How to increase sales with design – marketing tips

Ignore the psychological factors of what makes people buy and you may as well burn your marketing budget.

Creating designs that sell is not just about making a company look good. Any designer worth their salt can do that. Designers that understand the real secret to selling are worth their weight in gold.

If you want to understand how to increase sales revenue and inject some life into your sales strategy both online and in your print and advertising then read on… I will cover the basics first before we get to the meat!

The basics…

One of the most important aspects of graphic design is understanding what the design is for and what response is required by the recipient.

Many agencies and designers become wrapped up with the design that they forget the reason they are creating the piece in the first place, many don’t even know…

“…the customer wants a brochure so that’s what we’ll give them…”

This tactic is common place and is not always in the best interest of the customers pocket. There are usually many more cost effective ways to engage an audience.

In most cases, the customer wants the agency to help them create more sales. This could be in the form of warming the audience with a brand awareness marketing campaign, creating enquires to understand more about the product or service or literally making sales.

How can I increase sales?

Before any design can have an impact, some fundamental steps need to be totally understood.

• The objective of the design, the goals, and targets.
• The brand of the company.
• And the most important the target audience and current customers.

Of course there are many more questions, but these are the basics needed before anyone can look at ways to increase sales.

Understanding both the company and the target audience is critical because the goal of the design is to match the content of the design with the brand of the company and the needs of their target audience.

Techinques to increase sales

Many companies promote themselves by telling their audience what they do. This is ok but not very inspiring. It’s really a “So what!” in the minds of the customer. What is far more powerful is telling the audience what they will feel or experience if they bought that product or service.

Remember the customer is not interested in what any company does what they are interested in is how will that company make their lives easier, make them look good, or help them to make more money.

Any communication has to be about the customer and not about the product or service. If you are going to talk about a features always, back it up with benefits that you know will engage that audience. If you look at the designes of many promotions they are packed with amazing features but do not explain how those features will benefit the buyer.

Ideas to increase sales

We all buy on emotions and this needs to be the focus of the sales person or the sales literature. Even big hairy macho men buy on emotions, although they won’t admit it. They probably love the power of their 5-litre monster super-car…

… But their logic will tell you there are no emotions with this. If pressed they will explain the "excitement" they feel from the power, the "freedom" they feel as they open up the throttle, the anticipation of "adventure" each time they turn the key. What they are explaining is words, which to them are important, and these words create emotions within them, which all leads to "happiness".

It is these values that when combined will create maximum happiness. The designers job is to create that vision of that happiness in the minds of your customers when they imagine having your product or service. Help them to engage with their own feelings of how much better their life will be with your product or service, and sales becomes so much easier.

Understanding ways to increase sales

If you were selling drills what does the customer really want is it a drill or is it a hole in the wall? If making that hole in the wall was easy how would you feel. It is engaging with these feelings that drives sales.

Take a look at your sales materials and your web site. Is it all about you and what you do or are you engaging with the emotional needs of your customers?

You be the judge.

Or if you would like another opinion then we would be delighted to help.

Call us today on 01844 208 710.

• Marketing Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire

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