A factor often overlooked is the importance design plays in increasing conversions, ROI and customer longevity. It’s been proven that consumers express themselves through the things they buy, be that a car, pair of sneakers or the latest tech gadget.
For years, the white Apple earphones were considered a status symbol of being cool and trendy.
Something as simple as a business logo or a change in website design can boost or plummet sales in today’s marketing environment. In 2010, major clothing retailer GAP decided to change their logo and they landed on the wrong side the fence:
It was estimated that they lost $100 million because of a logo change gone wrong. GAP didn’t realize at the time that their customers were in love with their logo and changing it would cause more harm than good.
But that needn’t always the case as we will reveal in this article. Struggling businesses or startups who don’t have a large customer base may find that revamping the design of their company logo, website and marketing materials can actually grow their business.
The Difference the Right Logo Makes
The University of Amsterdam found that children as young as 3 could match a business logo that contained no words to a brand:
Source: Finances Online
For the top brands of today, their logo is their anchor and manifests everything the business stands for. Shoppers can see a plan black t-shirt with a small tick (Nike) on the breast and know exactly what to expect, a high-quality garment that will last for years.
Mobile Website Design Increases Sales and Traffic
Earlier this year, Google updated their search engine algorithm to place websites that are not responsive (mobile friendly) lower in the rankings. Dubbed as Mobilegeddon, thousands of businesses saw a huge decline in traffic and sales as a result of not having mobile friendly websites.
A recent study found that 60% of Americans use their cell phones to access the Internet, while 75% said they used their mobile phone for various shopping activities last Christmas.
Websites that are not designed to cater for mobile and tablet devices are hindering their growth potential. With 3G and 4G becoming readily available all over the US, the demand for mobile friendly websites is continually on the rise.
Businesses that are using email or social media marketing as part of their inbound marketing strategy, will be interacting with prospects who are on mobile devices. Unresponsive websites and stores will greatly hinder conversions.
Poorly Designed Websites Can Destroy Businesses
Amazon is the world’s largest ecommerce store and found that for every second it took their website to load, they could lose as much as $1.6 billion in sales each year. Websites that take longer than 4 seconds to load will see 25% of users leave the site before the page loads.
Shopzilla reduced their website load time by 3 seconds and the following happened:
Source: Quick Sprout
While using fancy images and complex designs makes a website stand out and look pretty, without the correct optimization it could hurting your sales as Amazon found out.
Design helps make the right impression
The first impression is everything, according to Malcolm Gladwell:
“Buyers make most decisions by relying on their two-second first impressions based on stored memories, images and feelings.”
When interacting with businesses on social media, their website or other mediums, the design and images consumers are exposed to decides whether they will spend money or not.
A test carried out by Technomic revealed that consumers are highly influenced by design. A group of 2,500 people were asked which restaurant they thought served better food and drinks based solely on a single picture:
The results were surprising. Judging from the picture above, consumers believed the contemporary styled restaurant would provide a better service and meal:
As the old saying goes “a picture is worth a thousand words”, businesses need to make sure the images and design they use are portraying the right words.
Summary
With so many things to take care of on a day-to-day basis, it’s no surprise that businesses think there is little value in investing in their company logo or adjusting the design of their website to increase sales or improve customer retention.
But the research data reveals the exact opposite. All it takes is a website not loading fast enough or an uninspiring logo for a potential prospect to be put off permanently.
As popular culture and fashion trends change all the time, businesses who aren’t continually revamping their design and brand image to get with the times, place their brand in danger of being forgotten, as Apple almost did.
