Visual Media Adds Marketing Power To Legal Content

Including visual media with your legal content is vitally important to having your content found, read, understood, and remembered. And that has everything to do with how people will get to know about you and your services.

We are hard-wired to process visual content faster and remember it longer than written content. Perhaps it is for those reasons we also find it more appealing. So it almost goes without saying that visual imagery is a very important part of your content marketing strategy. Learning how to use various types of visual media strategically will greatly enhance the reader experience, making your content stand out and leaving a lasting impression.

How Visual Imagery Helps Market Your Legal Content

• Grabs Attention

Our brains process visual imagery much faster than text. A compelling visual will get the attention of someone scrolling much faster than even a well-written headline. 

• Delivers Your Message Faster

We’ve all heard that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. What may not be as obvious is that the right picture can also deliver your message 60,000 times faster. When you’ve only got microseconds to get someone’s attention, delivery speed becomes a big factor.

• Keeps Reader Interest

For many of us reading paragraphs of text is work. How lovely to view an image every now and again that clarifies what we are reading and helps us to better understand. 

• Promotes Engagement

Imagery speaks to us without words – and does so quickly. If we like the message and it’s quick to understand, we are more likely to feel some attachment to it and give it some of our attention. We are also more likely to share it. 

• Stays in Memory

Reading takes concentration because our minds see the words first as pictures and must translate those pictures into meaning. When we see an image the meaning comes to us without making our minds work as hard. Therefore, we are able to recall more of what we see than what we read.

Types of Visual Imagery to Consider Using

The following types of visual imagery can work well with legal content. 

Photo - The most basic imagery you can add to your content is a photo. You can either use a photo that you have taken (had taken) or one from a royalty-free provider. There are quite a few free sources. Just keep in mind there could be a lot of people using the same stock images. It may be worth your time to do a quick check of your competition to make sure the imagery you want to use is not too similar to what someone else is using. 

Uniqueness is one big advantage to using your own original photos because you can customize the images to have specific relevance to your firm and your content without any worry about duplication. 

Try to use photos that are relevant to your content and be consistent with any style features that you might add. If you decide to include the firm logo on your images then make sure you always use the logo. If people get used to seeing your logo on your imagery, then they will be able to recognize your content quickly while they are scrolling through their newsfeed. 

Video - You’ve no doubt heard that video is the visual to be using these days. Viewers like it. Search engines like it. It’s more engaging. It gets good results. 

According to Wyzowl's Video Marketing Statistics 2021, 84% of the people surveyed said it was a brand’s video that convinced them to purchase the product or service. 69% said they preferred to learn about a product or service by watching a short video. People are watching an average of 18 hours of online video a week and are much more likely to share video content than any other type of content. 

Short videos can be fairly easy to create and most of the royalty-free photo sites offer collections of stock video clips that can be incorporated into your original video or other original designs. Canva is a very handy, user-friendly design tool that allows DIYers to create some very professional designs and effects.

An explanatory video can be useful to accompany longer content. For those who don’t have time to read immediately (or prefer not to), a video that summarizes the content can deliver your message to someone who might not stick around otherwise. The video could also pique interest enough that people will come back and read your content later. 

Screenshot - A screenshot is a copy you take of an image you find in some other online content. You may be discussing some kind of statistics or other measurable data and decide that displaying a graph would be helpful to your readers. Rather than create your own (though you certainly could), it’s usually easier to just take a screenshot of what someone else has put together. 

Since the work is not your own you do need to credit the source. I took the graph below from the Governors Highway Safety Association’s 2019 Preliminary Data on Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State. I cropped it to the size I wanted in Canva and added back text for the headline and to credit the source with a live link.

Infographic - Infographics use pictures or illustrations and a little bit of text to tell the story. They have the advantage of being able to deliver complex information in a way that can be easily understood. 

They work well to showcase comparisons, listed items or to demonstrate the steps in a process. There is less chance for a misunderstanding with pictures. And they require less effort to consume. Therefore, they have great appeal and can be used very effectively to help people understand your content. 

As an example, I looked up information on the most common injuries received in motor vehicle accidents and I found an article that listed the 8 most common injuries. So I went to Canva and created the infographic below based on the list. I credited the source article with a live link at the bottom of the image. 

Pull Quote - A pull quote is a short bit of the main text that is pulled out and presented again so that it stands out to the reader. 

A significant statistic would be a good candidate for a pull quote. They are as easy to create as putting some quote marks at the beginning of your text passage, enlarging the font and making it italic or bold. For the more design oriented, placing the text on a colored background can add visual interest. 

