Are you utilizing enough visual content in your content marketing and overall digital marketing strategy?
Visual content is a crucial key to dealing with the shorter attention spans of the audience and the increase in digital platforms and devices. Capturing your audience’s attention and conveying your brand’s message is now even more challenging. And in a time where every scroll and click competes for a fleeting moment of a user’s time, harnessing the power of visual content is not only a choice but is now a necessity.
It’s time to dive into the vibrant world of visual content marketing and discover how it can transform your digital marketing efforts.
What is visual content marketing?
Visual content marketing, to put it in simpler terms, is the use or content marketing approach of using multiple visual elements and media to promote and market a brand, product, or service. It involves creating and sharing visual content, such as images, videos, infographics, and more, on various digital platforms. This is essentially done to engage, educate, and attract a target audience.
Visual content can be used to:
- Simplify complex data
- Tell a story
- Show humor and entertainment
- Create engagement
- Share tutorials and exclusive knowledge
- Increase social proof
- Repurpose content
Visual content is an essential part of digital marketing strategies because it can effectively convey information, evoke emotions, and capture the audience’s attention in a way that text alone often cannot.
It’s also important to consider the fact that people’s attention spans are now shorter. Research has shown that between 2000 and 2015, the average human attention span shrank by a whopping 25%, from 12 seconds to 8.25 seconds. Because of this, brands need to innovate new ways of getting the attention of their audience and delivering crucial information to readers. Leveraging visual content marketing is a surefire way businesses can prosper.
Why is visual content marketing important?
Visual content marketing is important for several compelling reasons. Without a doubt, it has become an integral part of digital marketing strategies for businesses across various industries.
Here are some key reasons why visual content marketing is crucial:
1. It’s attention-grabbing
Visual content, such as images and videos, is highly effective at capturing the audience’s attention. In a world saturated with information, eye-catching visuals stand out and encourage people to stop and engage with your content. For example, web content containing visuals like images or videos performs better. On average, they receive up to 94% more views than those without.
2. It improves communication and message delivery
Visuals can convey complex information quickly and effectively. They help simplify ideas, making it easier for your audience to understand your message, products, or services. Visuals are said to be processed 60,000 times faster than text, which just proves that this kind of content is instrumental in delivering information to your audience.
3. It increases engagement
Visual content tends to generate higher levels of engagement compared to text-only content. Posts with images or videos on social media, for example, receive more likes, shares, and comments. This is because engaging visuals encourage people to interact with your post. Including any kind of visual content can already ensure better engagement than text-only posts.
4. It enhances branding
Visual content allows you to showcase your brand’s personality, values, and identity. With visual content, you can consistently use or showcase brand colors, brand fonts, and brand tone. You can also feature your brand logos or any symbols that are associated with your brand. Consistent visual branding helps build recognition and trust among your audience.
5. It’s a great way to facilitate storytelling
Visuals can be powerful tools for storytelling. They enable you to create emotional connections with your audience by telling stories through images, videos, and graphics. You can also use visuals and storytelling to educate your audience about something in your industry, highlight events you or your brand just attended, or share something about the start or the growth of your business. All of these can help catch the attention of your audience and connect with them on a deeper level.
6. It leads to better retention
People tend to remember visual content better than text. Using visuals in your marketing materials can help ensure that your brand or message stays in the minds of your audience. Videos, for instance, are better at delivering a brand’s message or retaining information than text. This is because viewers retain 95% of a message when watching it on video. This is a significant difference from the 10% retention when reading text.
7. It dominates social media
Many social media platforms, such as Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok, are highly visual in nature. Most of them are focused on photos, videos, and aesthetics. To succeed on these social media platforms, brands must create visually appealing content that resonates with their target audience. It might also be wise to hire a social media manager who can make sure your visual content on social media is not only visually appealing but also consistent, relevant, and timely.
8. It increases the likelihood of sharing
Visual content is more shareable than text-based content. When people find visually appealing or informative content, they are more likely to share it with their networks, expanding your brand’s reach. The same can also be said when it comes to funny or entertaining content. Jumping on trends and applying relevant jokes to your brand’s visual content can be a great way to connect with the audience and prompt them to share your posts.
9. It can lead to higher conversion rates
Visuals can play a critical role in the sales funnel. Well-designed product images, product videos, demos, and more can help potential customers make purchase decisions, which leads to higher conversion rates. According to HubSpot, 79% of people were convinced to purchase an app or piece of software because of a video. This means effective visual content can help convince prospects and successfully get people to convert.
