In this series, I’ve talked a lot about why you should care about custom illustrations for your business.
Custom illustrations are:
Memorable to your customers
A visual storytelling method, and
Relatable, shareable and desirable
In short, they bring value to your business and help you reach your goals of:
Making money
Attracting customers
Building community around your business and brand
Do I have your attention now? Let’s get into part 3!
Custom illustrations are relatable, shareable, and desirable
Go look at the last few things you’ve liked, saved, or shared on social media.
I guarantee one is some sort of image or graphic. Maybe even an illustration or other artistic creation.
The reason Instagram is so popular is that it’s centered around images. And if you’re in marketing you know people are way more likely to engage with an image than plain text alone.
What does that mean for you and your business?
I want to make the case that you’ll get more customer engagement with imagery, especially custom illustrations that are unique to YOUR brand, no one else’s.
Why will you get more engagement? Because custom illustrations are:
Relatable
Shareable
Desirable
And really, when you think about it, those are the exact things you want your customers doing:
relating to your brand,
sharing their experience or your content, and
desiring to take a piece of your brand/their experience home with them
Let’s dive into each of these characteristics of custom illustrations.
People aren’t perfect, and neither are custom illustrations
We mentioned in the second blog post of this series that your customers want to feel
Connected to your business
Part of your story
More than just a customer
One way we establish this connection is through relating to them.
Think about Audi, Rolex, and Versace. All have sleek, modern branding that feels luxurious. As we know, they’re clearly offering goods at the highest levels of quality.
But here’s the thing: they aren’t really trying to make their customers relate to them.
Their goal is to make their customers feel important, even elite while using their products or services.
This isn’t a bad thing, but it does breed a culture of superiority and almost a form of escapism from normal life and its normal problems.
Custom, hand-drawn illustrations, on the other hand, with their imperfect lines and not-quite-proportional details, automatically make people feel a sense of comfort.
Custom illustrations have flaws, human imperfection. Your customers can always connect with that.
Because hey, guess what, those people that are using luxury goods/services are flawed too.
It’s a universal human experience.
This is not to say you shouldn’t offer high-quality products and elevated services.
You should make your customers feel special and important, but you can do it in a way that is still in touch with the human experience.
Sharing is Caring
Cheesy subhead, but it’s TRUE.
In this day and age of social media, you can often gauge people’s interest or love of a brand by how and if they share your content or share their experiences with others.
People like to share because it helps them feel a part of a larger community.
How can you leverage the power of sharing for your business? Custom illustrations of course!
Custom illustrations of your storefront or products look like the real thing, but aren’t quite the same as a photo. This makes them a unique novelty.
It is familiar content presented in an unfamiliar or unexpected way. People WILL slow their scroll for something that stands out from the feed.
And again, they’re easily digestible and super shareable. Your customers will want to reshare the hand-drawn version of your storefront, or the illustration of your famous breadstick recipe.
It’s time to take control of your brand’s content and utilize the power of shareability through unique illustrations.
Gimme, gimme, gimme
I grew up going to the beach constantly in the summer.
One restaurant, the Sanitary, despite being a greasy spoon seafood joint on the water, has stayed alive prominently (in my mind and others’), even though I haven’t eaten there in years and only get down to the beach once or twice a year.
How?
Through their t-shirts.
An illustrated picture of their storefront is displayed largely on the back of the shirt, and I mean it when I say they are ubiquitous throughout eastern North Carolina, where I grew up.
The right piece of merchandise can do a hell of a lot for your business, too.
Unique, eye-catching merchandise should be a part of your offerings, and custom illustrations will really take them to the next level.
Let’s talk about why:
(1) Customers want to take a piece of their favorite places home with them
People don’t necessarily have shirts from the Sanitary because this it’s a fine dining establishment. They have it because it’s an iconic shirt and in an iconic location on the waterfront.
For me, it always reminds me of my summer camp days and our once-a-session overnight trip to the Morehead City waterfront.
Customers love to take a piece of their favorite places home with them because it preserves memories from past experiences.
(2) Merchandise lets your customers share a part of themselves with their friends and family
Wearing your Sanitary shirt communicates that you’ve been to this part of North Carolina and experienced one of the famous waterfront culinary traditions.
Customers want to be able to share a part of themselves with their friends and family, and one part of us is our favorite restaurants or businesses.
Merchandise like stickers, hats, shirts or koozies is an incredibly easy way to help your customers share their interests with others.
Take it to the next level with an eye-catching, custom illustration to ensure that your merchandise is one-of-a-kind.
(3) Custom illustrations, translated into merch, are free advertising
Merchandise is practical. Your customers will likely buy something if there is utility in it.
And where there is utility, there is free advertisement.
A classic shirt or hat design, when dispersed throughout the region and beyond through your satisfied customers, will bring in new customers who have seen it.
The next best thing besides having one unique piece of merch is re-working it into a special, seasonal or limited edition version.
Remix the design for the holidays, label it the “limited-edition holiday version” and the people will come running.
That’s just one of many ways to get the most bang for your buck using custom illustrations in your merch.
Take it from someone who is a sucker for a cool t-shirt and will do almost anything for one. Your customers will line up for cool merchandise, so it’s in your best interest to serve them the best, most unique products!
Consider these 3 things for massive customer engagement
So, what have we learned?
Custom illustrations provide:
Relatability
Shareability
Desirability
When you have these three things in mind, custom illustrations are a no-brainer.
Your customers will relate to them because they see their imperfect selves and lives in the imperfect, hand-drawn illustrations in your brand.
Your customers will share them, because they are a familiar concept (your business) shared in an unfamiliar way (your business illustrated).
Your customers will desire them, so get that drawing off your screen and onto a t-shirt! People buy and sport merch from their favorite companies because it communicates a part of who they are and what they stand for to others.
Don’t forget, there is nothing more powerful than a happy customer. Let’s make sure they keep coming back.
If you’ve followed this 3-part blog series, thank you so much! Blogging is a very new (and unexpected) thing for me, and every website page view and social media like means the world to me.
I’ll be back with more content soon, but until then, follow me on Instagram or Facebook, and let me know what you thought of this series! I’ll also be happy to answer any questions you might have.
If you’re ready to work together to take your business to the next level with custom illustrations, fill out my contact form and we can talk shop!