Let’s say you’re writing about how effective seatbelts are at saving lives. You write that ‘as a passenger in a vehicle, you can lower your risk of death by 50% if you wear a seatbelt.’ You could create added emphasis for your point with a pull quote:

Block Quote - A block quote refers to a larger block of quoted text that is taken from a source other than the document it appears in. The block quote is typically indented from the main text and italicized to distinguish it. Quotation marks are not necessary (though they are sometimes used anyway).

Let’s say you’re writing about how a client should prepare for testifying in court and you are discussing how people determine likability. So you write,

The Pratfall Effect is explained well in this excerpt from Buffer Blog:

Although a block quote is often a couple of paragraphs in length, it doesn’t have to be. A block quote might be a short quote – like from someone famous - that you think adds something valuable to what you are writing about. 

How Many Visuals Should You Use?

In addition to your lead image, the most common suggestion about how often to use visual imagery within the content is about every 400 words. Now that will obviously work better with some content than others but it is something to keep in mind as you create your content.  

I think quality always trumps quantity in doing pretty much anything. A few very well-designed visuals will do more to enhance your content than sticking in a bunch of random things to look at.  

Having said that, the longer the content and the more technical the subject matter, the more that visual imagery will increase the understanding and thus the interest of your readers.

SEO Considerations When Using Visual Imagery

File Size  - The size of your image file will affect how quickly your content will load and thus how fast it will appear before your reader. The bigger the file, the slower the loading speed. Research says that you have about 3 seconds to get your picture to appear or you will lose your audience. 

You want your image sized as small as it can be without overly compromising its quality. The search engines favor faster loading times and your rankings will be rewarded for your efforts. There are a number of free tools you can use to optimize the size of your image. 

File Description – when adding an image to your content you will often have the opportunity to add some text that describes your image. ‘Alt text’ allows you to add text that describes the image. Intended to assist persons using text-to-audio technology, it can also be used to assist search engines in identifying the image as relating to a particular search. If appropriate, this is a good way to add keywords that will boost rankings and help clients find you. 

Using Visual Imagery Should be Part of an Overall Strategy

Whatever type of visual imagery you select, it should be part of a predetermined strategy with parameters you have selected and plan to use consistently.  For instance,

• decide the subject matter that your images will depict,
• the style and tone of your videos,
• how you will incorporate your logo or other business branding into the images,
• what colors you will use,        
• and what fonts will you use for any text. 

The more people see and begin to recognize imagery that they associate with you or your firm, the more familiar they will become with you, and the more likely they will think of you if they have a need for the services you offer. 

With so much visual stimulation competing for the attention of your potential clients, random visuals that aren’t obviously related to you can be confusing.  You never want your potential clients to be confused by your messaging. Confused minds have a harder time making decisions. 

At The Very Least …

Even if you don’t have time to mess around with design elements or aren’t ready to deal with making a video, at a very minimum you really must include some visual element – at least a photo. And do put a little thought into the kind of imagery you will use so that you can be consistent. Consistency will help build brand recognition for your firm and make it easier for people to get to know you.  

__________________________________________________________________________

Sources Consulted:

29 Incredible Stats that Prove the Power of Visual Marketing | Movable Ink Blog

The importance of visual content and how you can use it to level up your blog posts | Brafton

Visual Teaching Alliance for the Gifted & Talented | Professional Development for Primary, Secondary & University Educators/Administrators

Why Visual Content is So Important (meetcortex.com)

Visual Content Marketing: Why It Matters and How It Differs from Content Writing - Relevance

Image SEO in Marketing – Visual Content Marketing | BrightEdge

6 Creative Ways Marketers Can Use Stock Videos — Dissolve Ideas Blog

Stylish Blockquotes And Pull Quotes In Web Design: Tips & Examples - Hongkiat

Blockquotes and Pullquotes – Pressbooks Guide (opentextbc.ca) 

Optimizing Images for SEO | BrightEdge

On-Demand Branded Images Workshop: Watch Now | BIG Brand System

A Marketer's Guide to Selecting the Best Images for Your Content (convinceandconvert.com)

________________________________________________________________________

Mari Gaines is a freelance writer and legal content creator & marketer. She combines her legal background, sales & marketing, and love of writing to produce high-quality legal content for law firms and law-related businesses. Mari is an avid learner of legal content marketing best practices and is dedicated to helping create #BetterLegalContent.