We’ll give you an example. If we ask you to think of a new restaurant you tried recently, you will remember two things – the food they served and the ambiance of the place. Your startup’s graphic designs will be like the virtual ambiance you offer your customers. This will be how you create a unique experience for your customers. 

So, even for a startup with a limited budget to spare, graphic design should be a priority. After all, creating a lasting impression depends on consistently delivering a memorable experience. And graphic design has a huge role to play in this. So, in this blog, we’ll talk about the need for graphic design in startup marketing.

Significance of Graphic Design in Startup Marketing

Graphic design is not an expensive affair anymore. While some businesses choose to create their visuals by themselves using free tools, some let the professionals take over. We’ll elaborate on the merits of graphic design subscriptions for your startup later on. But before that, why should you prioritize graphic design as an important component of your budget?

1. Spread the word 

When your business is new, it needs a social media page with engaging graphics to lay a foundation for your digital presence. Then comes the ads for you to let people know about the business launch. So, with graphics of various sorts, you will be able to target viable leads, increase brand awareness, and introduce your brand to the world. 

Some brands manage to spread the word even without spending on ads – they do this through social media. Most of the popular social media platforms allow you to create a business page for free and you can use these pages to slowly start introducing your brand to your target audience. 

Some even use them to build a network and let the suspense build before actually launching the business. They do this by consistently sharing informative posts about the industry or the products their businesses would cater to, even before they start talking about the brand itself. Strong visuals lie at the crux of a strong social media strategy. 

Take a look at Spotify’s Instagram page for example. The brand is all about audio content but you will find engaging visuals in the form of catchy images and interactive videos. The brand has also managed to maintain consistency in the visual feel of its Instagram page which is definitely a laudable thing in marketing. And that’s a good inspiration for startup marketing.

2. Make a dazzling first impression 

Alright, so you have managed to grab the attention of potential leads through digital ads and your social media posts, now what? Use visuals to make a strong first impression. Your customers still do not know much about your brand. Your visuals will help you paint the best picture of your brand and influence your customers’ opinions about your brand. 

When your visuals show your professionalism and the unique persona of your brand from the first day onwards, you will be able to set a strong pace for your startup’s growth. 

Kimp tip: Color psychology is a topic you cannot ignore when it comes to designing for startup marketing. Every color triggers a different kind of emotion. Want to create strong first impressions by choosing the right colors? We have a blog on color psychology that comes in handy. 

3. Thrive in a competitive space 

In terms of the type of products your startup offers or your business model, there could be similarities between your brand and your competitors. In such cases, the graphic design you use might be the strongest distinguisher that helps set your brand apart. 

With strong graphic design strategies, you will be able to create an aesthetically elegant social media page or get the best ad designs. And all these aspects will end up being the strongest points that differentiate your brand and other similar names. 

In fact, even in a less competitive space, you would still need to focus on visuals as images and videos make it easy to tell customers your brand’s story. From details about what your brand does to a sneak peek into how the idea was born, you can tell so many visual stories and earn your audience’s trust by tapping into the power of graphic design. 65% of people remember the information they captured from images even after three days. 

4. Work on better conversions from day one 

What kind of resources do you refer to before you buy a product? Say, you are planning to buy a smartphone – you might look for product images to understand how the phone looks. You might watch videos to get a virtual experience of the features of the phone. As you can see, visuals like images and videos strongly influence buying decisions. 

As you might have already known, images can enhance your website’s SEO efforts. From getting your site to rank well even in image searches to making your content appealing to search engine crawlers, an optimized image offers so many benefits. 

Along with this, when you have crisp videos and clear images on social media platforms, you also have better chances of increasing your follower count. According to Twitter, Tweets containing videos have 10 times better engagement rates than those without. On the whole, graphics of different kinds can be used to improve conversions and that can be a great step forward for a startup. 

5. Make an emotional connection with your audience 

If you want your startup to evolve into a name that people remember rather than just another business in the industry, you should aim at making an emotional connection with your audience. Graphic design plays a critical role in creating that emotional bond with the audience. From the colors they see in your brand’s visuals to the message they convey, a lot of aspects of the graphics can impact the emotions triggered. 

