Graphic design is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes to create visual representations of a company’s brand, products, and services. But as you step outside the realm of 'making things look pretty', design has a strong potential as any other departmental function to contribute to a business's revenue and grow their market share.

How you ask? Let's examine the following;

  • Strategies for successful design for ARR
  • Challenges of Graphic Design for ARR
  • Tips on how to get started

But first things first...

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What is ARR?

ARR stands for Annual Recurring Revenue. It is a measure of the total revenue that a company is expected to generate from its customers on an annual basis. This includes recurring revenue from subscription-based products, as well as any other revenue that is expected to be generated from customers on an ongoing basis. ARR is an important metric for evaluating the success of a company's business model and customer retention efforts.

ARR is typically controlled by the finance and accounting team of the company. They are responsible for tracking and calculating the revenue that is expected to be generated from existing customers on an annual basis. They are also responsible for forecasting and budgeting for future revenue streams. ARR is generated usually by sales teams who are responsible for acquiring new customers and selling products or services. Additionally, marketing teams are responsible for creating campaigns and strategies to drive customer engagement and retention. Customer success teams are responsible for maintaining relationships with existing customers and ensuring that they continue to receive value from the product or service. So where does Design fit in?

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Strategies for successful design for ARR

Graphic design can be of great value when it comes to creating a better end-to-end brand experience.

If you lay out your customers journey from lead generation to customer renewal, there are many opportunities Creatives can take advantage of to enhance departmental strategies and push further on ideas of execution. A typical journey can be broken up as illustrated below inspired by Hubspot's flywheel, with opportunities Designers can take hold of:

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Lead Generation;

> Typically owned by Marketing + Sales

For Designers, this can be seen as the Attraction phase.

Most company orgs are structured so Design teams sit directly under Marketing. It will be on to the designers to carry out the campaign strategies generated by Marketing and use the power of seductive and persuasive design to attract their customers and drive customer engagement. In order to draw people to your business, it is essential to be strategic in the way you advertise. Rather than trying to strong-arm attention, Creatives should focus on utilising useful and engaging content they have at hand to visually display it in a way that will capture people's interest. This can be done through a variety of channels like social media, paid ads, emails and ad campaigns. It would be important for the brands identity to be strong and used persuasively and seductively. Creatives at this stage could be more than capable of establishing brans awareness and provide an enjoyable and informative experience for potential leads.

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Lead Nurturing;

> Typically owned by Content + Marketing

For Designers, this can be seen as the Engaging phase:

In order to make your business more visible and accessible, it is important to focus on building relationships with potential customers. This can be achieved by providing personalised experiences on your website, emails, events, eBooks, case studies, or other collateral. So as you can imagine, this phase can be pretty data and context heavy depending on the message and information your company wants to deploy. It's a Designer's job to make sure that this information is translated into a visual language that gives leads opportunities to learn about your company and get the best possible experience. It's a great opportunity to maintain brand awareness and start to creep into brand salience the more they get to know about your company.

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Customer Retention;

> Typically owned by Customer Success

For Designers, this can be seen as the Delighting phase:

By partnering up with Customer Success, Designers can ensure that they are doing their part by supporting them with collateral that can help clients and customers see the value that they have obtained whilst being part of your business and the value and benefits of remaining. Designs at this state can be similar to the attraction phase but using more personalised information. This part can be more time consuming as personalised work would mean more time so finding a scalable way to accommodate will be beneficial. By supporting and empowering customers to reach their goals, you can ensure that your business will be successful in retaining more ARR.

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Challenges of Graphic Designers for ARR

As you probably grasped, most of the hard drivers around driving ARR tend to sit with Marketing, Sales and Customer Success. It can seem difficult (but not impossible) for a designer to infiltrate and gain access to these sectors but they can not act alone. Designers will depend on the experience and strategies of others to then be able to enhance it so in essence, in other words, it would be all guts with none of the glory.

Designers tend to focus on their own craft and in some companies, not given the opportunity to explore and learn about other areas and departments in order to offer their two sense on ideas and strategies. It will no doubt be a challenge but it is doable with resilience and a company that offers 'learning on the job' experience to combine the two. It takes the designer out of 'making things look pretty' and enhances them to make them work!

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So what now?

So you see, by Creatives actively contributing to the above sectors, they are already actively contributing to your ARR growth. It might not always be directly but through working and enhancing other departmental strategies and even at times forming their own based on their analysis and understanding of the customer journey. Designers can measure the impact their creations have, whether that is click through rates, form submissions, engagement and everything in-between for metrical support that their contributions are having a positive impact.

You now have the tools, now go and make it happen!

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