How graphic design leads to sales

I have been in the brand design business for over 15 years. I have had many opportunities to reach out to managers, sales managers, and owners. Many businesses believe brand design drives sales, but there are as many businesses that don’t share the same opinion.

Does brand design help drive sales? Many brand identity design companies can’t answer that question. Most customers request a few design items from a design agency. Unless it’s full-service brand design company, or there is no way for an agency to track if the brand design is helping bring in sales or not.

In my experience, I have spent three whole years doing brand design for quite a few large real estate projects; from the beginning of the project to finish sales. I am confident in saying that brand design helps drive sales. It requires a talented team to make it work between marketing, design services and a great product itself. Here is how we ran it from the beginning.

Brand identity design

At the beginning of the project, we needed to ensure we were giving a spirit and character to the brand. We looked up tons and tons of information and studied competitors’ marketing strategies and identities. Through many meetings with construction companies and real estate sales agencies, we decided our positioning, advantage, and opportunity to build the identity and soul for the project. Elements of the brand identity included a brand story, philosophy, slogan, logo, typography, color plan, stationery, print design, and all-over online platforms, etc.
Learn more: "3 questions to consider for creating a strong corporate and brand identity".

Environmental graphic design

Large real estate companies will spend copious amounts of money on brand design. The faster they can sell, the more they make. Large projects often build a reception building or model building for customers to come in and learn more about the property.
Therefore, the brand design team must discuss with the interior design team for the reception building style. From indoor to outdoor, the materials were developed with consistency, such as parking signage, logo sign, outdoor large format ad, interior environmental graphic design, tv presentation, etc.

Web and Online platform design

Digital marketing designs are an undeniable requirement. As we all know most people use a computer and or smartphone for instant information.
We built a website for the project, and both interface design and user experience friendly (UI & UX) were our priority concern for our potential client to look up our products’ introduction easily. To enhance the product information with visual effects to convey with profession, trustworthy and quality control in the website. We also spread brand design and information all over the online platform, including search engine banner ads, real estate sites, and promotion sites, etc.

Two benefits of online platforms:

1. Crossing geographical limitations – There are quite a lot of investors checking the mansions up, and they would fly over cities, states and even countries for your excellent products.
2. Save time and costs – When a client can preview the details of brand and products online themselves, it is a great way to save both parties time. Time is money, and your customer can review your products information online before they come down and talking with you.
   
   

Print design

While many agencies describe print designs as “old-fashioned,” we would have to disagree on the subject. Remember, not everyone likes using electronic devices. This will be involved with conditions of user behavior analysis. There are still many people enjoy print media such as newspaper, magazine, direct mail, catalog, brochure, etc. We analysis our competitors’ weekly ads and created different style to stand out in various media. We missed no chances to earn potential clients by using print design and ads.

Outdoor and indoor ads

Outdoor is one of the effective forms of advertisements. Based on the user behavior analysis, you have only a few seconds for the potential to notice your outdoor ad. Either like it or dislike, it is the quickest impression when they walk or drive by. Therefore, the title slogan and visual effect are the most important plan that must carefully design for catching customers’ interest and attention. Same as indoor lightbox display in a subway, train station, department store, etc.

Radio and TV commercials

We also did radio ads and tv commercials to reach potential customers. Our goal was to earn potential clients via different media. Many people enjoy listening to radio stations while driving. We analyzed the user behavior of the radio station and created the ads to reach the potential targeted customers. Same as TV commercials, began with the user behavior studies, then pin down our opportunities on tv channel selection of the advertisement.

Events and activities

Being heavily commercial isn’t required while running campaigns. If the campaigns go too often, it could produce negativity to customers. We develop some free events for brand visibility, such as free food event, shows of famous speakers or pop stars, etc.
For example: Would you resist free events and activities? We were not selling, but we reached our goal in brand visibility.

Meeting and report every week

Since construction and property sales agencies spend lots of money on brand design, we had meetings once or twice a week. The point of the meetings is to review the inquiries and customers they obtained over the previous week. We basically designed different styles of series ads whether online or offline ads and promotions. It was a great way to review weekly if the design team can bring in potential customers.

It was a very challenge project over three years. It was a fantastic opportunity to work closely with construction companies, real estate agencies, and marketing team. I was able to instantly know how weekly our online and offline brand designs drove actual sales. Last, great teamwork between marketing and design teams to ensure great sales is required. Design teams create visibility for brands, and marketing and sales team turn them into actual sales. There’re many circumstances to build a successful brand; strong teamwork is key to the approach your expectations.