The Rule of 7 and why design is important for you right now | Branding and Marketing
Design is the face of your business. It’s the visible feature that displays the invisible values your brand carries.
Some products and services are easily recognizable with their logo. A spoon and fork in the logo is a giveaway for a restaurant. The cross or the caduceus is the accepted symbol for medical services.
Now that businesses have evolved, products and services have become more complex and thus need more “explaining”. Your business is no different. You need design to regularly introduce and reintroduce your business to potential clients.
The marketing rule of seven implies that it takes an average of seven interactions between your target audience and your brand before a purchase takes place.
Makes sense. A person will give their hard-earned money to a company they trust and they’re familiar with.
So as the brand or business owner, you need to maintain visibility, remind prospects of your existence, and ensure that when the need arises, your company is what your target market thinks about – not your competitors.
So now you understand that design doesn’t end with having a logo and a website created. In order for your company to succeed – or even survive – it needs fresh and consistent content to engage with your customers.
You may be thinking that keeping the same design system throughout your company is redundant. Won’t people get bored? Or worse, you’re worried that sending out the same logo, pictures or message repeatedly will turn off customers.
Don’t worry. Besides making your business more recognizable, repeating similar design themes in a strategic way actually makes customers prefer you over a competitor.
Your current (unfortunate) scenario
With all the client calls and the daily tasks you have to do for your business, your company’s design needs are often neglected. But it comes back to haunt you when you have few leads or you receive reports that the target market is turned off by unattractive ads, posts, or branding.
Why design is important for you right now
1. Consistent design emotionally connects with customers
Designers use visual communication to make customers feel that they are walking down the street into their favourite store. This quality creates an emotional connection between the customer and the design, which is why brands invest in design as much as they do in marketing their products.
Let’s put ourselves in the customer’s shoes.
You cannot emotionally connect with a complete stranger. Before you trust or actually hold someone’s hand, you have to know who they are, what they look like, what they sound like, and their intentions. Any inconsistency will cause doubt.
You can’t blame customers if they suddenly leave due to inconsistent brand messaging.
2. There’s design in all touchpoints of your sales
Design is in every opportunity when customers interact with anything that your company does – from your website to emails to social media posts. Typically, a business has the following touchpoints:
Ads are usually the first places your customer “sees” you. They fit into various formats like social media, radio, podcasts, billboards, centrefolds, video, and many more.
Digital design is experiencing a surge right now as more and more people look for what they need online. Therefore, if your company has an online presence, it needs to grab people’s attention with a big idea before they scroll up or swipe.
There are many ways to attract online attention. Whether this is an emotional narrative, a funny anecdote, or a demonstration of the product, an ad design needs to convey value to an audience.
Your website is where a potential customer gets to know more about your products and services. Make sure to leave a good first impression. While functionality is crucial, never forget about your website’s aesthetics. According to a survey, 94% of first impressions are influenced by design.
When we talk about correspondence, we’re referring to a business card, letterhead, and envelope. These three are often connected visually and typically the most formal of your touchpoints. They should use similar paper types, treatments, colours, and organization.
Online, these translate to email signatures and newsletter templates, so make sure that these digital equivalents are properly designed too.
Brochures, annual reports, catalogues, event invitations, one-pagers, and posters are examples of printed materials. Since their primary goal is to assist clients in making educated purchasing decisions, the design for it should be professional and on-point.
The design must bear concise information that helps the consumer know more about your product and how they can benefit from it.
An excellent design will help increase your sales. Packaging is another way to communicate with a customer if you have a tangible product. All of your branding, marketing, and design efforts must appeal to what motivates clients to buy your product based on the packaging.
Have you ever seen the level of detail on an Apple product? It’s spotless!
Although business owners nowadays spend less time beautifying their physical stores due to the pandemic and interstate lockdowns, there are other factors to consider like what your employees are wearing because they are part of the brand too.
Do your employees have a uniform or just a name tag? Do they look like they belong in your company? They should!
3. Design establishes service consistency
Whenever I crave a local delicacy, I do a bit of research within my social media circle. Just now, I saw two Facebook pages selling the snack I was looking for, nearby. One had a post a day ago, while the second one’s last post was 6 months ago.
Social Media is the new storefront. Whenever a business page has no current social media posts or activity, it gives an impression that the account is abandoned and no one is available to assist the customers.
So I direct-messaged the former one because I assumed the latter was out of business already. I didn’t want to waste my time. 🤷‍♀️
Is it just me or do you also judge a business’s service by its social media presence?
Yup. There you go. It’s time to regularly engage your audience with regular posts on social media.
4. Good design shows you care about user experience
Good design says a lot about a company. It shows you care about the user experience and want to make the lives of your audience easier. This makes a company seem more professional, which is why it pays to have someone who is a good designer.
Design is more than just making something look nice. It’s also about making sure it’s easy to use. This means that the elements of the design are intuitive and easy to navigate.
You can get some great pointers from the Starbucks’s app UX design. Millions of users rave about how using it feels natural, and how it is integrated with Spotify to give the coffee house feel.
Great design is worth the investment of time, care, and money
Getting an on-demand design service to take care of your design needs is worth the investment because professionally created designs are great for your company’s reputation.
It will show customers that you are reliable and trustworthy, while also making your company stand out from the crowd. The better your designs are, the more clients you will be able to attract.
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