new business generation.
Let our visual strategists and designers take your brand to a whole new level and watch your products or services to jump out your competition. Visit our Capabilities page to see how Propel Business Solutions can enhance your company image. http://www.propelbusinesssolutions.com/capabilities/