What is visual marketing and How to effectively utilise it?

It comes at no shocking revelation that our attentions span gets shorter and shorter with each generation, as marketers give way by creating content that leans towards both instant gratification and ease. Stories being a great example. Visual marketing is the answer to minimal commitment and maximum entertainment for our viewers.

What is visual content marketing?

Visual marketing is about connecting your messages to images.

It’s your job to create visuals like enticing images, captivating videos, creative infographics, gifs, graphic designs, etc. and incorporate them into your marketing strategy..

Why?

The human brain actually prefers visual content, with  approximately 65% of us learn visually.

It helps your viewers visualise products and services better, and make an informed purchase decision, whether they are your products or affiliates. Statistics say, 80% of the marketers use a visual marketing strategy in their social media marketing activities with 40% of them saying that original visuals helped them reach their goals.

Why is visual marketing important?

We know when visual content marketing is done effectively it can produce more engagement, more shares, and more traffic.

Did you know that?

32% of marketers say visual images are the most important form of content for their business, with blogging in second (27%). (Social Media Examiner)

The question is: what types of images should you use?

What qualifies as visual marketing?

There are 6 types of visual marketing materials that can help you convey your message both easily and simply.

Infographics

Infographics are the most socially shared form of content according to OKDORK & Buzzsumo, however only 12% people actively used them due to fact that they were the most difficult to create. Using templates from places like Canva, Piktochart and Venngage really helps with design challenges.

Posting infographics on a website can boost traffic by around 12% and GIFOgraphics increased peoples attention span by 82%. Eye-tracking studies have shown that online readers pay more attention and spend more time on images that carry information than they do on the text that’s on the same page. So this definitely one to try.

Photos

Original photos is still king of the visual content with 50% of people saying it was the leading factor to them achieving their goal. However, the other 40% said they used stock photos as creating consistent original content was the biggest challenge of visual content. Despite which method you use, articles containing images receive 94 percent more views and 3x more engagement as compared to those that don’t have any images.

Bottom line: Using an image is important, but using original images that evoke emotions is best.

Pro tip: Planning out your visual content makes life a lot easier when you know both it’s intention and where you want to use it and using tools like Canva & Adobe’s Lightroom make the process so much easier.

Quotes

Quotes are like the cliff notes of the article, allowing viewers to decide whether to read the paragraph with minimum commitment. According to Fast Company, inspirational quotes have a few qualities; pleasing language and metaphors, evoke an emotion response that make them popular and compelling. 

Pro Tip: Quotes are a great way of outreaching to influencers by quoting them on a branded graphic, to help with brand awareness. Don’t forget to tag them.

Video

We know that video is the most versatile as it’s both audial and visual simultaneously, and has seen the biggest development over the last year with need for more virtual events and video conferencing. When you think about it logically, video is simply moving images, it would make sense that video would have the biggest impact. Video is most useful for time on page, and keeping attention longer –

People look at video for up to five times longer than static content.

Don’t panic you don’t need a studio and professional hair and makeup artist on standby. There are many types of video that don’t require you at all. 360 videos and Short video stories are growing in popularity, however just like original graphics do better than stock photos, videos also need a strategy. The best type of video are customer testimonials, demonstrations and how to videos. Video came in second at 24% of people saying it help them reach their marketing goals, with a boost of views by 48%. however only 14% of people consistently used video as part of their strategy, claiming overwhelm being the biggest challenge, from gear to marketing strategy. The classic I don’t know what to start or what to post about.

Animated

Animated Graphics from GIFs, Memes, or mini animations to enhance your images. They all work towards that mass online video presence and is a great way to dabble towards a video marketing strategy. The main goal is evoke an emotion, or capture their attention. Mini animations are very easy to create and add to your original photos in Canva. Meme’s and gifs evoke the biggest emotional response, however produce the least about of engagement, so are best used for entertaining your viewers on social media.

Presentation

The old powerpoint presentations aren’t dead yet, making up 7% of visual marketing content. With sites like SlideShare provide the ability to make simple and yet effect presentations into bitesize chunks, seems appealing to those advice and informational hungry people seeking answers.

Pro Tip: Its essential however that the design style and feel of these presentation slide remain consistent and easy to read. Less is more.

Here are some key takeaways from the visual content marketing data, those that matter to your business for my busy skim reading moms:

• Original content is more effective than generic stock.
• Keep designs simple and muted. (Learning the psychology of colours can really help your designs)
• Add a video or animation to grab their attention.
• Have a simple visual marketing strategy and plan it out to remain consistent.
• If in doubt, ask for help.