If you decide to take a close look at your digital marketing strategy, one of its most important ingredients needs to be a visual approach. What is your take on incorporating not just pictures, but visuals in a broader sense into your marketing strategy?
Of course, in the world of advertising and promotion, it’s impossible to utilize images or videos only, completely omitting text. Text is vital, too, because it serves as a medium between your brand and your target audience by shedding light on all the advantages and upsides of your products or services.
Why Bother at All?
Even if your text is written by a genius, this fact will be of very little help if users skip your content without so much as reading a couple of words and will go to your competitor’s page. What you need is to instantly catch the user’s eye and compel them to read your content. And this is exactly the moment of triumph for visuals!
The thing is that with an image, you can share much more information than you can with words, just incomparably more. Have you ever thought that it can really take hundreds of words just to explain what is depicted on an image? Not to mention such a crucial marketing fact that pictures are able to convey abstract and complex concepts such as a particular look in the eyes, expressions, hand gestures, etc.
Don’t forget that you can also add creativity to your images to attract more eyes. There are lots of free online editing tools like the Pixelied where you can showcase your editing skills. You can experiment with your photos, add filters, create a negative image, enhance brightness and clarity, and many more! Now, let’s see how you can make the most out of your images.
Utilize the Power of Icons
Icons are so little that the vital role they play in a brand’s graphic design is often overlooked or even deliberately ignored. Yet, the fact that graphic designers are creating them for almost everything – from app icons to brand and desktop ones – is the key reason why you should treat them as another opportunity to improve the engagement rate.
A nice icon can immediately grab the user’s attention and, in the long run, contribute greatly to increased brand recognition among the target audience. Special graphic design software will help you to create icon online on your own and without investing much time, effort or money in the process.
Try Pattern Breaking Technique
We live in the fast lane, so – sad but true – we are used to briefly looking through instead of reading properly and giving a quick glance instead of watching. This is why it’s vital that your images offer something unpredictable. The pattern breaking method uses the element of surprise to stimulate visual interest.
For example, it can be something like an animation on a static photo or a sudden change of color. With this technique, you can rest assured that customers’ eyes are glued to your content without even considering the possibility to continue scrolling down.
Optimization for Search Engines
Optimizing your images for search is a must-do for your page SEO. Optimized pictures raise significantly the relevancy of the page and provide extra support to the subject matter. Search engines greatly appreciate the right combination of format, title, alt text and other elements in terms of image SEO, and have no doubt whatsoever that their appreciation will soon show on your performance statistics.
Employ Storytelling
There is a very specific feature peculiar mostly to images – they have a way of resonating with us. It allows us to go further in our metal predictions, which is similar to reading between the lines. They can establish vivid expectations – like, for example, what you see in make-up advertising. And like bright illustrations in a children’s book of fairy tales, they can help you tell the story of your product, or even your brand in general.
Remember that storytelling is an extremely efficient and effective selling technique, because it gives you an opportunity to establish a connection with and relate to your customers. Wisely selected images will only make that connection much stronger and more durable.
Emotional Element
To a bigger or lesser extent, people are guided by emotions throughout their whole life. And there is a direct correlation between images and human feelings. Visuals are much more prone to evoking emotions if compared to text content. Any of us can easily recollect a time when a picture made them smile or laugh in an instant. A skillful designer uses images to pull the emotional strings in the human soul he or she currently needs.
At the same time, if you choose images poorly, you might alienate your target audience who will think that your visual content is fake or irrelevant. Before you use an image, make sure it is accurate for the sentiment being expressed or message being sent to the customers.
Final Note
In the modern digital age, a world without visuals is impossible to fathom. By letting your customers’ trustworthy and real-life images tell your story, your brand can build a trustworthy content experience that influences consumers not only on the road to purchase, but also towards a decision to become loyal to your brand.
