The importance of Design in Digital Marketing

Many times, we put aside the visual identity because we believe that Design is superfluous, only responsible for making things more “beautiful”.

When, in fact, design is an essential element to start a dialogue with your target audience, generate recognition and identification with your product.

Moreover, it is responsible for the technical aspects that make the blog post, document or any other graphic piece more pleasant to reading, directing it more clearly and intuitively to the audience.

Along with copy, design is a part of the front line of your campaign and product: these two elements, combined, make the interface producer-buyer or affiliate-buyer.

And we know how much a visual identity and a text with which you identify, which talks to you, can influence the buying decision.

But, even though the designer’s work is very important and irreplaceable, you don’t need to be a professional to create graphic pieces that generate sales and conversion.

Following the tips in this text, you will be able to create your own images and make your posts and ads more click-inducing!

Use your buyer personas

To create a sales page that really converts, first of all, you will need to know your target audience well.

People who have already completed Hotmart Academy know that the goal of the Producer/Affiliate is to propose the best user experience, and this is only possible when we have a communication aligned with the interests of our persona.

Just walk through a supermarket to notice that each segment has a well-defined target audience: children’s products are different from products for adults, which are different from personal hygiene products, and so on.

And this also applies to the market of digital products!

People tend to visually identify with products, that’s why it is so important to invest in presentation as much as quality.  

As you get to know your persona well, and understand that your product belongs to a very specific niche, learning to identify whether a graphic piece is suitable for your target audience becomes a natural process.

Search for references

Whether on the internet or even in your everyday life, collect visual references.  

Take photos of products, packages, and other graphic pieces, virtual or physical, which are related to your product and your target audience.

This observation exercise in itself offers a very good collection of colors, shapes, photography style, and fonts that you can apply to your page, to make it more attractive to your lead.

Another strategy that works is to benchmark companies that operate in the same segment as yours and find out what they’re doing both on the visual, as the copy.

This analysis can provide valuable insights to improve your product.

Keeping in mind that: benchmarking doesn’t mean copying all that your competitor is doing. It means finding references that can be adapted for your business.

Be consistent

If you’re a Producer who has just created an ebook or video lessons, for example, it is likely that you already have a set of visual elements in the product itself!

Use these elements to create ads, sales pages, and other products that are consistent with your initial proposal.  

This is important because visual consistency increases your ads reliability regarding the product.

Have you ever imagined creating an ad that was completely different from your sales page, which was not related to your product itself?

The users who clicked that ad would not identify with your speech, which decreases the chances of them providing any information, be it their email or payment data.  

To prevent this from happening, make sure your communication (copy and design) is consistent in all your online pages. The consistency of your publications is a key factor to keep leads engaged with your product/page.

Be careful with what you call attention to

We tend to think that everything deserves prominence, that all the information we are sharing is critical (and they often are!). But when it comes to design, when everything draws attention, nothing stands out!

If multiple elements are competing with each other for the reader’s attention, the tendency is that she gets completely lost.

To highlight what is most important, you must adopt two strategies: prioritize the information, which is only possible with a good knowledge of copy; and differentiate the actions within your site using colors.

But since the text is about design, let’s talk about the use of colors.

Search on Google for “Color Wheel” and “Complementary and Analogous Colors Palette” and you will find many examples of a color scheme.

For example, if your product has a shade of blue, use an analogous palette of other shades of blue and blue-green to create the most part of your sales page or ads, such as boxes and titles.

Then, use complementary colors, such as, in this case, the oranges, and reds, to highlight Call-to-Actions (CTA) and other elements that guide the reading, such as arrows.

To have this concern with the color chart is fundamental, once that digital marketing studies show that 93% of consumers consider that the visual appearance of a website is the factor that contributes the most to the final buying decision.

And remember: different elements, different ways.

Never create a CTA that can go unnoticed or be confused with some other illustration or vice versa.

Simplify navigation and the understanding of your visitor, don’t make her think too much, otherwise, you may lose potential buyers for your product.

And some other visuals can be very important to guide the reader’s eye.

Adding a photograph with a person looking towards a CTA can increase conversion and click rates. Arrows that induce the reader to go through the rest of the content of the page too.

These factors may increase the average time a lead stays on your sales page and, as a consequence, the likelihood of her makinge the purchase.

We’ve talked a little more about this subject on the post  I’ve got many ad clicks, but no conversion.

Be original in your approach!

Nowadays, it’s easy for an ad to go unnoticed, both on Google Display network as on Facebook.

24 hours a day, we are flooded on our computer screens as well as on our mobiles with memes, videos, news and all kinds of visual content, which makes the task to stand out in the market increasingly challenging .

Therefore, avoid clichés, try to be original, and think of ways that your competitors have never used to communicate with your audience.

Use filters and illustrations, edit (even if minimally) the images you are going to use in your ads and your sales page.

And test!

Perform A/B tests whenever an ad is not having a good performance or when your sales page is converting below what was expected.

Change some more crucial elements such as CTA color and ad images, and check if the changes you’ve made will impact your conversion rates.

Design is your ally

Although it is not the only factor that influences the buying decision, design is very important for digital marketing.

Design and copy are the elements that translate what your product is, in addition to promoting the dialogue between Producer or Affiliate and consumer.

When you create visual and text identities that are consistent, your campaign becomes more effective, saving rework and unnecessary costs.  

Even if you hire a designer to take care of the graphic pieces and product advertisements to be promoted, it is important that you, as a Producer or Affiliated, have these tips in mind to find out what works for your audience.

If you liked our tips or still have questions about the topic, leave your comment below!

This text was produced in partnership with Carlos Duarte, Designer at Hotmart.