If you’re busy starting and running a small business, design might very well be one of the furthest things from your mind. There are so many other aspects to consider. And visuals are really a secondary consideration, right? Surely design is something that can be left on the shelf for later?
Well, it’s time to think again. Design can have a huge and vital impact on the success of your business, and can even drastically impact the overall growth.
Good Design Makes A Good First Impression
Do you know how long it takes for someone to form a first impression?
If you said “fifty milliseconds,” then congratulations! You are correct, and you probably have been looking into marketing statistics.
As it’s such a short time between the first glance and the first impression, it really pays to leverage that brief window for all it’s worth.
Well-designed visuals carry a lot of weight with a viewer. And if a design is clean, easy to understand, and appealing, it can extend the time that your viewer actually experiences the design. This time allows for more interest, which allows for more engagement, which makes it easier to convert the viewer from a passerby into an active consumer.
Good Design Helps Your Business Stand Out
Small businesses are all the rage these days, making up a large portion of the overall companies nation-wide.
Virginia has been riding that wave for the past few years. Even as long ago as 2013, the state had nearly 682,000 companies that were classified as small businesses.
With all that competition, it’s wise to take advantage of any edge you can get.
Design is one of the chief ways that a business stands out from other similar concerns. Well-designed graphics like logos, websites, and other graphics-based branding all contribute to a company’s overall appearance, which adds to the interest of the viewer.
Good graphic design is like making sure your small business is appropriately dressed for any occasion.
Good Design Sends A Message
Though there are a lot of different aspects to design, one of the most intriguing is how good design comprises a “personality,” or a brand.
Crafting a brand requires attention to basics, like readability and user-friendliness. But it also requires a working knowledge of the psychology of color and font, what tone needs to be conveyed in any given graphic, and the overall personality of the company.
If your company is hip, fun, and quirky, your logo, website, and other graphic materials should reflect that.
Good design defines a personality without having to put it into words, just like your crazy aunt’s leopard-print sweatsuit lets people know who she is without needing to put a label on it.
Good Design Converts
Whether or not you’re comfortable on the internet, a poorly-designed website will always be a source of frustration.
Links don’t lead where they’re supposed to. Pages take forever to load. Content is awkwardly spaced or too close together to read. The information you need is difficult to find. And none of it is very pretty to look at.
All of that falls under the jurisdiction of design.
With good design, a website will be easy to navigate, engaging, and, most importantly, lead the user on the journey towards becoming a customer.
A well-designed website can make the difference between a consumer who clicks away and a consumer who clicks through.
The same goes for any other piece of marketing material that is produced for a small business. Poor design will turn a viewer away. Good design will entice and encourage them to continue engaging and investing time in the company.
Good design is about more than just aesthetics — it’s also about effectiveness.
Designing For Success
Creating a small business isn’t a simple process, and there are a lot of components to consider.
So it’s not surprising that design sometimes falls by the wayside.
But taking a look at the above four ways that design factors into small business success should, hopefully, put design back on your “must do” list.
All in all, well-designed visuals and graphics can make a huge difference in the ongoing success and growth of your own small business.
Alicia Rother is a freelance content strategist who works with small businesses and startups to boost their brand reach through creative content design and write-ups.