How Important Are Visuals in Marketing?
Patrick Mutabazi
SmartCards and Technology Solutions Advisory - Innovation & EmergingTechnology| Government Solutions Consultant| Founder & Executive Director| SmartCards Engineer| Data Engineer| QA Auditing Facilitator and Auditor
The way we see things can have a profound effect on what we do. Through this experience we tend to continually increase and improve our understanding of the visual world and what it has to offer us.
We all know the saying "a picture says a thousand words". This rings especially true when it comes to visual marketing. Imagery is a significant factor in supporting the art of?story telling?as they add an element of speed. Our brains process images?60,000 times faster than text. According to experts, the human brain processes visual information way faster than verbal information. Humans have used imagery to relate, entice, tell stories and share?to others since the beginning of time. While you can have the best content in the world, if it is not presented and designed aesthetically, it may not get the attention it deserves.
Using engaging visual media - whether it is photos, videos or info-graphics, can improve the receptiveness of your marketing tactics, and create new ways in which consumers see and utilise the information you provide. Finding the most effective ways to engage your audience from the get-go is more essential than ever. Consistent visuals can even help viewers with?recall of your brand.
We humans are visual creatures by nature. Our eyes were designed to continually scan and process the environment, quickly identifying and assessing a vast array of visual information. The eyes shift unconsciously?three times per second?to take in familiar concepts and assess where to scan next.
What is the concept visual?
It is a visual version of a strategy or idea.
The brain has to conduct multiple processes to convert text into recognisable concepts. When eyes scan a page of text, each word is recognised as a picture and associated with a concept from a brain-based?visual dictionary.?
Content marketing is a necessity for any business. That is where you put into words the value of the products and services you provide, and then communicate that value in your marketing, to help people determine whether to do business with you.
But going further and including visual content throughout will elevate the effectiveness of both your digital marketing and traditional marketing campaigns.
What is Visual Marketing?
Basically, visual marketing is the process of using photos, graphics, videos, and other visual content to market a product or service. Brands in every industry can benefit from using visual content in their marketing.
In the broadest sense, it is the use of anything that appeals to the eye, in support of selling a product, service, or experience. It includes the use of colour and design in any media, whether in person, in print, online, or in the product itself. So, Visual marketing is the use of images, videos, and other pieces of multimedia content to strengthen your brand and communicate with your target audience.
Anything visual like an image, video, infographic, etc. will capture peoples attention much quicker and with more impact than plain words or content. It helps you depict certain subjects and concepts that would otherwise be harder to approach by using only text.
In marketing, using this as an opportunity, the approach of targeting customers with content has changed. People are using more visual content like images, memes, infographics, gifs and videos, in turn receiving higher engagement rates.
Types of Visual Content
Why visuals are important in marketing
Humans are visual learners. Using visual branding — images, graphics, videos, etc. across your marketing helps consumers remember information about your brand and keeps you top of mind long after they have looked away.
The human brain can process visuals?up to?about 60,000 times faster?than text. Considering that the written word has only been around for a very small part of human evolution, this probably makes sense. When it comes to marketing, this means that content that is created with visuals is naturally more engaging and interesting for users. Tweets with images, for example, receive up to 5 times the engagement?of those without. Articles with visuals?receive?94% more views. So it is clear that customers like visuals and prefer the content that contains more of them.
Advantages of visual communication
The right visual?will complement your materials and support the points you want to make. You do not want to pick images that are just there to fill space. These images will look out of place and will not add value to your material. So, think about the ideas that you want to communicate to users and find images that will help to cement these messages.
Your visuals should also be connected to your brand so that people can easily make the connection between the two. For example, colour schemes and the language of the visuals can be valuable ways to personalise images and enhance their value.
Images can also help form associations for users with your brand. When customers see images of real people using your products, it becomes easier for them to imagine themselves doing the same thing. Similarly, when they see images of your employees, they begin to feel as though they are building relationships with people instead of just an entity and or product.
Selecting the right image/visual for your content does not have to be a challenge. Here are a few guidelines to help you make the right choice of visual/image:
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Images are powerful motivators, encouraging readers to engage with your content. Understanding how and which visuals, help you accomplish your marketing goals will help you make the right choices.
Visual content gets your message across faster.
Important statistics support the importance of Visuals:
Visual content marketing is “naturally” effective
What types of images/visuals should you use for your content?
There are different types of visual representations that can be used to enhance your content.
These are the main categories:
Each of these types of visuals can help you further the performance of your content.
Visuals are easier to remember.
The visuals you should include for your content?
There is no set formula to deciding how many images you should include for your content. However, there are guidelines that can help you make the decision that is right for your material:
Images are an important part of building an effective brand and creating engaging content. Selecting the right images can help you take your marketing efforts to the next level to more effectively connect with prospects and customers.
Visual communication for businesses is looking to become more popular in the future because the benefits allow businesses to improve their ethos, engage with clients more efficiently and save time.
The truth is that visuals help you see the meaning of your message more clearly. They help make complex ideas and subjects understandable and powerful by making them more visible. Pictures get lodged in our brains much more than spoken or written text.?
Conclusion:
Humans are visual creatures and visual content is the key to get customers’ attention. So naturally, working with visual marketing is such a promising approach in marketing. But like with any other resource, you need to know how to use it to achieve good results.
While visual marketing trends will undoubtedly change over time as consumer preferences shift, visual content will continue to be an important part of how brands connect with audiences.
In the future, new trends are expected to emerge. Visual content marketing will include new formats with virtual reality(VR) that will offer new experiences and new types of content. Some of these contents should “gamify” and offer more and more interactive and personalised experiences. We can also imagine that 360° videos and other interactive videos that have developed more recently should become even more popular. 360° videos draw your attention to the subject matter.
Therefore, visual communication can have a huge influence on us because it allows us to interact with digital content and absorb images more resourcefully than text. It’s no surprise, therefore, that it is a form of communication that is becoming more popular amongst businesses and why the future of visual communication certainly looks bright.
Working with visual marketing is a good way to communicate with your audience in various innovative ways and reach the results you wish. People are constantly overloaded with information every day, so your brand needs new, different and effective ways to reach them and get its message across.?
So unless you want to be left behind by your competition, you need to increase visual marketing and use of visual content in campaigns. Eye-catching graphics, videos and photos have taken over as the best and most popular way to reach and engage your audience and customers.
The future of communication is visual.