Setting 1:
You are driving down the highway and you notice a billboard sporting a picture of cupcakes. No store details and no directions. Your mouth waters but you drive back hungry.
Setting 2:
You are parked in front of a food truck with a signboard of black text on a plain white background saying “Cupcakes available”. It doesn’t give you any cravings and you drive away.
Setting 3:
You are on your daily run in the neighborhood and you spot a signboard with “Creamy and lip-smacking cupcakes available to satisfy your cravings” placed proportionately on a picture of delicious looking cupcakes. There! You forget all about your run and walk into the store to gratify your tastebuds.
Design went up in the air. So did copy. Allied forces of design and copy won the fight. It always wins, not only in offline marketing but just as well in digital marketing. Digital marketing is rising to the position of power because of its cost-effectiveness and global reach. Its benefits are many. But what makes digital marketing methodical and effective? The fusion of design and copy in the right amounts.
“The secret of all effective advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships.” – Leo Burnett
Roles of Design in Digital Marketing:
60.8% of digital marketers say that visual assets are imperative to successful marketing. What shapes design as imperative?
1) Catches Eyeballs
A pair of words or a sentence takes longer to become visible without a design. The design draws interest to the digital marketing campaign. Without design, copy becomes a game board with missing dice.
2) Sets Environment
The design sets the mood in compliance with what the copy conveys. A digital marketing creative with a picture of a cupcake and its copy saying “Buy your dream house” is worthless. Therefore the design gives a hint of what is conveyed in the copy. If the hint is misleading, it collapses the intent of the digital marketing campaign.
3) Points to Copy
The design draws attention and thereafter leads the viewers down the path to reading the copy. The graphic elements of a good design make way for the copy to be read without overburdening either.
“Good design is like a refrigerator—when it works, no one notices, but when it doesn’t, it sure stinks.” –Irene Au
Roles of Copy in Digital Marketing:
Copy draws 7.8 times more traffic and produces brand recall which brings higher engagement rates. What induces copy to drive traffic?
1) Informs
Copy conveys specific information to the viewer that design cannot. For example, the name and address of a store. Copy communicates the personality and clarity of intent of the digital marketing campaign.
2) Salesman in Text
Copy possesses the energy to convince. Copy informs on the particulars needed to convert the viewer into a user. Copy urges the viewer to take an action and that satisfies the end goal of digital marketing campaigns.
“Copy is a direct conversation with the consumer.” – Shirley Polykoff
Personal capabilities of copy and design may go downhill but a shared approach runs smoothly. The partnership of individual functions of design and copy sum up to success in digital marketing. Solidify your digital marketing goals with the best of both. Now you know what to expect from your digital marketer and how to extract optimum results from digital marketing campaigns.
