What was your favourite comic strip growing up? If you were like me, you’d find yourself glued to the newspaper when Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts and Garfield made their weekly appearance. Nothing could distract me from my vantage point on the couch, and nothing could prevent me from reading the strip till the end. That’s the power of a good cartoon. It holds you, keeps you enthralled and has you coming back for more.
Now, how would it be if someone looked for your newsletters, blogs and web pages with such gusto? How would it feel to find your readers wait for your weekly email or post with such eagerness? That would feel wonderful, wouldn’t it?
The power of the comic
Studies show that over 65% of the world’s population are visual learners and 90% of the information humans learn is derived from visual cues. This is why it’s important to add some form of animation in your web content. Research has shown that websites that include cartoons, comic strips or animated videos experience an 80% hike in conversion rates compared to websites that don’t use animations of any kind.
Image Credits: Unsplash
Apart from higher website visits, CTRs and conversion rates, cartoons and comic strips bring many advantages to your content:
- They add humour to the content and make it more ‘readable’
- They make content more memorable and more share-worthy
- They make content highly-versatile due to the universal nature of cartoons
Five ways to use cartoons and comics in your content
“Life is like a hot bath: It feels good while you’re in it, but the longer you stay, the more wrinkled you get.”
-Garfield
Well, at Godot we agree. Something that feels good and which looks like its working may actually be bad for you in the long run. The case is the same whether it’s a hot bath or an over-reliance on wordy content.
So, if you find yourself using too many words and too few cartoons in your content and aren’t sure how to include comic strips and animation in your blogs and eBooks, then take a look at our list below.
Here we have the five super-easy ways in which you can use cartoons to add value to your content:
Image Credits: Pixabay
- Use them to explain complicated concepts
Does your blog deal with really complicated scientific information? Maybe your readers are finding it difficult to grasp the concepts you’re talking about. In this case, using a cartoon or comic strip is a great way to make the content more understandable.
You can also use cartoons to explain product usage instructions to help your customers use your product with ease.
- Use them to support a claim you make
Say you’ve made a claim that your software product helps automate the customer management process efficiently 95% of the time. You can let your cartoons do the talking by inserting them into your e-brochures, newsletters, training modules and web pages, vouching for the same. For the best effect, use different characters and different storylines to convey the same message.
Image Credits: Pixabay
- Use them to address common problems your customers face
Cartoons and comics are excellent to represent various buyer persona online. Say you have three different types of customers – each with its own motivations, buying behaviour and challenges.
You can use your cartoons to create three distinct storylines focusing on the needs and challenges of the three types of buyers and convey how your product is the ideal solution to the problems your customers face.
- Use them to reinforce what you have to say
Let’s say you are an online magazine and you routinely post long essays which some readers may find challenging to read till the end. Interspersing cartoons and comic strips which summarise/reinforce sections of the write-up will be a great way to engage readers who don’t enjoy drawn-out posts, but who do like your colourful cartoons.
Another advantage of cartoons is that you can always post the strips and animated stories as new posts days after the wordy post are published, to reinforce the presence of your brand in the minds of your customers.
- Use them to showcase your brand’s personality
Finally, use cartoons and comic strips to showcase your brand’s personality. Whether you’re fun and flirty or serious and sombre, every emotion can be easily depicted via cartoons and comic strips, making them fun and universal.
In fact, cartoons are the best way to show people across cultures and geographical boundaries what your brand stands for, without adding effort to creating long sentences.
Case Study: The Awkward Yeti
The Awkward Yeti is one of 2018s largest and most-followed comic strips in the world. It follows the journey of Heart, Brain, Gallbladder and the rest of their organ pals as they experience everything from heartbreaks to heartburns. One look at the comic strips and it shows you how wonderfully the cartoons do a variety of things like convey sensitive information, market products and engage customers.
Take the story ‘The Battle’ for example. Through simple cartoons, the brand explains the difficult, crippling and intangible illnesses of depression and social anxiety. In a comic strip entitled ‘Is it cancer?’, the cartoonists highlight a common problem that people face – should we go to the doctor for medical diagnosis or should we believe every morbid diagnosis the internet makes about us?
Finally, through every comic strip and cartoon character they’ve ever created, The Awkward Yeti shows how they are a creative, fun and spontaneous brand that’s full of young energy. This makes their cartoons so loveable and recommends their wide range of products to customers from across the world.
They are a great example of how brands can use cartoons and comic strips to add value to a variety of content.
Image Credits: Pixabay
Five tips for creating stellar cartoons
- Start small & simple
The most important thing to remember is to begin with small and simple designs. Don’t try to attempt a full-scale city during your first attempt. Your first few cartoons should be simple figures that are easy to design and add onto.
- Model first, draw last
Experts advise that it’s best to create a small-scale model out of clay to experiment with body features and facial expressions. This way, even if you want to change something, you can make minute changes as opposed to re-drawing the entire cartoon. When modelling, remember that Composition, Perspective, Gesture, Anatomy (CGPA) are very important.
- Don’t involve the writers during the design
While the writers are important to give you direction about the life and personality about the cartoons, never give them free reign to call all the shots. As a cartoonist, the cartoons and comics are your domain, and you are the expert who needs to take a call about how a cartoon should look like.
Image Credits: Pixabay
- Straddle the line between relatable and unique
Cartoons that perform best online are those that customers find familiar and relatable. Then again, cartoons that are unique and have extreme temperaments or behaviours are also crowd favourites. When designing a cartoon for your brand, remember to give them a strong personality. Every character in your strip should be relatable but have a quirk of his/her own.
- Decide whether to go 2D or 3D
This choice is primarily dependent on where the cartoon will be published and what the physical features of the cartoon are. For example, eBooks and newsletters are great for 2D cartoons because of their non-intrusive nature, which doesn’t detract from the content. However, if you’re writing about the bad effects of beer on the body, then a 3D cartoon of a man with a huge beer belly will really add great visual appeal to your content.
The final line
While words are amazing, content marketers need to understand the importance of visual stimuli in content marketing. Use our tips to create stunning cartoons and comic strips and add a funny & edgy vibe to your brand’s content.
Feature Image Credits: PEXELS