Do you know how many companies are there in the world? Do you know how many companies are trying to sell similar products to the same audience? So what can give one company an edge over the other? In this fast-paced world where companies have to revolutionize themselves completely in order to stay ahead of their competition, where they continuously have to come up with new ways to grab their audience’s attention, in this digital era the way they market themselves is what actually sets themselves apart.  But that’s a race in itself too. So how do you win this race?

Every step that you take when creating an overall digital strategy, from building awareness of the brand, to encouraging interactions on online platforms like websites and social media to engaging the audience by creating long-term relationships, there is one critical thing that will always help you able to move successfully from one step the next.  The importance of design is that one thing that you should never underestimate throughout your digital marketing strategy.

In every aspect of digital media marketing, be it email marketing, social media marketing or SEO, designers put in a lot of research and planning to bring forward the best design for each brand they work for. This is because in this digital era, in a crowded marketplace everyone is trying to grab their audience’s attention and only a good, innovative design that delivers the message instantly, gets your point across or creates an emotional connection is what enhances the visibility of your campaign.

How many times do you overlook ads shown on social media platforms like facebook? While scrolling down the newsfeed you may come across many ads that you don’t click on or stop to give a look at. So similarly, when it comes to your audience only the ads with imagery, color and fonts that appeal to them will make them stop and will most probably generate a higher click-through rate as compared to your competitor’s.

According to the Harvard Business Review, email is the best way to reach millennials. Since they are always on their phone it has become even easier to view their emails. So the question is how to make sure that the millennials actually go through your email and don’t view it as spam? How you design your emails, the concentration of text and images, placement of call-to-action buttons, all come under the way you design your emails. So with design, it’s not just about aesthetics, it’s also about user experience. This means to make it easier for your audience to navigate around, to easily find call-to-action buttons or to easily understand what your brand is trying to convey or sell.

According to a report, we touch our phones 2,617 times every day, which puts emphasis on two things. Firstly, one of the biggest mistakes that you might make is that your social media ads or your website is not mobile-friendly. It should be designed in a way that they are optimized for your audience’s mobile screen. Better would be a design that would automatically adapt to mobile or desktop thereby creating a positive user experience. Secondly, if your audience comes across your ad this many times, you can make them love and respect your brand through your design.

Here’s an example that I came across while scrolling down my newsfeed simultaneously on my desktop and on my phone to see which brands have optimized their designs for mobile. Surprisingly, Clear, which is one of the brands of Unilever had not taken mobile optimization into account when putting up their ad for the public. You can see how the ad has been cropped when viewed on your phone. So, if you were Unilever, your audience will only be able to get your ad’s message on the phone if they are willing to click on it and view it on full screen. Otherwise, they will simply scroll down and your ad will go ignored.

In contrast to the above example, here’s one of how taking design into account makes a difference.  Tieks is a shoe company that has carefully designed its ad with the right amount of text and a compelling image for its desktop users while keeping the design for its mobile users simple yet bold.

The success of Volkswagen Canvas ad where they used an ariel shot is another example to look at. The way it was designed gave users a way to be more interactive by using their fingers to navigate a Volkswagen through a road and stopping in between to read on its various features. The ad not only engages the users but also clearly gives out the right image of the model that they are selling.

Therefore, the right design is what makes sure that your brand is represented the right way on every digital platform. The right design is what communicates your brand value and this is how you stay ahead in the race and this is why design is so important.