Ever seen a website so good and visually pleasing that you cannot help but want to know more? How about when it contains relevant images, videos, or even memes that sum up what you are looking for in an informative yet entertaining manner?
Well, that’s how effective visual content marketing is.
Visual content marketing keeps your eyes glued to the screen, searching for more information or products. It is a neat little trick that rose with the internet and its many visual social media platforms, like Instagram. As a result, digitally created imagery became more accessible and understandable to the public.
What Is Visual Content?
Visual content is a type of content that primarily focuses on conveying imaged-based information. Visual content examples include, but are not limited to, infographics, videos, memes, diagrams, pictures, and charts. We’ll elaborate more on the types later.
What Is the Importance of Tracking Visual Content?
These images, videos, charts, or diagrams may very much be your sources of income. So, if you’re planning on using more visual content to route traffic to your affiliate website or divert more attention to a specific product, you’ll have to have a clear understanding of how important it is to track visual content.
In other words, you should understand that they play a vital role in the success of your business. After all, in virtual commercial spaces, they serve as window posters that could attract potential clients.
Wouldn’t it be good if your windows could record and assess which of your posters gain more attention than others? Through thorough analysis and tracking of your visual assets, you’ll save time, money, and effort in creating or commissioning visual content. That’s because you can shift your entire focus to what your clients want to see.
What Is Visual Content Marketing?
By now, you should already have an idea of what visual content is and what is the importance of tracking visual content. How can you effectively utilize this knowledge to give your business a much-needed sales boost?
You can strategize the use of visual content for your business through visual content marketing. Doing this attracts more people to your website, significantly boosting sales or views.
Do you really need to put visual content on your websites? Of course! Molly St. Louis of Inc.com wrote that a staggering 65 percent of people are visual learners. This means a good number of people understand and remember more information through visual delivery.
There are many reasons you may want to consider visual content marketing. For one, visual content is also proven to stick more to your potential clients’ memories than pure letters alone. Depending on the type and how effective it is, people may relate to your visual content every time they see or think about the associated terms.
Visual content also transmits messages faster than when reading them. For many, reading can be boring. The arrangements, aesthetic aspects, and other visual content elements help trigger your market’s cognition in a snap.
Visual Content Marketing Examples
There are plenty of visual content types to choose from. Therefore, figuring out which ones to use can be daunting at first, especially if you’re new to this. Don’t worry; after this section, you’ll learn which visual content to upload for a particular purpose.
Videos
Arguably the most preferred way of visual content marketing, videos can relay helpful information in only a matter of minutes. As such, they are suitable for people living in the fast lane.
Videos are also helpful when marketing through customer testimonials and introducing your business to your clients. They are an effective tool when demonstrating a product or service, making a tutorial, and recording an event.
That said, one downside to using video content is that it has quite a learning curve. Due to the number of competitions, your customers will not take unprofessional-looking videos seriously.
Infographics
Infographics are commonly used when the information you want is necessarily heavy on data. As such, it is often the preferred visual content of businesses and clients in market research, finance, and the like.
Also, it is commonly associated with educational content due to its ability to present depth content. That said, it may not be suitable for casual marketing since not everyone has the time to read it.
In case you’re unaware, infographics are hard to make. So, we recommend hiring a professional graphic designer to do it. Not only will doing so save you time, but you’ll also be able to ensure all necessary information is consistently conveyed across projects, especially in the long run.
Memes
One of the newest and most casual visual content, memes can be a fun way to get your message across. The word meme, as termed by Richard Dawkins, refers to “an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.”
Memes can appeal to specific target markets while being totally unappealing to some. Therefore, be sure to conduct proper market research before using this as visual content. There are also some memes that are innocent-looking at first glance but hold certain malice or inappropriate context underneath.
Again, memes are one of the easiest visual content you can publish, making your brand a bit more relatable to certain groups. What’s more, you can use them to capitalize on an ongoing trend. Yay, free marketing!
Well-Captured Photographs
One of the oldest visual content types in this list, photographs have already been proven to be an effective way to capture your potential clients’ attention. Snap a picture of your brand with a prominent celebrity holding it, and you can be sure it will turn heads and garner some clicks.
In choosing a photograph for your brand, however, it’s important to make sure it’s original to you. Avoid using stock photos because they may have already been reused so much that it dilutes your message.
If you can, hire professional photographers to ensure your brand’s freshness. If you want to showcase your products’ actual appearance or associate your brand with a familiar face or name, this is the way to go.
Interactive Content
Sometimes, even pretty pictures and well-edited videos can be boring. If you want to use a more engaging approach to your content marketing, you might want to try interactive content.
Interactive content includes:
- Quizzes or tests that help customers find out which variant of a product or service they are looking for
- Product panels that allow your customers to design and customize the merchandise of their choice
- 360-degree virtual video tours to help your clients immerse themselves in environments for their events
- Live polls that could help you steer your company in a direction favorable for you and your market
Your imagination and coding skills are the limits of interactive content. More advanced forms of this content type, such as interactive comparison charts and interactive infographics, will require an experienced design team. For this, you can always hire freelance designers to take on the challenge.
Influencer Content
Hiring a prominent personality to promote your brand isn’t unheard of in the marketing industry. However, recent trends in social media have undoubtedly magnified how influencers can influence the audience into buying or supporting a specific brand.
The scope and reach of an influencer’s social media posts by themselves eliminate the biggest challenge in a visual marketing strategy, which is the question: Will it reach your target audience?
