According to the U.S. Small Business Association, the United States of America is home to nearly 30.7 million small businesses. And amongst them, is your own, young little startup. With endless competitors contending for the same customer cohort in the neighborhood; with tons of conflicting information being precipitated in the form of advertisements and publicity campaigns, standing out from the crowd can be a challenge.
If you want to convert leads into paying customers, you must do something unique that sets you apart from the rest. Here’s the trick: since the brain processes images 60,000x faster than text, the best way to get seen is by using unique, attention-grabbing visuals in your marketing that promote engagement and make your consumers feel they’re building a relationship with someone real instead of a corporation.
Since individuality in creative messaging is so crucial, it’s not surprising that a unique, personalized marketing campaign comes at a hefty price point. Many companies are spending big bucks on graphic designers to come up with professional promotional content. However, this strategy is not always within reach of smaller businesses but it is no longer the only way to get the graphics you need.
Professional, eye-catching content is now available for anyone willing to spend a couple of minutes on their laptop or computer – and it is absolutely free. With online graphic design programs, designing has become easy, quick, and affordable.
Stunning Graphics Without Breaking the Bank!
Graphic design is now attainable for everyone, not just professionals, thanks to online graphic design tools. Take PostermyWall as an example. It’s an online graphic design software that provides thousands of ready-made, professionally designed promotional design templates and millions of high-quality stock images, all in an easy to use, intuitive editor.
Think of it this way: all the groundwork for free graphics is done for you – you don’t have to hire a professional design expert or spend hours trying to create engaging marketing visuals for your brand yourself. Simply pick a template you like and personalize it according to your needs by adding text, images, videos, or changing fonts, colors, and much more.
Make sure that all your marketing graphics are on-brand so that your brand identity is strengthened and reinforced in the minds of your audience. Upload your logo and add your brand’s fonts to all your designs for consistent branding, or create a logo using any of the hundreds of logo templates available in the gallery. You can pick fonts that reflect your brand from the wide range available in the editor, and select clip art or images from the extensive built-in libraries.
Conquering Social Media
You can use your online graphic editor to put together traditional marketing materials, but that’s only the beginning. As a small business, social media marketing is your go-to when it comes to the right channel to advertise your business. A Texas Tech study showed that brands that engage on social media have stronger, more loyal followings. And with all the people on social media these days– just Facebook, alone, is boasting 2.45 billion monthly users in 2019 – that gives you the potential to build a very large loyal following.
There is always a fear of your small business’s voice drowning out in the cacophony of social media. Not only is the competition fierce, but these platforms are also a fast-moving space. So what does it take to win on social media? Real, personable posts that your target audience can relate to. Engaging, eye-catching visuals. And consistency – regular posts, and a regular presence, that your fans discover they can count on.
That’s a digital marketing strategy for startups, 101. But it isn’t as hard as it might sound. If you’re authentic, on and offline, you’ll have the first one taken care of. Online graphic editors like PosterMyWall, with their full catalog of social media templates, will set you up for success on the second. Choose stunning templates, customize to your needs, and then resize for any platform you need – for free.
Make sure to plan your social media posts in advance to enable you to keep your brand marketing on target. Even if you can’t post those visuals when you mean to or need to make posts according to different time zones, you’ve got another good option: social media scheduling. With PosterMyWall’s Premium plan, you can schedule all your posts as you create them. They will appear, automatically, on the designated day.
But wait, there’s one thing more. Pictures aren’t everything anymore. That scroll-stopping social media post that you pause to look at, finger poised in mid-air? More likely than not, it’s a video.
Win with Dynamic Visuals
Video content used to be exclusive to the big players in the market only; the few who could afford to hire expensive videography teams to shoot and produce promotional clips that sold their products or services. Not anymore. In fact, the very same tools you’ve just learned how to use for your graphics can be used for videos too.
Videos are important for social media. Research shows that, when faced with a choice, 72% of consumers prefer to learn about a product through video than by any other means, 87% want more video from brands, and 79% of people have been convinced to buy a piece of software or app after watching a brand’s video. 72%. 87%. 79%. Those are very tidy majorities. So, take full advantage of online video-production tools that let you create stunning, professional videos in a matter of seconds. PosterMyWall, for example, has a huge library of thousands of video templates, easy to customize, and resizable for different platforms.
Not just on social media, small businesses can also make use of digital signage videos to put themselves on the map. Digital signage templates – in 4K resolution – are available on PosterMyWall, that let you create and update designs on the go.
If you’ve hit a creative block, a scroll through the template options will probably be enough to get your creative juices going. One feature to love about this video editor is the way you can mix and match galore – upload your own video for business and use their stock audio options, for instance, to liven it up. Or take an image design you love and turn it into a video by simply replacing the image with a video from the stock video library. The possibilities are endless and you’ll surprise yourself with the stunning designs you come up with.
A Step Ahead of Your Competition with Visual Content
Small businesses that embrace visual content are likely to gain higher returns in terms of followers, likes, shares, and revenue. If you’ve got engaging, eye-catching visual content, you’ll be able to stand out and win conversions — despite the intimidating competition. The best part is that it’s free of cost and no prior design experience is needed. With online graphic design software, you can start a successful advertising campaign today and revolutionize your small business.
