In these days of the internet and fast lives, when people buy a book and ask are there pictures in here?, it’s clear that visual content marketing is becoming more and more important. From photos you see in your Facebook or Twitter feed, images in the news, infographics, videos, gif images, to memes – visual content is everything you can see, read or interact with online. If it’s not interesting and engaging, your website will start losing followers.
Take a Look at Visual Content Marketing…
See what we did there? Instead of typing it out for you, we presented some interesting facts in a way that is much more appealing.
A good visual content marketing strategy is crucial today for any business. By using different visual tools, you can make your product desirable and stand out from your competition – but some planning is necessary.
4 Tips to Improve Visual Content Marketing
Read on to find out how to plan an excellent visual content marketing strategy….
1. Identify Your Goal
Makes sense, right? First, you need to figure out what you want to do with your visual content. Do you want to bring more new visitors to your website, or make sure the old ones stick around? How much money would you like to earn from this new strategy? Are you interested in educating your customers or enhancing your services?
Try to think of all the details and be specific about your wants and needs. Once you’ve figured out what the goal of your visual content marketing is going to be, you’re ready to start working on it.
2. Take a Look at Your Present Statistics
If you want to improve an aspect of your marketing, you should know how things are at the present moment. Check your website statistics and think about the best type of content for your business. What you need to look at are:
- page views
- the number of visits, as well as the number of unique visitors
- the average duration of visits
- the bounce rate (the number of people who leave your website almost instantly because they decided it’s not what they need, for example)
But of course it’s more than just that. With your target market in mind, try to choose the right way to draw their attention. You should do thorough research on what will have the right effect – consider getting this done by a professional. Think about what you want people to DO when they see that photo/video/slideshow. It can be as simple as getting them to click a link or buy your product, or more complicated, like getting them to share your content and bring more potential customers to your website. But whatever it is, be clear about it, and think about what would be the best way to achieve it.
3. Break Up Text with High Quality Images
One of the things online readers usually hate is seeing lines and lines of same-same black and white sentences, one after another. Think of it this way – would you enjoy reading a never-ending wall of text? Probably not! Most people will just leave a page that looks like that, even though the title may sound interesting. Face it: text can never be interesting enough without some images to break it up. Every professional writer who is aware of the latest trends in writing industry should know this.
Of course, there’s no need to go overboard with it, but make sure to spice it up with a colorful, high quality image here and there. Yes, the quality is also super-important. There are various sources where you can find images for free or pay a small price for – don’t try to save money on this or you’ll end up losing it instead. Sources include:
4. Video Content
Whether we like it or not, people are much more eager to watch a short and simple how-to video that tells them everything they need to know about a topic than to read an article that covers it. Simply put, users often find it less time-consuming and usually more interesting.
According to Facebook IQ, you should also think about making your videos (as well as all other content) mobile-friendly, as this form of watching them is on the rise. Their research shows that people gaze five times longer at video content than they do at static content on Facebook and Instagram. They also mention that video content shouldn’t be too long, and that it should bring something new and visually exciting, like 360-degree videos (like this one) that are getting more and more popular.
Visual Content Marketing
There’s a lot more tips and tricks that you can use to improve your visual content marketing – this is just the beginning. Make sure to do thorough research prior to implementing your strategy or you may end up spending a lot of money on something your site visitors just don’t like! You can try implementing different approaches and observing your stats until something proves to have a positive effect. Then, work on it some more until you come up with a perfect mix.
Also, remember to keep everything mobile-friendly: People like to do everything on the go, and their smart devices give them the opportunity to do just that. Don’t lose customers because you didn’t understand them. From identifying your real goals to the importance of video, start with these tips to give customers everything they like, and prove to them that your product or service is exactly what they need!
What needs attention in your current approach to visual content marketing? Have any “wall of text” pages that might benefit from visuals? Share your perspective in the comments!
