Need a new way to drive more traffic and leads to your website? Well, here’s good news! Good copywriting isn’t the only way to gain attention.
Use graphics to promote your business in a way that makes your advertisements stand out to prospective customers. I’ve distinguished 16 ways for you to get more eyes on your business by using images.
The truth is, with so many people scrolling through their social feeds and advertisements with only seconds of attention span, it’s more than likely that something will catch their eye if they see an image or graphic.
In this article I’ll show you 16 ways you can use graphics in your advertising campaign for maximum impact, making your business more visible than ever before! Let’s take a quick look at how design is generally used in marketing.
Typically, graphics are used in advertising to create a connection between the consumer and the product. The better they understand what you’re selling, the more likely they’ll be to buy it.
A common mistake small business owners make is not investing in or creating their own marketing graphics, instead relying on written copy to promote their business.
However, one of the most effective ways to promote your product or service is with a compelling image that speaks volumes about what it offers.
Here’s how marketing graphics work:
-The goal of using graphics is usually to make your company or service stand out from its competitors. Graphics provide visual interest that will compel your audience to buy.
-Graphics also help you communicate more effectively with your customers by providing information on what they need and how it will be useful for them.
-Telling a story is another way that graphics can be used in marketing. Great design helps in presenting the history of a product or service, like an infographic timeline or showing different uses for products such as design templates.
Design Best Practices: The best graphics are informative but still attractive so people want to find out more about what’s being advertised! This means using design resources and elements that make the content pop and stand out from other graphics while also drawing attention to important features.
When deciding which graphical content is best for your campaign, take into account these four things: Your brand’s color scheme, images vs text, size of the image on the screen, and placement on page/screen.
The cool thing is that you don’t have to be a graphic designer to make great images for marketing your product or service. Non-designers… all you need is a little creativity and the best graphics making tool.
Here are the 16 ways to use graphics in your advertising campaign:
1. Communicate Your Brand Message
Use different types of graphics to convey a message or information that would be difficult for customers to understand from words alone.
Take the time to create graphics that enhance your content rather than just improving readability or giving it added visual appeal! You’ll find that meaningful brand graphics are easier to share on social media.
Here’s an example: If you’re advertising a new phone with lots of features like Siri and an HD camera, use an image that captures the excitement of being able to use these functions.
2. Create the Perfect Product Image
Too much text makes the customer’s eyes dart around instead of staying focused on what you want him/her to see most: Your product! So, limit bullet points, numbers, or text in an ad.
Instead, keep your design focused on a beautiful product image with a simple graphic background. After all… this is about marketing your offer! Any text used should only provide details about how your product can help someone.
The best product images typically include a photo of the image itself or a virtual book cover, box shot, or mockup like this:
Create your own stunning eCover like the one above with The Graphics Creator eCover & Mockup templates.
3.Tell a Story With Design
Another way to use graphics in marketing is to tell a story with them that goes deeper than the surface of what your product or service does for your customers.
Using multiple images side-by-side, such as in Pinterest’s story pins or Instagram’s carousel, can be used to tell an entire story about your brand or product.
This different type of visual content will help prospects engage more deeply. And there’s the added benefit of converting more visitors into customers!
4. Make Your Ad About the Image
Choose images over words when marketing, as people tend to retain more information from an image than they do from text. Further, too much text can be distracting to the customer and destroy your message. Consider reducing your text to only 20% of the overall ad.
If using both images and words, make sure there’s enough contrast between them (i.e., one black and white while the other is full of color).
5. Use Transparent PNG Images
In The Graphics Creator, you can use PNG images with transparent backgrounds. This makes it easy to place one image in your design at a time, without making it look cluttered. This “white space” between graphics makes an image more aesthetically pleasing and shows off your product.
If photographing your own images, keep a clean look by removing unnecessary elements (like wires or other objects) around the product itself.
Or, if using a digital image, crop out unwanted background information behind the item being marketed or make it transparent by digitally removing the background.
In this image the black balloon is a transparent PNG. It just sits in front of the background and can be dragged to any position on the canvas. Notice that minimal text is used on the graphic to make the image clean and stand out!
This will encourage visitors to take action right away. Clicking on a button is way easier and faster than reading a paragraph of text!
However, you will want to add a few words to your button that let them know to click it. Choose a short phrase such as “Buy Now” or “Get My Free eBook”. Tell them what action you want them to take.
Match your graphic design with your target audience. For example, if you’re selling a product that’s targeted to millennial women, use colors and fonts commonly used by them on social media.
Additionally, your audience should be able to see themselves using your product or service. So, for example, if you’re advertising a salon that caters mostly to mature women over age 40, create a photo with models around the same age.
In the example below (created with the People Templates & Graphics), a college-aged young woman is pictured working at home. See, it’s pretty simple!
8. Use a Call-To-Action Graphic
Although we’re talking about avoiding too much text in this article, it’s still important to use it strategically. A call-to-action (CTA) lets people know where to find more information and tells them where you’d like them to go next to get the help they need.
You can directly convert visitors to customers by simply adding a few words to a button, banner, or advertisement. Include a call-to-action in your images—such as “Get your free article!”
9. Add Stunning Graphics to Your Emails
Send beautiful newsletters and emails to your customers and prospects showcasing new product images and features regularly.