Hiring influencers could help you significantly widen your reach and boost brand awareness, but it depends on the number of their followers. It could also help your brand look more consumer-friendly and mainstream. Depending on your chosen influencer’s public image, this can add credibility to your product.
Indeed, influencer content is an ideal form of digital content that online marketers turn to when they need to boost content engagement, distribution channels, and high-quality collaborative content.
How To Step up Your Visual Content Marketing Game
So, you’ve looked at the examples and visual assets above. How do you start working on your visual content? Hold your horses because we’ve got expert tips in store for you. Here are six ways you could step up your visual content marketing game:
1. Focus on your market.
Always think of your target market before designing visual content for marketing. Certain styles may be more appealing to them than others. Some may even turn them off.
If you’re only starting, consider simple yet eye-catching designs first. You can then experiment later on to find out what your audience likes.
Alternatively, you can conduct a market analysis to know what clicks and what doesn’t. Doing this will definitely hasten your content creation process. Make sure your design assets align with what your ideal customer will find relevant.
2. Match your visuals with your target audience.
After analyzing what your audience likes, do your best to pick the ones that speak to them the most. You should also avoid polarizing content that others may misunderstand, even if you mean well.
Of course, you shouldn’t only include elements that resonate with your first set of followers. Inclusivity is still key. Generally, the longer you’ll be in business, the bigger your audience will be.
3. Use your fans’ content to your advantage.
You’re bound to have some fans if you manage your company well. They may post selfies or videos with your product in view from time to time. Some might even review your products. Keep in mind that these are, indirectly, your design assets, as well.
This type of interaction serves as testimonials and feedback to your brand. You could upload their posts on your own page with consent and compensation or even partner with them if they have enough followers.
You don’t always have to do all the heavy lifting. There are other brands, businesses, organizations, and individuals constantly looking for opportunities to make collaborative content.
4. Stick to your branding, or reinvent.
Your branding is your own. We remember McDonald’s through its golden arches and Starbucks with its white and green mermaid. And that’s because they stuck to it. You should not use motifs uncharacteristic of your brand unless you are trying to reinvent it based on reliable feedback.
In line with this, your visuals should also reflect you. You should create original visuals tailor-fitted to your branding and avoid using redundant stock photos.
5. Use search engine optimization.
According to Search Engine Land, search engine optimization or SEO is the process done to improve website visibility. This is targeted at people who use search engines, such as Google or Bing, to look for related information.
Have your images optimized or rearrange your titles, headers, and subheaders to drive more traffic to your page.
6. Use a content calendar.
Content marketers know the importance of consistency in one’s content marketing efforts. Make sure you won’t miss a beat in your content input by creating (and sticking to) a content calendar.
Don’t just include the content you have lined up. You can also indicate the content-creation platforms along with the publishing platforms you’ll use for each post. If your visuals come with written ones, a link to the entire post will make the process easier and more organized.
Visual Content Marketing FAQs
1. What is the meaning of visual content?
Visual content is a type of content primarily focused on conveying imaged-based information. Visual content examples include, but are not limited to, infographics, videos, memes, diagrams, pictures, and charts.
2. What does visual mean in marketing?
In marketing, a visual asset or visuals refers to images, films, online videos, or infographics used to bring more attention to certain products or services offered by a company.
3. Why is visual content important in marketing?
Visual content is important in marketing because people are generally more inclined to information they perceive to be visually appealing. Moreover, visuals will allow you to provide more information in a shorter time compared to pure texts and numbers alone.
4. What are the 3 types of visual media?
The three most used types of visual media are images, videos, and infographics. Images are arguably the oldest type of visual media. It usually involves the digital capture of an eye-catching event or personality interacting with the product.
Videos are typically the most preferred type of visual media. That’s because they can relay helpful information in only a matter of minutes, making them ideal for a busy audience. They also bring otherwise boring content to life. For these reasons, videos are considered the most popular content type today.
Infographics are commonly used when the information to convey is necessarily heavy on data. It is commonly preferred by those in market research and finance.
5. How do I make visual content?
Typically, you would want to conduct a market analysis first to be better acquainted with your target market. Then, you’ll have to create branding guidelines to ensure your output is characteristic and reflects your company.
After that, you will need to choose what type of visual content to use. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses that make them suitable for specific situations.
After creating and posting, you should analyze your visual content through tangible metrics, such as the number or reach and interactions (likes, favorites, comments, shares, and more).
5. What is a visual content strategy?
Visual content strategy is your course of action in utilizing visual content to drive attention to your product, service, or company as a whole.
6. What are visual advertisements?
Visual advertisements are publications that utilize visually enticing media to promote a product or company. It may come in the form of images, videos, and infographics. They play a key role in any content marketing strategy that wants to achieve visual content success.
Often, they refer to explainer videos that help customers make a more informed buying decision. In addition, you can use them to adequately display company culture, promote company founders, and provide an exciting content experience.
The downside is that they usually require a tedious content creation process. After all, the power of video content lies in concisely and clearly presenting dense content. Fortunately, you don’t always have to use costly design software for this. There are free platforms and design assets you can take advantage of online.
Visual Content Marketing
With the market being as competitive as it is, companies always look for ways to gain the upper hand over their competitors.
New advertising trends arise almost every time new products are released on the market. However, the winners are those who can sell their products or services without having to talk to the buyers directly.
After all, what is visual content marketing if not the effective utilization of nearly-ubiquitous media using unique elements?
