Visual Storytelling: What Is It? Why Is It Important?
Visual Storytelling is helpful and important. From complex ideas and important information to powerful messages, visual storytelling is able to connect with us at a deep level.
What is Visual Storytelling?
Visual storytelling uses graphics, images, videos and more to hook the audience and drive story lines and emotions. It’s the act of telling a story or communicating information with visual content and it’s a powerful content marketing medium.
Visual storytelling solutions are so common in our lives because they work; connecting with us while making information easy to understand and take onboard. Our brains are wired to understand and unpack stories; taking meaning from their structure, narrative, characters, references and tone. That list alone shows how many opportunities storytelling provides to add engagement, meaning and information.?
Why Visual Storytelling Is Important for Your Brand?
Storytelling is simply packaging the emotions and experiences you want your brand to be associated with. Using an easy-to-follow narrative through visual content, using images and videos to?tell a story. A well-told brand story is a great way to:
Visual storytelling is economical because you can convey more information in less time, hence the “picture is worth a thousand words”. Imagery has the ability to capture attention quicker than text, at which point you have a platform to communicate your brand message, either entirely through?visual storytelling or through a combination of visual, audio and textual content.
Additionally, visual storytelling adds value to a brand’s content marketing strategy in the following ways:
Visual media also leaves a more lasting impression on the audience. About 65% of people are visual learners, meaning for most of us, the message is more likely to stick if we see it. And in marketing, visual storytelling is the best way to help your audience see what your brand is about.
What Makes a Good Visual Story?
1. Craft an interesting story that will appeal to your audience.
2. Choose your visual media according to the needs of your narrative.
3. Incorporate basic storytelling techniques.
4. Grab people’s attention right off the bat with dynamic imagery.
5. Support your visual narrative with text and audio to add context wherever?needed.
6. Keep your message clear and simple.
7. Measure the performance of visual media with relevant KPIs like social
???shares, back links and site metrics.
Types of Effective Visuals You Should Be Using to Grow Your Business
Now that you know what storytelling is and why it’s so effective, let’s briefly look at some types of visual content. It is important to note, however, that different visual content types work best with different audiences and platforms.
Photos: Photos are probably the oldest and most common visual aid in a marketer’s toolbox. They are versatile and can be used anywhere but work especially well on platforms like Pinterest and Instagram.
Memes: Memes?are the best way to infuse humor into your storytelling. Although it’s easy for those outside your intended audience, they can work wonders when executed well. Use them to make your blog posts and even emails more lively.
GIFs: Like memes, GIFs are a great way to keep your audience engaged as they are usually light hearted and easy to digest. They are great for spicing up blog posts or simply keeping your?social media followers entertained.
Custom Images: Custom images are those you design yourself in order to help you convey a particular message. These are particularly good for boosting brand awareness and can be used on virtually any platform.
Charts and Graphs: This next point is particularly important if you’re in an industry that relies heavily on data and statistics. You can use charts and graphs to easily pass on vital information to your audience.
Videos: If there’s one visual content type that is fast becoming a fan favourite, it’s video.?Video Marketing?is fast becoming popular among marketers because it can be used to: Educate, Entertain and Encourage sales.
Flipbooks: PDFs are a go-to solution when it comes to online documents, such as digital booklets, e-magazines, e-catalogues, etc. Online flipbooks are a whole different story. Not only are online flipbooks more interactive, but they also offer a more traditional visual experience, since they look just like printed publications made digital, down to a page-turning effect.
Animations: Animations are a great way to creatively market your products and services. The best part is that animations can be made on a small budget and yet have a big impact on your marketing efforts.?
领英推荐
Infographics: Need to convey a message quickly and in an easy-to-understand way? Then infographics should be your go-to medium. Since people process images faster than text, infographics are a great way to adapt to people’s ever-decreasing attention spans.
Email: While emails are not the normal type of visual communication, it’s important to note that visual emails are one of the most powerful ways of growing a successful business. From brand awareness to lead nurturing, you can use?visual elements in your emails to achieve almost any marketing goals.
5 Reasons You Need visual content to Grow Your Business
Traditional marketing methods (think billboards and even pop-ups) are losing their effectiveness in helping businesses drive revenue and growth. That’s one reason you need to employ some sort of images or videos in your marketing.
1. Stories Create an Emotional Attachment
Since time began, stories have been the fabric that has bonded families and communities together. They are also a great way for you to grow your business.?
The reason is simple – stories are an easy way to emotionally connect your audience to your product. This is why content is important – it gives your prospects an experience of your product even before they use. And if the experience is good enough, it triggers positive emotions whenever they see your brand. The result, of course, is an increase in sales.
Emotion is vital and plays a very important role in growing a loyal customer base and ultimately, a successful business.
2. Visuals Help Convey Your Message Clearly
If you want to convey a complex message in an easy-to-understand way, that’s exactly why you should employ these techniques.
Besides making it easy to convey your message, visual storytelling is also a great way to cut across language and cultural barriers. If your business serves clients and customers from different regions, content marketing will help you to grow your business into those areas by affording you a universal language you can use to convey your message clearly.?
To succeed in this, ensure your visual storytelling is Simple, Clear and Relevant
3. Boost Brand Awareness
Another great reason you need to employ the use of video or creative images in your business growth strategy, is that it helps boost brand awareness.?
Sure, you’ve invested a lot in a beautiful, eye-catching logo, but all it can help you with is establishing your brand identity. To increase brand awareness, you need to do something memorable. You need to hook your audience with a story. A story told well, and with great pictures to support your brand story is an asset you can use in multiple locations.
4. A Good Way to Grab Attention
Marketing has become difficult due to the tough competition in every industry. You need to do something different – you must be disruptive in your approach.
One way to be disruptive in your marketing is through – gorilla storytelling. Disruptive storytelling involves causing a shock through your story. This involves:
Once you grab your audience’s attention, it will be difficult for them to go to your competitors.
5. Storytelling Helps You Express the Value of Your Product/Service
One of the biggest challenges marketers and salespeople face is showing the true value of their products or services.
Expressing the value and benefits of a product is hard to do with words. So, instead of trying to tell your customers what your product can do, show them. In this case, video and animation become your best friend as these make it easy to show prospects exactly what they will benefit from using your product/service.?
Create a story in which your product is the hero and a common pain point. A good example of this is when Burger King didn’t sell their signature sandwich, the Whopper, for a day to increase McDonald’s sales as they were supporting a charity on that day. While a stunt like that may seem counter intuitive, it brought a lot of attention to Burger King. It also increased the perceived value of the Whopper.??
Struggling to show your target audience the value of your product? Then it’s time to get creative!
Every Business Needs to Grow
Growing a successful business is both an art and a science. And visual storytelling is the intersection of the two disciplines. Done well, your story could go viral, and of course, result in a ballooning bottom line. Use a variety of different visuals to build your story.