Better yet, make your images clickable (right from your email) so they can easily take a closer look at your offer.
Just add a destination link to the image so that your followers don’t have to search for a small text link. This can increase conversion significantly because you’ve made it easy!
10. Use High-Resolution Graphics
Don’t use a blurry graphic on an ad or on your website or social media. Use only high-quality, high-resolution images.
But also make sure your image isn’t too large! A large graphic or photo will take up unnecessary space on screens such as desktop computers with smaller resolutions. This can slow down your site. You want viewers scrolling down quickly rather than having to zoom in or wait for their browser window size to change to accompany a large graphic.
And, if you were to use a very small, low-resolution image, it would lose quality when enlarged. The image would then end up blurry (pixelated) and therefore harder to read.
Your ultimate goal in promoting your business is to get your graphics to pop off the screen!
11. Promote Your Brand Awareness
Think about the life cycle of your product or service and where you want to be in six months or a year from now. If you’ve been in business for a while, you should project what products or services will be forthcoming and how to show that progression through your ads.
However, if your business is just starting out, then focus on creating graphics that’ll show off key features and benefits as well as how easy it is to use.
Suggestion: Use story-telling graphics!
12. Choose Promotional Images Carefully
When choosing a primary or background image for your marketing project, choose a photo or graphic that is high-quality with minimal noise (clutter) or distortion. Ideally, you want it so people can see what they’re buying without even clicking on a link!
If you’re taking your own photos, use shots taken at eye level rather than from above when possible; this ensures there’s no glare coming off shiny surfaces like glass tiles or metal cartons of milk.
Consumers are fickle. So your advertising needs to be on par with your audiences’ desires. One way to do this is to choose consistent colors for promoting your business. Colors are part of your brand’s overall look and feel. So choose them wisely by considering what colors your prospects will interact with.
Also, choose colors that attract attention without being too overwhelming or visually jarring for the viewer.
However, you may want to use bright colors, when possible. Readers should be drawn to them and not away from them.
14. Place Graphics and Images Strategically
Always keep in mind where you want people to look first. Then place images accordingly. If you want their eye drawn directly to a product, make sure it’s center stage and takes up the majority of space in the graphic.
However, if you want them to identify with the user of the product, make sure a photo of that person is prominent. Take a look at the next idea to promote your business with graphics for more info.
15. Use Graphic Design to Evoke Emotions
Try to evoke feelings through your imagery. Emotions are a powerful contributor to the buying behavior of consumers. For example, if you’re advertising a new phone with lots of features like Siri and an HD camera, use an image that captures the excitement of being able to use these functions.
The most important thing is to make sure your customer can see themselves using your product or service in the images.
For example, this graphic was created for an e-bike blog to show prospective customers the joy and excitement of buying their child an electric bike. Parents can identify with this image and have strong emotions about riding bikes as a family.
16. Make Better Social Media Graphics
Of all the ways that we’ve discussed using graphics in promotion, sharing them through social media is by far the most popular. You probably already do this… share beautiful graphics on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.
These networks are perfect for visual content because they’re image and video-based.
But do know what NOT to do?!
Here it is: Don’t post a plain background with a quote or question (yes, I’m definitely talking about Facebook’s background colors). Seriously, how will that stand out with everyone else using the same, boring backgrounds?!
You might not think this even needs to be mentioned. But I see this error all of the time… daily in fact!
Laughingbird’s graphics maker includes pre-designed backgrounds so they can be switched out easily. Or you can import your own if you’d like.
Just choose a template, swap out the background and modify any text, download it, and post it to social in 3-5 minutes. These few minutes are quite worth the extra eyes and click-throughs you’ll get to your product or service-based business!
Check out what Laughingbird Software has to offer here or click the image below:
Get the Online Graphics Creator and get all of the templates instantly… just click the logo graphic above! Or get each downloadable set here.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for ways to use graphics to promote your business, then try these 16 different ideas on how to use graphics in your advertising campaigns. See what kind of impact they have on both customer conversion rates and overall traffic!
And grab your own graphics maker tool to help create the perfect graphic design for your needs – The Graphics Creator.
It’s an easy-to-use software that has already helped thousands of businesses around the world plan their marketing strategies with stunning visuals and eye-catching graphics. Click here now and get started designing today!
Developing products or services, advertising, and blog writing are completely separate jobs when it comes to growing your business, aren't they?
As a small business you know that they SHOULD be individual jobs, but yet you're doing several of them or possibly every one of them by yourself (unless you can pay $$$ to hire help)! And, unfortunately, the #1 way to afford to hire help is to get more traffic and more buyers.... total Catch 22!
When you're selling a product or service online, the most important thing is getting people to click on your link and buy what you're offering (this is called "a conversion"). It can be tricky to get people to buy from you when they can't see or touch what you're selling, but with the right approach, you can make it happen.
A while back, I hinted about my new side venture... and mentioned I'd tell you more soon. I've learned so much more since then that I want to share with you.
By sharing, I'm hoping it will inspire you, give you some creative ideas, and help you take action in making things work for your business.
Check it out to see what I've been doing (or perhaps because you're actually interested in electric bikes... Marc and I have so much fun with ours!).
Honestly, I feel as though I've learned a whole new skill set that I can apply to Laughingbird Software and the Creatorpreneurs Academy blog (more to come on this).
