Content marketing is an unusually compelling marketing tool for modern trades. However, a piece of written content that lacks visual appeal can be highly disengaging for your readers. So, what do you need to include in your content marketing strategy?
Evidently, you should include visuals to your content for increased audience engagement.
However, there are varying opinions on the type of visuals that one can pair with the written pieces of, often bland, content.
In this piece, you shall come across some of the most effective visual strategies, including which can enhance the overall returns on your investment.
But, before we get to the types of visuals that you can use, it is vital to learn a bit more about visual marketing.
Why Visual Marketing?
“Visual memories are the strongest memories!”
Various statistical data shed light on why visual content is more effective in improving the conversion rate. Some of them include:
- The human brain can process ‘visuals’ 60,000 times faster than text-based content. This is because visuals can make the user feel like they are communicating with the author face to face.
- Out of the total information that human brain processes throughout a day, 90% of them are visuals.
- Although only humans can communicate verbally, still most of the communications are bland in the absence of tone. Visuals, on the other hand, are amazingly efficient in communicating a piece of information without using tone.
These facts might not make sense to you. But, if you consider the conventional marketing tactics, you can acknowledge the effectiveness of visuals in converting sales.
For instance, TV commercials are still the most effective tool when it comes to earning loyalty for brands. Simply because these short visuals can appeal to the viewers emotionally, as explained by https://c-istudios.com/video-film-production-services/, professional filmmakers. There’s no surprise to it that visual content is spreading across other platforms including Facebook, TikTok, and Youtube that have promising returns on investment, especially in the modern marketing mix.
By now, you might have decided to include visuals into your content marketing. But, knowing what type of visuals you can include can simplify the efforts for you. Thus, bringing in better returns for your investment.
The 6 Types Of Visuals That You Can Tap Into
Choosing the right type of visual can affect the overall effectiveness of your content on your audience. It all depends upon your target audience, their interests, and their expertise with the language. However, you should create your content that can easily tap into, at least, 80% of your audience.
Here are the types you are looking for.
1. Images are the easiest visuals
Some marketers opine that content with images receives 94% more views as compared to the one that lacks visual appeal. The key here is to break your content into short parts and fill the gaps with high-quality images.
More importantly, you’ll need to keep the images as relevant to the part as possible. Since a majority of online user taps into information using small screens (the mobile devices), the time a user pays heed to content is shorter than ever. Therefore, putting up long blocks of content can buzz off your actual reader that can potentially be converted into sales.
So, if your target audience is precisely mobile users, including images into your content can be highly fulfilling. Since these are the easiest form of visuals that you can tap into, you may not even require any expert mediation.
2. Videos can promote face-to-face interaction
If you intend to offer your audience with solutions to any problems that relate to your products, videos can come handy. For instance, you can search Youtube for common issues associated with your motorbike. And surprisingly, the solutions offered in these videos really work.
Usually, such videos are put up by individual bloggers and influencers. Imagine if you can tap into such schemes and offer your patrons with solutions to some common troubleshooting and that too under your brand name. Your brand is sure to earn the trust of your customers.
Moreover, such tactics can also help penetrate new markets. Since online users prefer content that can connect with them emotionally, and offer solutions to their problems, tapping into video content can improve returns for your marketing efforts, exponentially.
3. Infographics can help with minimalistic content
Although several marketers suggest creating highly informative content, and that too over 1000 words, often it can be difficult to curate such a lengthy piece of content. Mainly because of the shortage of information available in the relevant context.
In case, you are also struggling with the same problems, you can tap into infographics. These are incredibly effective in communicating maximum information without using many words. But, there’s a catch. It requires a lot of expertise and creativity to develop such images that can convey the information precisely, in the shortest forms.
However, once you are habitual to the basics of infographics, and the practices involved, you may steer through, effortlessly. As the name suggests, these visuals easily provide information through graphic illustrations. Thus, it is most suitable for the type of audience where time is of the essence. Short and precise information delivered in a minimalistic form.
4. Memes are great for entertaining your audience
Particularly, if you are leveraging your audience over social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram, the entertainment aspect of your content is of prime importance. Since most of the social media users tap into the channels for getting rid of routine monotony, if your content is traditionally promotional, you can expect your audience to ignore your content.
This is where creating memes can be highly beneficial. Several leading bloggers and web marketers suggest that memes receive more impressions on social media as compared to any other form of content.
Therefore, if your audience is preferably engaging with entertaining content, you should include memes into your marketing plan.
5. Presentations for communicating Intricate Info
It is needless to say, statistical charts are highly effective in giving elaborate information in a short and easy-to-understand manner. However, such intricate information is usually sought by users that belong to a highly skilled and expert niche.
For instance, if your business is a supplier to retailers, then you should cater to your audience with highly accurate data. Especially, the kind of data that provides them insight into the modern trends of your trade.
This is where presentations can come handy. Ideally, your presentations should include bar charts, pie charts, and graphs with statistics related to your trade.
6. Screenshots to simplify the process
In case, you are planning to provide your audience with a step-by-step guide, you may need to explain the process in as much detail as possible. But, no matter how much detailed content you put up, it may still fail to provide the users with a clear idea of the process.
Including screenshots can simplify your content. The key is to break your content in simple steps and provide with as many screenshots as you possibly can retrieve. This would not just help your user understand the content, but also simplify the follow-up for them.
For instance, if you are creating a blog post to help your audience troubleshoot a software, you should include the steps, explaining where to click and after what steps, in chronological order.
In the end, it all boils down to the audience that you are trying to target. No matter, how detailed verbal content you put up before your audience, unless it intrigues their interest, they are very likely to bounce back from your content. So inevitably, including visual content to your marketing strategies is only beneficial for the effectiveness of your plan.
Steven on February 24, 2020 
