But over the last couple of months, we see a shift in the industry and the marketing world specifically. Businesses worldwide are experiencing financial difficulty, so budget cuts are happening.

Budget cuts are not just about layoffs and recalled work orders. They are a sign that even the businesses that are doing well have to tighten their margins. The world economy has become unpredictable. And that means marketers and entrepreneurs have to become even more creative. 

At times like this, we see our clients are going back to the drawing board and prioritizing content and ads that can help them grow stronger. 

Business leaders and experts are stressing the need for smarter marketing efforts to draw in customers and keep bottom lines stable. And graphic design is a tool that can make it happen. 

The smarter, engaging, and effective design has become a focus in B2B, D2C, and other small businesses as well. 

In this recap, we take a look at the current news in the marketing and allied industries and how Kimp clients reacted to it in July.

A look at July’s Marketing News 

As times get tough, brands and marketers quickly spring to action. And this means understanding what is currently working so their marketing spends can go where it matters most. Customer acquisition and retention are more important than ever, and so is growth. So we looked at what has been happening around the world for better understanding:

Brands’ efforts to combat the impact of inflation 

Unfortunately, skyrocketing inflation is here and does not look to be backing down anyime soon. This means that brands must work around rising prices to acquire new customers and also keep the ones they have. 

We have seen that the prices are climbing for essential commodities, so all non-essential purchases and luxuries will take a backseat for some time. So brands have to work a little harder to convince customers of purchase decisions. 

A study by HubSpot tells us that customers prefer discounts, freebies, membership, and loyalty programs to bridge the gap in such scenarios.

Instagram makes content creation easier for organic engagement 

Marketing budgets are not immune to cuts, and cutbacks on ad spending are already underway for the second half of 2022. While some companies are increasing marketing budgets, advertising budgets, specifically, are seeing stagnation or a downward trend. 

So understanding that organic content might be the need of the hour, platforms are stepping up and helping businesses create faster and better. For example, Instagram has launched templates and tutorials for Instagram Reels so that small businesses can leverage them in absence of an advertising budget. And if those Reels work well, you can boost them to use them in ads too.

Renewed focus on growth scaling efforts 

Many SaaS companies and budding ecommerce companies have had an all-in or nothing approach for a long time now. They launch, scale, establish dominance, and figure the rest out later. But that has become more difficult and even downright impossible to do when inflation dominates every conversation.

So the focus has now turned to stable and sustainable growth efforts that are data-driven and are centered on the core of marketing itself. Instead of running ten ads that show you one that works, the focus is now on understanding customer journeys, improving experiences, and being better at all stages.

So yes, it looks like it will be a challenging time but nothing that we cannot handle. And from the look of our work in July, it looks like local businesses and global brands are all focused on getting the conversion-focused creatives out to get the ball rolling. 

Let us take a look at the month of July at Kimp.

A Snapshot of July at Kimp 

These recaps are important for us at Kimp. They help us reflect on the designs that are the most in-demand so that we can be ready for upcoming projects and meet our clients needs. 

1) Restaurant Menus 

One of the most prominent and happier signs of things being better are local businesses starting up. It tells us that there is still hope and new businesses mean new spending opportunities, cash infusion, employment, and so much more. 

What makes us even happier is when such local businesses realize that branding is an important component of their growth. To stand out in a competitive market, you need a strong branding presence. 

This time around, we saw local restaurants invested in the simplest of things to start with – menu designs. 

Having a professionally designed menu sets the tone for your business and tells customers what to expect from you. It also helps you display your brand personality and attract the right customer.

Without designed-based brand identity, businesses have to spend thousands of dollars in getting these messages across. So choose design and make your marketing more effective.

2) T-shirt designs 

When we talk of inflation and budget cuts, we think about customers and top leaders as they face the brunt. But you know who faces most of it and struggles through it? It is the employee whose organization is going through a difficult time.

Morale is at an all-time low in many industries, and anything an organization can do to raise it is appreciable. 

And we saw that happening this month at Kimp when customers designed employee and team T-shirts to make everyone feel like they belong. This, of course, becomes even more important when everything from onboarding to reviews happens remotely nowadays.

