The chemistry of engagement
How to develop a design strategy that works.
Marketers often struggle to get budget for specialist design support, feel bound by strict brand guidelines, or simply don’t give design enough consideration. “Many content creators fall into the trap of just focusing on the interesting story and not joining up the dots between the content and the path you want the customer to take,” says Autodesk’s content lead Judy Wilks.
Pérignon of TCS Thought Leadership Institute adds: “A design strategy is a huge strategic piece that’s often in the backseat, but it should be at the forefront.”
A design strategy is simply using your knowledge of your audience’s behavior and preferences to optimize the look and feel of your content – in the same way you use insights to tailor the topics, formats, and platforms you choose in a campaign.
Pérignon explains: “There's all sorts of components that help you make more of an impact with your content. The images you use, the amazing infographics and dynamic designs, how you structure the content to really make it stick with the reader. All this is design strategy. The design enables the content.”
Dynamic content platforms like Turtl offer the type of in-depth analytics that help you understand what factors contribute to read time. You can, however, yield valuable insights from small-scale experiments with very little tech.
Conduct an audit to find out which formats yield a higher read time with your target audience. Aggregate the read times across different campaigns to build a better picture of audience preferences. If your capabilities allow, dig into read time by section and page and build a content-design framework based on the highest performing topics and visuals. A/B testing – a tried and tested methodology for all marketers – can help you optimize design iteratively whilst campaigns are live. “It’s not difficult to switch color palettes and test which ones work better” says Pérignon.
It's also important to listen to customer-facing teams. Often, they have the best data on what your audience wants. “Nothing will replace a salesperson or relationship manager saying to you, ‘hey, I'm sending something to a customer. I know she's interested in X topic, and she prefers short-form content.”
Our analysis of the best-performing content shows that design is fundamental to increasing engagement. It doesn’t, however, prove that design trumps the value of good copywriting.
Engaging content is beautifully and strategically packaged. But it’s also well-written, insight-driven and relevant.
The combination of style and substance is ultimately what builds brand loyalty and creates business outcomes.
In the age of content overload, marketers should focus on creating quality, not volume.
By analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your existing content through metrics like read time, you can optimize the content creation process and focus on tactics that work. That means better cut-through. More engagement. Higher ROI.
Stop relying on clicks and downloads and start increasing the time your audience spends looking at your content. ‘Read time’ is scientifically linked to better customer relationships and top- and bottom-of-the-funnel impact.
Create a design strategy that complements your content strategy. Research shows that the presentation of information affects reader engagement.
Rely on both data analytics and anecdotal feedback from customer-facing teams. Not all content can be quantified, and qualitative feedback is highly valuable.
Focus on the quality, not volume of content. Do more with less by analyzing the tactics that work and continually optimizing existing content to better understand user behavior.
Consider investing in sophisticated content tools that simplify the creation and measurement of engaging content.
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