An effective marketing strategy is the key business success in this rapidly expanding digital world. Creative, and update marketing strategy is essential due to decreasing attention span of the customers.
High quality graphics improves brand credibility and they are crucial for the success of your marketing strategy. According to a survey, 49% of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) believe that graphic design is crucial to their success. Among all kinds of marketing visuals, infographics have become quite popular recently. People are 30% more likely to read a full infographic than an article. So, it is time to invest in graphic design for the success of your business.
Why graphics are important
Stunning graphics speak volumes. Whether it’s your blog post, an informative essay, your social media graphics, images for your email marketing campaigns, your company guide or your company brochure, stunning graphics add an incredible value to the overall brand identity and awareness. The visual aspects of the graphics make them a great marketing tool. They draw the attention of audience, tell a story and provide a powerful way to grab audience’s attention.
According to Keith Hunn, at Austin Bryant Consulting, infographics are a top choice for link assets in their link building outreach campaigns. He says “One of my favorite stats is that people are 30 times more likely to be read than an article (SMA Marketing). Infographics gives us a huge advantage when building links for our clients.”
Let’s take a look at the top 5 graphic design software that can lead your small business to success:
Top 5 Graphic Design Software
As a small business owner, you might be on tight budget. Therefore, most small business rely on graphic design software for their effectiveness and cost-efficiency. Design tools that are available today can help you create stunning graphics even with a small budget.
1.Canva
If you don’t have a lot of design experience and you want to create stunning visuals for marketing, Canva is the perfect tool for you. Although created for beginners, Canva also brings a lot of ease to design professionals with its efficient tools. You can create social media graphics, infographics, business logos, presentations, Instagram stories & posts, photo collage, YouTube thumbnails, etc.
Canva offers plenty of templates to create stunning graphics for your business and provide information while increasing brand awareness. It has a wide collection of photos and stock library that provides you an incredible opportunity to choose the best graphics for you. With easy customization options, you can add your own text and images to Canva’s infographic templates.
Top Features
- Content management system to ensure brand accuracy
- Easy sharing of content with team members
- All assets in one place
- Customizable templates
Pricing Plans
- Free plan with limited features
- Pro plan for small businesses at $12.99 per month
- Enterprise plan for graphic teams at $30 per month
Pros
- Ideal for beginners and non-designers
- Perfect tools for creating branded content
- A vast selection of templates to choose from
Cons
- Poor video editing features
- No screen sharing feature
- Complex co-editing settings
2. Visme
Visme is the best presentation software for business and educational needs. It is a design tool for non-professionals. Visme comes with a unified dashboard which makes seamless collaboration with team members possible. You can create and manage your projects without any hassle. The biggest strength of Visme is its powerful tools for creating engaging infographics.
Visme gives you complete control when creating an infographic. You can animate content to make it more engaging. Recording a voiceover to add to the graphic is also possible with this design tool. Visme offers fonts, quality images, and icons to choose from for your infographics.
Top Features
- Powerful presentation tools
- Creative control over infographics
- Unified dashboard for effective collaborations
- Third-party integrations
Pricing Plans
- Free basic plan that comes with most templates.
- Personal plan for design professionals at $29 per month.
- Business plan for SMBs at $59 per month.
- Enterprise plan for corporations. You will have to contact the Visme sales team to learn about the pricing for this plan.
Pros
- A huge collection of icons, fonts, and images for infographics
- 24/7 live customer support
- Advanced collaboration tools for group projects
- Easy to use for non-designers
Cons
- More expensive than other SAAS platforms
- The search feature needs improvements
- Limited variety of animated content
3. Adobe Creative Cloud Express
Adobe Creative Cloud Express is a multipurpose tool that lets you create rich multimedia content. You can create everything from social media posts to invitations, brochures to infographics, logos to banners, etc.
This template-based tool is ideal for beginners and non-designers. With its collection of templates, you can easily create fascinating infographics for social media marketing.
Top Features
- Content library that lets you store all graphics in one place
- Templates and stock assets for infographics
- Ideal for both image and video editing
Pricing Plans
- Free plan with limited storage and core features.
- Premium plan for professionals and SMBs at $9.99 per month.
Pros
- Comes with file conversion capabilities
- Premade designs and templates
- Professional looking graphics
Cons
- Limited number of templates
- Progress isn’t saved every time
- Third-party integration isn’t seamless
4. Venngage
Venngage is a dedicated software for creating infographics, posters, and reports. It can greatly benefit people working with a limited budget. It can help you whip up an infographic in no time so you can meet your deadlines easily.
With Venngage, you can create the following visuals:
- Infographics
- Roadmaps for business processes
- Timelines and flowcharts
- Presentations for both business and educational purpose
- Visual reports
- Posters for social media
- Checklists
Top Features
- Powerful collaboration tools
- An effective search feature
- Diverse icons for infographics
Pricing Plans
- Free plan with six image uploads
- Premium plan for individuals at $19 per month
- Business plan for team collaborations at $49 per month
- Enterprise plan for ten users at $499 per month
Pros
- Over seven thousand templates for infographics
- 24/7 customer support
- Easy customization
Cons
- User interface can be confusing for non-designers
- Search feature isn’t very helpful
- Lack of control over the organization of assets
- Piktochart
First published in March 2012, Piktochart is an all-in-one tool that lets you design everything from infographics and posters to social media graphics and presentations. You can create the basic graphic visuals with in a hour. It is also a powerful video editing tool.
Take your business visual storytelling to the next level with Piktochart. With Piktochart, you can learn how to be a great visual storyteller for your business. You can impove your social media marketing with the help of graphics designed in Piktochart.
Top Features
- A huge selection of easily customizable templates
- Collaboration tools that let you share information with your team in real-time
- Video editing tools for social media marketing
Pricing Plans
- Free plan with 2 visual downloads
- Pro plan for small teams at $24 per month
- Enterprise plan for big design teams. You can learn about the pricing by getting in touch with the sales team.
Pros
- Great selection of images with the free version
- Easy to use for people with no design experience
- Stores patterns, art, and colors
Cons
- Text customization doesn’t work seamlessly
- No live support
- Complete lack of animated assets
Conclusion
Creative, stunning and beautiful graphics improves the overall aesthetics of your marketing strategy, and therefore it is important to choose the best one. All the graphic software mentioned above can make your digital marketing more effective. However, with its powerful tools for creating infographics, Visme stands apart from the crowd. Although a bit expensive, the benefits of Visme make it worth every penny.
Have you already incorporated the power of visuals into your marketing strategy? Let us know in the comment section below.
