The importance of graphic design in winning new clients

PUBLISHED April 27, 2016 IN Branding & Messaging

WRITTEN BY Myah Shein

The importance of graphic design in winning new clients image

As I have written about and expressed many times in conversation, one challenge of professional services marketing is that most of your clients and prospects don’t understand what you do or how you do it.  If they were being honest, they don’t want to know, they just want to have trust that hiring you help them reach their goals.

Since they don’t want to become subject matter experts in order to determine the quality of your work on its merits, they are forced to make a partially illogical leap between what they can see and understand, your marketing, and the quality of your work.

We can help clients and prospects feel good about their decision to hire you by sharing ideas on topics that broadly address their issues and your solutions as a way to showcase your expertise without it feeling likes a “sales process” (which no one enjoys).

However, the look and feel of your marketing materials makes a difference.  If presented with an ordinary Word document or a “home grown” design vs a professional looking ebook, whitepaper, or video, people will believe the content in the designed format more readily and will have a higher perceived value of your firm.  That’s why I think there’s ROI in graphic design.  By investing in a professional design for your ideas, you’ll reinforce your brand, increase the credibility of your ideas, and win more clients.

Good design causes people to:

Pay more attention. Creative and appealing images will catch their eye and an interesting title will pique their interest.

Look at it longer.  A well designed piece has color, layout, and graphics that help the reader to absorb more of the information in digestible bits drawing their eye easily from section to section.

Remember if more favorably.  Their overall impression if asked about your piece later will be that it looked professional which will build on their positive impression of your firm.

Recognize your future marketing pieces more quickly.  Since your pieces will all have a similar design aesthetic that reflects your brand, people will be more likely to review your latest materials since they remember that the last one was high quality.

Share it more often.  You have a better chance of gaining a broader reach and building on your success when prospects receive information from their trusted peers.  People will more readily share materials that look good since sharing it makes it a reflection of them as well.

Take action.  Written into a well designed piece are “calls to action” that will prompt a response from the reader.  This can bring the prospect closer to becoming a client or a client closer to requesting a new service from you.

You probably have good ideas already written in the form of an email to a client or a tutorial for an employee. With a few edits, you’ll have the content for a great educational marketing piece.  Give your ideas the best chance to get noticed by spending a few dollars on graphic design and share them with pride.