89% of Designers Get Blamed for Poor Sales: Survey
19 October 2022: Around 89% of graphic designers say they get blamed for poor sales performance. Further, 24% of designers say they get blamed “all the time,” according to a study of 300 professional graphic designers conducted by Santa Cruz Software.
“It is observed that graphic designers spend significant time managing small tweaks, like swapping headlines, dates or images. These requests often distract them from bigger design projects while stifling their productivity. The disconnection between graphic designers and the departments that they work with acts as a roadblock, especially for sales,” said Mark Hilton, CEO of Santa Cruz Software.
An overwhelming majority (88%) of graphic designers say that a new design requires at least three revisions on average. Additionally, 42% say that new designs require six or more revisions. Because revisions and customizations can cause delay, 79% of designers have seen non-designers sidestep approval processes and customize materials without designer oversight, often resulting in mistakes. The most common mistakes that graphic designers report seeing include designs that are non-brand compliant (48%), misleading claims (58%), informational mistakes (63%), spelling mistakes (60%) and unlicensed images (48%).
The solution to this problem is branded, customizable templates. Nearly all (95%) agreed that the design customization process would be easier with branded, customizable templates. A quarter (25%) of graphic designers even said that branded, customizable templates would be “life changing.”
Nearly 65% of designers spend half their week or more making small tweaks, often at the request of sales and marketing departments. However, 55% of designers would rather spend 30+ hours weekly designing new materials. As a result, 57% have been forced to refuse design customization requests due to lack of time.
The departments that most often request materials are marketing (79%), sales (70%), business development (64%) and product development (62%). Most graphic designers work on Social Media Ads (70%), Banner Ads (65%), Posters (64%) and Event Fliers (63%). A branded, customizable template enables designers to create materials with most elements locked in place, which may include elements such as the logo, brand name and image. Other elements on the template can be customizable, for example the headline, date and description. This empowers non-designers to customize materials while maintaining brand compliance.
www.santacruzsoftware.com
