Most people might mistakenly believe that design and marketing are very different; design uses your creative skills whereas marketing is about the analytical. While this is often true, a strong campaign needs the skills of both disciplines to deliver a cohesive result. 

Design vs marketing

Where creativity and analytics align

Marketing is an analytical discipline. It involves conducting market research and analysing audience data. All this is then transformed into a message that you can share about your business and product.

Designers also use market insight and audience preferences in their work. We don’t create work based on only what looks best. Some considerations include:

• Colour psychology - what emotions do we want to evoke?

• Visual hierarchy - what is the most important information? How can we attract the reader to this?

• Reducing friction - what do we want the reader's eye to follow after each element to build a logical flow?

Often, marketers that are involved in design may use their creative skills. However, they might not fully understand the impact of their design choices in the overall campaign. Marketers without an understanding of these concepts might create a design that looks good, but does not consider the audience's preferences, values and behaviours.

Designers conduct a similar process. However, they are able to use their design knowledge to ensure both copy and design work together. Each element is placed for a reason and all elements work together to reinforce the goal of the poster and build your brand messaging.

Design takes it one step further and asks how you can say it in a way to meet your goal. Having both skillsets is important in bringing better communications with your audience. 

Why is design so important in marketing?

A well-created branding system would have the colours and fonts all chosen for you. Therefore, why should you care about understanding and separating the two?

Visual aids are not only about how the piece looks. It also helps to attract attention and engagement. A designer knows how to deliver complex information in an easy-to-digest format. 

 Content is both about how it reads, and the feelings it evokes. 

The colours and fonts in your branding design are like the ingredients in a cake recipe. In the hands of a baker, the end result will be a delicious lemon cake. However, with someone who is less experienced in baking, the cake might be slightly burnt and too sweet. 

Design is about expressing information in its simplest form. Marketing works out the best way to communicate to the market.

Do you start with copy or design first?

Always start a campaign with what you want to say. Copy leads design.

The copy's job is to get a result from the reader in the form of an action (click to a link) or reaction (emotions). It does not exist to showcase the design.

This is true for all platforms and mediums; an email, ad or webpage.

How to create cohesive campaigns

To create solution-driven campaigns, it is important to tell your brand story in an exciting and memorable way. Both the visual and written mediums help convey the narrative to build meaningful connections. By allowing the two to reinforce your message, you are able to create a cohesive campaign that works together and does not compete with each other.

Clear goals

The first step of any campaign should be to figure out the goal. An awareness campaign looks and sounds different from a purchase campaign.

A secondary step would be to figure out the emotions you would like to evoke. Is your purchase campaign trying to elicit urgency? Or perhaps…

By figuring this out early on, you can align your copy and design to reinforce the message.

Wireframing

This is an important step in the collaboration process between design and marketing.

To make sure your design properly showcases the copy, you should start with the copy first. 

Start with what you need to say. Consider the end result you want them to take and figure out how to say it. Then bring in your design elements and wireframe. Approaching it this way will create a more cohesive approach that works together to support your main goal.

KISS

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

This writing technique might have been something you used when drafting your copy.

It is also a great proofing method for your final design. Once you have your copy and design together, cast a critical eye on every element. Make sure that your message is clear and everything serves to reinforce your goal.

Conclusion

Design and marketing are two distinct but closely related fields. A creative and analytical mind will help deliver the results you want to achieve for your campaign. By using wireframes and making sure that the copy leads design, your campaigns will be cohesive and help deliver a connection to your audience.