How a CMO Is Using Visme to Cut Design Costs by 97%

How a CMO Is Using Visme to Cut Design Costs by 97%
Nayomi Chibana

Written by:
Nayomi Chibana

Apr 12, 2018
DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari

How many people do you know who can grow a new company from $200K in annual revenue to $3.2 million in three years, with limited resources?

Not many, I assume. Madhav Bhandari, however, is one of these rare, gifted marketers who can build a startup empire out of a few bricks—and still have time to take a vacation.

DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari

Last year, he was in need of an all-in-one visual content tool that would allow him to create quality infographics and presentations on a budget, without having to spend hundreds of dollars on a designer.

He came across Visme and started using it not only to create presentations in a fraction of the time it used to take him with traditional software, but also create infographics for his content marketing efforts.

Here is what he had to say about this DIY graphic design tool, in his own words:

 

For those who are unfamiliar with Hubstaff, tell us a bit about your organization and what makes it unique.

DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari

Hubstaff is a time tracking and remote hiring platform. Our mission is to help businesses manage their increasing reliance on remote teams and skilled freelancers at scale. We operate with a 100% remote team spread across 15 countries, so don’t have a physical office space.

This is our remote team in Chicago during our annual team retreat.

DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari

 

Tell us about your role in this organization.

I’m a marketing manager at Hubstaff (and also the first marketing hire). My primary role is to identify our next big marketing channels and scale them, so we can hit our aggressive yearly revenue goals. In the last 3 years, we have grown our annual revenue from $200,000 to $3.2 million. We’re also very transparent about our core business metrics.

How-a-CMO-Is-Using-Visme-to-Cut-Design-Costs-by-97%-Madhav-Bhandari

 

How did you hear about this DIY graphic design tool and what made it stand out against other competitors?

visme vs canva DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari

I was a heavy user of Canva and relied on it to make most of my blog graphics. But there were many limitations in Canva. For example, the inability to create infographics easily. Also, I didn’t have too many presentation templates and it wasn’t a very data-driven tool.

So I had to hire infographic designers to get these data-driven graphics built. That used to cost me a lot: easily about $300 to $400 per graphic and up to 4 hours spent with the designer on feedback calls.

DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari
Create engaging infographics like this in minutes with this drag-and-drop tool.Connect with Sales

The money wasn’t worth it for me. Especially, if you’re in the early stages of your business and bootstrapping, I’d rather spend $10 a month on a graphic design tool than hire a designer for $400 an infographic. So I gave Visme a try.

I understand there is an opportunity cost, but trust me—making infographics has been SO simple, fast and I’m happy to have full control over these graphics.

 

Can you give us a few examples of how Visme is helping you create visual marketing content?

Yes, I’ll share two. The first is a freelancing trends study in which we interviewed 15,000+ freelancers and got their insights. I had to share the results in a talk at an event. I built that presentation in 4 hours in one go:

DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari

Also, I repurposed an article of mine into an infographic via Visme, which took me only two to three hours. Here is that infographic:

DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari

 

What positive business results have you seen from using this DIY graphic design tool?

visme infographics content blocks DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari
Create your own blog graphics like this with this drag-and-drop tool.Connect with Sales

Getting an infographic built used to set me back by $400 and 4 hours of feedback time. Also, I’d get the infographic in a week or two. So that delay needs to be taken into account.

Right now, I can build an infographic for free using Visme and 4 hours of time building it. I also get the infographic whenever I want.

In order to make better use of my time, I’m training my virtual assistant to build infographics using Visme, which should hopefully make this very cost effective for me.

Also, looking at the full capabilities of this DIY graphic design tool, I have become a lot more interested in making data-driven information more beautifully presented to my audience. That should definitely up my content marketing game.

 

Which Visme features do you like the most?

visme infographic blocks DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari

Infographic blocks. They’ve made my life SO simple. It was a brilliant idea from these guys.

Whenever I used to create a content piece and had to think about creating an accompanying infographic to it, I never felt motivated to do that. Creating a good infographic would easily take me at least a week or two to create, if not more.

These infographic blocks have eliminated that anxiety of the effort it would require to build an infographic. Now it takes me like 2 to 4 hours to build one, thanks to those infographic blocks. I’m planning to create more and more infographics for my content as the content marketing industry moves more towards visual storytelling.

Visme's wide infographic template library makes the time needed to create infographics even shorter.

I’d also like to add that their blog has helped me design better infographics. One useful technique I learned is to use images in place of points when explaining something. Here’s an example from a presentation I created using Visme:

visme presentation example DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari

I also like that the editor has a lot of options to present data in an engaging and elegant way in an infographic.

To summarize, the value Visme provides as a DIY graphic design tool is easily covered with the infographic features themselves. I consider the other visual storytelling features as a bonus.

 

Would you recommend Visme to others? If so, why would you recommend it?

Yes. If you have the budget to spend $500 per infographic, then go ahead and hire an infographic designer.

If you can’t afford to spend $500 per infographic but don’t want to miss the benefits that infographics bring, use Visme to build your infographic.

I’d also add that Visme does an excellent job at educating their users. I’m an avid reader of their blog and have definitely improved my visual storytelling, thanks to their content.

visme versus google slides DIY graphic design tool hubstaff Madhav Bhandari

 

Lastly, what features, if any, would you like to see improved or added?

First of all, I love the new update on the Visme editor. It's made my experience using Visme a LOT better. Thanks!

As for improvements, I would say that the app interface can be slow sometimes, so I’d appreciate if you can work on improving the speed there. I understand the program is in beta, but I’d love if those small bugs here and there can be fixed. Also, a bigger icon and image library would be nice. More variety.

 

Your Turn

Looking for a cost-effective way to quickly and easily create infographics and presentations for your startup or business? Take Visme for a test drive here and let us know what you think below.

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    About the Author

    Nayomi Chibana is a journalist and writer for Visme’s Visual Learning Center. Besides researching trends in visual communication and next-generation storytelling, she’s passionate about data-driven content.