Apple Inc exemplifies how a brand can grow explosively by strengthening the emotional rapport with its audience. Among the many branding tactics that Apple uses to achieve this, consistent design is one aspect worth mentioning here. The brand has always been associated with sophistication. From the sleek website to the trendy social media pages of Apple, the whole ordering process exemplifies this personality. And you would also get a similar experience in its physical store. Finally, the packaging design makes sure that even opening a new iPhone box for the first time feels delightful. 

6. Expand your reach through the existing network 

The best way to expand your network is through your existing network. Your existing customers and the leads you target will help your brand reach more people faster. Word-of-mouth marketing is a trend that will never disappoint you. 

How your customers perceive your brand is important because their perception determines whether they want to share your brand with their friends and family.

When you have a bunch of leads already, focus on strengthening their perception of your brand through strong graphic designs. Even if your brand is new, they will still be eager to talk about your brand in their network provided your visuals add value to them. 

For example, adding images to your tweets increases the chances of earning retweets by 34%. In short, by adding catchy visuals you are improving the chances of your customers sharing your posts with their network. And with this, more people get to know about your brand. 

7. Draw potential investors to your startup 

Brand recognition is a critical factor for 82% of investors while making investment decisions. And your graphic design has a strong role to play in brand recognition. Let’s show you how- 

When you are driving past a busy junction, a billboard grabs your attention. You glanced at the board for just a few seconds. And all you remember is that it had a very familiar red and yellow palette with golden arches.

These details grasped in a quick few seconds are enough for you to recognize that it is an ad from McDonald’s. That’s the power of branding through graphic design. 

Brands like these make sure that they maintain consistency across their graphic design projects.

Taking cues from these brands, come up with a color scheme or design concept for your brand. And then, incorporate this into graphic designs like logos, social media aesthetics, your store signage, and everywhere else. This will be a way to strengthen your brand recognition and that in turn will improve the chances of investors trusting your startup. 

Where and How to Use Graphic Design in Startup Marketing

When you plan to launch a business, the moment you get the ball rolling, you start hearing about graphic design services and designers. If you are wondering what kind of graphic design to use for your startup marketing, and where to use them, let’s crack the mystery for you. 

In simple words, there is design in almost every visual representation of a brand 

• Business cards 
• Billboards for local businesses 
• Pamphlets that talk about a sale at a local store 
• Blog images 
• Social media posts and so much more 

You might be using graphic design in some form both for online and offline advertising and brand awareness efforts. While the options are endless, here are some of the graphic designs that fetch the highest ROI for startups. 

A Brand Logo That Grabs Attention 

The first and foremost application of graphic design services for startups would be logo design. Your logo tells people what your brand offers. Your customers might start judging your brand the moment they see your logo, even before trying your products/services. 

Kimp tip: For your logo to play the part, it should resonate with the logo trends in your industry, and capture customer sentiments as well. We also have a separate blog that talks about tips to design a startup’s logo. 

If all that seems overwhelming, choose a Kimp Graphics subscription. And let your design team take over. 

Landing page for conversions and lead generations 

As a startup, you should focus on creating a robust content marketing strategy. Landing pages are crucial components in strengthening your content marketing. 

Your digital ads will be enough to draw customers to your brand. But to really engage them and to let them know and understand your brand, your landing page would be important. Landing pages are also crucial elements for startup lead generation. 

Your landing page should convey a clear message and visual elements can be very useful for this. In fact, when you create a visual hook, getting your customers to respond to the call to action on the page becomes so much simpler. You can also use your startup landing page as the base for building your brand design by incorporating your brand logo, and personality through images and videos. 

Email marketing for personalized customer experience 

Every brand knows that email marketing is a timeless tool. To amplify the perks of email marketing, you should focus on making your emails more interactive. Adding graphics can increase the impact of your emails. In fact, something as simple as adding a video to your email can cause the click-through rate to shoot up by 300%. 

Emails are cost-effective, versatile, and can easily be automated. Emails that contain visuals will help in delivering the message straight to the inbox of the potential customers. 