The small gesture of having a custom T-shirt designed for your team, colleagues, or the organization can help you build a stronger brand and make everyone happy too. 

Win-win, right?

3) Custom Illustrations 

Now that the market has become cut-throat, everyone wants to get customers’ attention by any means possible. But you do not have to try so hard if you know how to get it done the smart way. 

Think for a second. When you are in a crowd, do you remember the people with generic T-shirts or a generic ad, or is it the one with the burst of color or personality that catches your attention? It is the latter, isn’t it? 

The same goes for businesses and customers too, when there is a sea of content out there.

Wherever and however you can insert a little personality into the brand will go a long way.

Custom illustrations work brilliantly in that aspect, and to no one’s surprise, July at Kimp was filled with custom illustrations projects. We saw brands leverage custom illustrations for:

• Process description

• Product Representation

• Branding identity

4) Email

From branding-focused designs, we now move to designs that can and will help brands improve their conversion numbers. These designs are especially important. Because in marketing (digital and otherwise), the medium and presentation of the communication are always as important, if not more, as the message itself. 

First up, is email designs. Now, email marketing has the unique advantage of coming useful in inbound and outbound marketing efforts. This means that every business, no matter the industry or scale can leverage emails to fulfill its marketing goals. 

Email marketing also comes in handy to interact with customers at different stages of buyers’ journeys and make the most of your relationship with them. 

In July at Kimp we saw brands focused on launching discount-based campaigns to combat the effects of inflation. Of course, we expected that, and it was good to see businesses springing to action so soon.

5) Landing pages

When you focus on growth, you focus on everything. And that is the approach businesses are employing in the backdrop of inflation and controlled spending by customers. That includes the copy, design, messaging, budget, and positioning of your marketing campaigns.

Yash Godiwala, Growth Marketer at Ramp, believes that just optimizing advertising design is not enough to streamline the lead generation and conversion process. At Ramp, they begin the process by focusing on optimizing landing pages so that customers who do click on the advertisements go further along the funnel. 

Landing pages are a staple design type at Kimp. We work with our clients to create designs that are consistent with their brands, their advertisement designs, and their overall brand style guides too. 

In July at Kimp we did that for our clients as you can see from the examples below. 

Our clients chose attractive and personalized designs with a muted tone, and we think that choosing minimalistic designs on landing pages can be a great way to go depending on your visual identity and marketing goals.

6) Animated designs

While static designs are amazing, most of us have seen that the results are just a little better when we include motion graphics too. Animated designs and GIFs make it easier to attract the customer’s attention and also make communication so much more interesting and impactful. 

Animated designs work well across channels, including but not limited to, email marketing, social media, banner ads, and so on. The Kimp Team produced various animated designs and branded GIFs this month, so we all know the motion graphics are here to stay. Animations also are a great substitute for videos when you do not have enough material or resources to create one. Though with a Kimp Video subscription you can get both!

Below, take a look at how a popular Healthcare Brand leveraged the power of animation to attract attention and describe its product engagingly. 

GIFs also seem to be a popular design type in July, with Kimp clients leveraging them for social media designs and banner ads, as you can see below. 

7) Billboards

Physical advertisements have been making a huge comeback in the past years. In fact, tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Spotify have been quite successful in spreading brand awareness with billboards specifically. 

Accordingly, Kimp has been getting quite a few billboard design projects from businesses across industries. 

When designed well, billboards can help you boost targeted brand awareness, grow your campaigns, and even succeed in pushing conversions for the business. Local advertisements can benefit immensely from strategically designed billboards as the ones you can see below. 

Looking ahead with Kimp 

We know that running a business feels like extra hard work right now. Believe us, we get it. And that is why we want to help you run yours better by optimizing your marketing campaigns for the best results. 

Working with Kimp allows you to create multiple images and videos for your business at an affordable flat monthly fee. Any design that you need – physical, digital, or video, we do it all, and we do it well. 

So let’s all work together and come out better on the other side. 

Looking to jumpstart your marketing efforts? Sign up for Kimp’s free trial now.