Brand: add value with graphic design
The effectiveness of brand and graphic design from a business perspective are both hard to measure yet they both bring a powerful creative and psychological energy to a businesses potential.
By ‘brand’ I mean the intangible value or belief a business wishes to communicate, identify with and be perceived for by customers, and graphic design being the visual expression of that belief or value through a corporate identity, a logo, packaging or other marketing collateral.
This lack of ‘measurability’ and accountability is partly another reason, (aside from perceived expense), that most small businesses steer away from significant investment in the more creative strategic arts – preferring the more concrete or measurable results from other forms of online marketing activity such as SEO, PPC, Facebook or email marketing. Click-throughs and open rates are so much more easy to track than pantone colours and .png files!
It is understandable to those who don’t understand the value that graphic design can add to your offering. With my business cap on, it makes perfect logical sense if given the choice – go for the surefire bet – pay $1, get $2 back, however pay heed to the ‘human element’ in your customers decision-making process. When it comes to purchasing, people are far from rationale. Most consumers buy from the heart (emotion) and justify with the head (logic). A shrewd business owner and a switched on business would be wise to remember this and understand how design and brand can be used as tools to engage and resonate with the emotion of buying – as opposed to cold hard facts, metrics, logic and pricing.
It all comes back to your ideal customer, how they perceive the world and your business and what value you attribute to your own brand.
Yet this business mindset quite often comes from a misunderstanding of the role, purpose and power that design and creativity can play in your brand – specifically in elevating the perceived value of your offering, which is where businesses can focus their efforts and marketing dollars to maximise those returns.
‘Logic will get you from A to B, imagination will get you everywhere’ as the famous saying goes. It’s truer than most people think.
If you can add ‘perceived value’ to your offering, through improved design and visually consistently customer touch points, it empowers you to command premium prices for the same product. Supermarket chains do it all the time – check your regular flour, sugar and egg packaging next time you’re in aisle 1. Same ingredients; different packaging; different price. Same effort; same product; same resources but higher return? Makes perfect business sense to me.
Yet the role of design and the graphic designer in business is often diminished to a supplier or supporting role – perhaps because of its very nature as a creative output? (and therefore a fear or inability to quantify it?). Despite this, those businesses who know the value of design and make it a pillar of their business model truly experience those returns.
So dismiss design and brand at your peril – it reflects your business identity, which is an expression of the thing that your customers really want to ‘buy’. Do what your competitors aren’t doing – add value with graphic design. It can give your business an unfair economic advantage – and who couldn’t do with that in their business these days?
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I hope you learned something new, insightful or useful from this blog.
As The Brand Entrepreneur, I believe in helping businesses build a ‘brand blueprint’ for business growth. I do this through a series of workshops designed to help businesses realise and communicate their ‘Why?’ to resonate with ideal customers and make a difference in the world. Successful brands in the future care about customers, not branding. I believe that future is now. I’m passionate about creating brand stories & design assets that help brands get ‘in sync’ and connected to customers they care about.
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Jamie Thomas – The Brand Entrepreneur