As I talk to clients and other creative business owners, I hear a lot of fear and frustration about keeping up with content marketing while keeping the content and design on-brand. It starts with listening to your audience and clients and understanding the story your brand needs to tell.
Content is every word, image, video, and piece of audio that represents your organization. Design is how that content is presented. When the two work together, your organization has a better chance of connecting with its customers.
People see a tremendous amount of content every day, and much of it is forgettable.
If you’ve ever scrolled through Instagram without finding anything interesting, searched online and found only dry information, or encountered the same stock photos everywhere, you understand the problem. People want useful and engaging content that they can’t get anywhere else. Companies are trying to keep up by producing more, often without giving enough thought to whether the content is useful, recognizable, or well designed.
Here are my 8 design-informed tips for smart content marketing:
- Use your blogs, social media, and emails to help your audience
You want to inspire and educate your audience. A hard sell can quickly undo that goodwill. Design-wise, you may not even want to include your products in your content marketing designs. It should look like you, without overwhelming the content with your branding. A small logo is often enough.
2. Build a solid brand foundation so your content is recognizable
f your foundational marketing is chaotic, new marketing efforts won’t feel connected or recognizable. Before adding content marketing, make sure you have brand guidelines in place first. These guidelines can cover the types of visuals you use, logo placement, alternate logos, fonts, colors, and other details. We develop and expand companies’ brand guidelines so their materials work together.
- Introduce ONE new content marketing effort at a time
Stay focused. Launching several new channels at once divides your attention and makes it harder to learn what’s working. And for goodness’ sake, keep the design consistent. Even when something has to go out quickly, it should still look like it came from your organization.
- Have specific goals for your design
Before starting an Instagram account or another content channel, decide what you want it to accomplish. When in doubt about what realistic goals look like, engage a social media specialist. If it’s an online platform, the data can help you see what your audience responds to.
- Commit to a plan, for at least 6 months
You have to give content marketing a chance to work. You also need to know when an effort is taking more time and money than it deserves. Your up-front strategy and research can help you predict what may work, although results will give you the clearest answer. Six to 12 months is a reasonable amount of time to test a new effort without wasting resources indefinitely.
- Think about where your audience actually is
Find out where your current and prospective audiences spend their time. If none of them are on TikTok, you don’t need to be there. Focus your marketing on the channels your audience uses. (*watch this video on the magic of TikTok)
- Consider a collaboration
Collaborating with someone who already reaches the people you want to meet can introduce your work to a new audience. And hopefully, your collaboration will be tastier than Tropicana Crunch.
- Remember, content marketing and design go hand-in-hand
Strong content needs strong design. Every piece of content you deliver should look like your brand and support a clear purpose. Consistency helps people recognize your organization and understand what it stands for.
Make your design PART of your content strategy & planning
I help clients create the visual foundation for their content marketing. For ongoing digital content, that often means designing flexible templates their team can update. We also design ongoing print and PDF newsletters and magazines, working with each new issue to make the content clear, engaging, and consistent with the organization’s brand.
At Ruzow Graphics, we design content marketing materials and visual systems, including:
- Alternate logos that fit different formats
- Newsletter templates
- Ongoing print and PDF newsletters
- Ongoing magazine design
- Branded graphics for collaborations
- Podcast graphics and cover art
- Email templates
- Blog graphics and templates
- Presentation templates and other support materials
- Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn post templates
We can design templates in Canva, so you or someone on your team can update them as needed. For ongoing social media, email, or podcast promotion, this gives clients flexibility while keeping the design consistent.
If you’re planning a new content marketing effort, let’s talk about how the design can support it.
FAQs
How does design support content marketing?
Design helps people recognize where content comes from, understand the information, and decide what deserves their attention. Consistent typography, color, imagery, and layout connect each piece of content to the larger brand.
What makes content marketing effective?
Effective content marketing gives the audience something useful. It may answer a question, explain an idea, share helpful information, or offer a fresh point of view. The content also needs a clear purpose and a design that makes it easy to read and understand.
Why is brand consistency important in content marketing?
Brand consistency helps people recognize your organization across different channels. Your newsletter, social media posts, presentations, and other materials don’t have to look identical, but they should feel related. Clear guidelines for typography, color, imagery, and logo use make that possible.
How do you choose the right channels for your content?
Start with your audience. Look at where current and prospective customers spend their time and how they prefer to receive information. A channel is useful when it helps you reach the right people and supports your content goals.
How long should you test a new content marketing effort?
Give a new effort enough time to develop an audience and produce meaningful results. Six to 12 months is often a reasonable testing period. Review the results along the way so you can adjust the content, design, or schedule when needed.
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