By: Jena Marble, Creative Manager
Here’s a fun fact. The creative team recently updated a client’s Amazon Store. After designing on-brand assets and updating the structure of the store, the client saw improved YOY performance — including a 63.5% increase in sales.
Did we achieve that lift in performance just by designing things that looked nice? Of course not! Research, strategy — and in this case Amazon Store best practices — were at the heart of everything we created for this client.
Want to dive in deeper? Join the creative team as we walk you through the importance of research and strategy — crucial steps within our design process.
Getting the right message to the right people (in the right way)
The best design is always informed by some kind of research. We use upfront research to help our clients achieve a competitive advantage by understanding and leveraging what is distinct about themselves.
Whether a project is big or small, research facilitates and informs design. This step is necessary; it helps the creative team and our clients define and understand the following:
- Problems that need to be solved
- Goals and objectives
- Context
- Audience
- Behavior
- Competitors
Knowing all of this before opening Adobe Illustrator or XD helps our creative team make better concepts and it improves the overall design and revision process.
Strategy is about differentiation
Our creative team collects data in order to determine the why behind the design, which is incredibly powerful and necessary for creating material that will not only attract the right audience, but last a long time.
After data is collected (see above bullet points), we develop a strategy which becomes the framework for our design decisions.
We use design strategy to continuously address:
- Opportunities for our clients to differentiate themselves
- Unmet needs
- Existing challenges
- Emerging trends
Let’s consider a long-time email client of ours. In order to avoid stagnation in performance, our client invested in more intentional email creative and strategy in 2021. We updated outdated templates and refreshed imagery to create unique and custom creative elements within their ecommerce email campaigns.
The result was a 30% increase in revenue from ecommerce email campaigns in 2021 compared to 2020. We also saw stronger, consistent revenue and clicks over the course of the entire year, instead of letting the holiday season drive the majority of revenue and engagement.
And during a year when most companies saw a dip in performance and revenue after online shopping peaked in 2020, this increase was significant.
So, how did we achieve this? By learning the ins and outs of the brand, their audience, and their goals — and by approaching their email campaigns with a holistic creative strategy. Remember, we’re not just designing things to look nice. There’s always reason behind it.
Creative strategy is a must
Not having a cohesive strategy means creating reactive, not proactive, work. The goal is to avoid hastily developed designs that meet only the immediate needs of our clients with no thought of the future.
This could result in a lack of a unified visual brand presence over time. And since we know consistency is key to your brand’s success, we always start here.
Does this sound interesting to you? Our creative team offers customized strategies that match your business’s unique goals. Working collaboratively, we can create brand experiences and deliverables to convert more of your audience into customers. Reach out and say hello if you’d like to get started.