10. It is mobile-friendly
With the increasing use of mobile devices, visual content is particularly important. In 2021, the number of mobile users worldwide stood at 7.1 billion, and forecasts suggest that it will reach 7.33 billion in 2023. People now use mobile devices to surf the internet, open emails, browse social media, and more. It is easier for users to consume visual content on small screens, making it crucial for reaching mobile audiences.
11. It boosts search engine optimization (SEO)
Visual content, when properly optimized with descriptive alt text and metadata, can improve your website’s SEO or search engine optimization. With good SEO, your visual content can rank in image and video search results, which then expands your online visibility.
12. It gives you a competitive advantage
As visual content becomes more prevalent in marketing, not utilizing it can put your brand at a disadvantage. Staying up-to-date with visual marketing trends can help you remain competitive in your industry. You can use visual content to create a good impression, build brand recognition and retention, and get much-needed engagement for your brand.
In summary, visual content marketing is essential because it helps you capture attention, convey messages effectively, engage your audience, and build a stronger brand presence even online. It is a powerful tool for modern marketers and business owners to connect with their target audience and achieve their marketing objectives.
Visual content marketing statistics you should know
No matter what angle you look at, visual content is an example of compelling marketing materials that can catapult brands and businesses forward. Their versatility and numerous benefits are going to be hard to ignore.
If you want to know more about its importance, here are several visual content marketing statistics to show how effective they can be.
- Infographics can increase a business’s website traffic by an average of 12% (Sumo)
- Globally, internet video traffic made up 82% of all consumer internet traffic in 2022 (Cisco)
- 50.5% of marketers agree that visual content is essential to their overall marketing strategy. (Venngage)
- 96% of consumers have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product. (HubSpot)
- On Instagram, it has been reported that carousel posts draw the highest engagement out of all post types. Video posts follow closely. (Statista)
- 59% of Gen Z viewers use short-form video apps to discover things before watching longer versions of them. (Think With Google)
- 90% of marketers using short-form video will increase or maintain their investment next year. (HubSpot)
- The top platforms or mediums that marketers created visual content for in 2021 are blog content, Facebook posts, and LinkedIn posts. (Venggage)
- Pinterest records 600 million searches for visual content a month through its Lens visual search tool. (VentureBeat)
- The types of visual content that performed the best, according to marketers, are infographics and illustrations, charts and data visualizations, as well as videos and presentations. (FinancesOnline)
Types of visual content that you can use
Visual content comes in various forms that can be used depending on a brand’s marketing goals, business objectives, and overall marketing strategy. Still, all of them can bring opportunities for a lot of different businesses and industries.
Here are the types of visual content that you can use for your business’s content marketing:
Images and Photos
This includes using high-quality images and photographs to showcase products, services, or brand identity. These visuals can be shared on websites, posted on social media platforms, included in email marketing content, and more.
Videos
Video content is extremely popular in visual marketing. It can take various forms, such as product demonstrations, tutorials, brand stories, and animations. Videos are often shared on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Short-form video content is known to be the focus of platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Meanwhile, long-form video content is usually found on YouTube and other social media.
Infographics
Infographics are a visually appealing way to present complex information, statistics, or data. They use graphics, charts, and concise text to make data more understandable and shareable. This also makes communication easier, allowing the audience to digest and remember details better.
Memes and GIFs
These short, humorous, or engaging visual elements can be used to connect with a younger and more internet-savvy audience. They’re also a good way to entertain the general audience and show that your brand is approachable and lighthearted as well. This kind of visual content often goes viral on social media platforms.
Carousel posts
Carousel posts on platforms like Instagram are also great examples of visual content. These posts refer to in-feed posts with more than one photo or video, which can be viewed by swiping in the mobile app. They drive a lot of engagement from the audience, and they are an effective way to tell a story, redirect traffic to your website, showcase products, and more.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
Encouraging customers or followers to create and share their own visual content posts related to your brand can be a powerful form of marketing. UGC can include photos, videos, and testimonials. You can easily repost this content on your social media platforms or website to foster engagement, build relationships, boost social proof, and increase overall exposure.
Slideshows and presentations
Using slideshows and presentations to tell a compelling story about your brand, product, or service can create a deeper emotional connection with your audience. You can also use this visual content type to showcase the best of your service or products and build interest. With this, customers and prospects will be able to learn more about your business.
Interactive Content
Visual marketing can also involve interactive elements such as quizzes, polls, and 360-degree images or videos. These engage the audience actively and encourage participation. Fleeting content like the Stories feature is also a great way to interact with your audience in real time and create a sense of urgency and excitement.
Visual content holds a lot of advantages for businesses and professionals. Use them properly, and you are on your way to growing your digital presence and your business. Talk to Twin Rams Media today if you want to know more about content marketing and how we can boost your visual content.