You might be receiving hundreds of marketing emails in your inbox every week. Would you check out those with interesting GIFs and images or those with pages of text? The ones with images are definitely more alluring, don’t you agree? So, your customers will also love your emails if they contain visuals. But these cannot be random images or standard graphics that they see everywhere else. Optimizing visuals for your brand will make your emails more interesting for your customers. 

Kimp tip: Electronic direct mail marketing or EDM can be a dependable option for startups to increase their sales steadily. And also enhance customer engagement. Having CTAs, a simple layout and engaging visuals will improve the success of your EDM strategies. 

Pitch deck to earn the trust of investors 

Fundraising might feel like a formidable task for startups. But with a well-designed pitch deck, you can ace the art of pitching to potential investors. To create a winning pitch deck you need stunning visuals. Graphical representations and images can make your startup pitch deck more visually appealing. 

Visuals have the power to convey even difficult emotions or complicated messages very conveniently. So, talk about your business. Show what makes your business unique. For all this, you can use the power of graphic design to build a strong pitch deck for your startup. 

If you are looking for inspiration to design your pitch deck, check out Kimp’s blog on the startup pitch deck checklist. 

Ads to improve sales 

There are different types of ads to create for your startup in order to improve brand visibility. Carousel ads, banner ads, and other types of ads rely predominantly on visuals for creating an impact. To create ads that convert, to create ads that generate leads, you need a strong graphic design strategy.

Videos are some of the most powerful visual marketing tools. In fact, integrating videos in your marketing can help improve conversions by 86%. You can reuse video ads in Instagram Stories, carousel ads, and other places. 

Kimp tip: For a robust social media advertising strategy, you should have both images and videos. Because image ads and video ads both have their own merits. 

Worried about consistently creating image and video ads for your social media marketing? Choose a Kimp Graphics+Video subscription and leave it to your dedicated design team. 

Social media posts to improve the quality of customer interactions 

Today, social media platforms make it possible for startups to strike conversations with their customers. Your marketing efforts should not stop the moment you acquire new customers. You also need to focus on customer engagement. 

You can use your startup’s social media pages to create customer engagement that strengthens your brand. Social media marketing has a strong impact on the growth of a startup. 

Visuals are pretty useful when you are trying to initiate a conversation on social media. Take a look at this Instagram post by Greggs, the British bakery chain. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Greggs (@greggs_official)

In the above post, the brand uses a generic and relatable concept like Zodiac signs. And this is one way in which it manages to make conversations simpler. By doing this, here are the benefits the brand gets.

• It motivates people to comment on the post and thus increases customer interactions. Some might even tag their friends to continue the conversation and this improves the reach of the brand. 
• It manages to display 12 different items on the menu. So, people who are new to the brand might know about the diverse products offered. And this might motivate them to try them all. 

This is one way to use graphic design to create social media posts for better customer engagement which can be great for a startup’s growth.  

Exploring the Benefits of Unlimited Graphic Design for Startups 

Marketers around the world strive to gather original graphics for their content marketing strategies. From social media posts to display and print ads, they are constantly on the lookout for good graphic design. 

In fact, 43% of marketers feel that consistently producing visual content can be challenging. If you want your startup to overcome this challenge and consistently obtain relevant graphic designs for your marketing efforts and social media interactions, work with unlimited graphic design service. 

Following are the benefits that unlimited graphic design would offer your startup- 

• Predictable costs and fixed monthly graphic design bills can be a boon when your business is running on a limited budget. 
• Having all your graphic designs in one place simplifies collaboration especially when your team is small and you have limited time on your hand. 
• Consistently posting on social media would be a great way to boost the performance of your startup’s social media pages. Unlimited graphic design services make this possible by delivering graphics with predefined turnaround times. 
• When your business is still new, you might be facing new graphic design requirements regularly. Graphic design subscriptions help you obtain all your graphic designs from a single source. 

Kimp’s Design Subscriptions for Cost-effective Design Production for Startup Marketing

So, if graphic design is not part of your plan yet, now is a good time to include it. And if you do not know where to begin while you build your graphic design strategy, sign up for a free trial today.