There are studies showing that it takes around 8 seconds for a visitor to make a decision whether they like a web page or not. Do you think a well-written content can be read in that short time? No, only a well-crafted image can have the enticing effect on the visitor to read further.
A picture is worth a thousand words. And, when it comes to online businesses, a powerful picture is an incredibly efficient tool for an individual as well as company. That’s not all; there are several more reasons why visual content is so important. Let’s take a look.
A human brain can process an image in just a few milliseconds; therefore, the use of effective visuals will definitely spark interest of visitors and increase engagement in no time. This is highly beneficial when it comes to sending the message in the least given time. Studies have also proven that
These figures clearly highlight the importance of visuals to a human brain. As users access more and more information, you only get a few seconds to grab the attention of users. The best possible way to do that is when you use visuals in your content.
It is clear from the above-mentioned point that brain processes visual information far easily, efficiently and at a faster rate. Therefore, the chances of evoking reaction from the users also increase. The fact remains that emotional response is linked to visual stimuli in the brain. Therefore, a person can react only when you form a visual image of the provided information in their brain. When they are fed with textual information, it is first converted into visual information, which then results in a reaction. On the contrary, visual information generates a far quicker response.
Studies have also shown that human brain tends to easily grasp visual information. Therefore, if you see an image of the red balloon in the right hand of a girl wearing a blue dress, you will find it easy to memorize the information. In addition to it, your brain will also remember it for a longer time as compared to reading it in the text. Besides a long-lasting impact images if optimized also bring you more traffic, sales and high search engine rankings.
Website visitors often tend to read only 20% of the text on a page. Additionally, an average person is able to read 100 words per minute. However, in the one-minute long video, you can easily convey a message with much more information. When it comes to research articles, the best option is to highlight all the key elements of the study in an infographic. This allows the users to easily grasp all the crucial information in the shortest stipulated time.
Click on the graphic below to see an Infographic related to online travel industry.
The popularity of visual content came with the advent of social media websites. There is no denying the fact that social media engagement rate of visuals is far greater. Studies have shown that content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images. A visual content is 40 times more likely to get shared on social media and textual content.
The above-mentioned points clearly highlight that a visual content taps into the visceral psyche of your audience, enticing them to seek more information. Other studies have also pointed out that colored visuals increase the willingness of a user to read a piece of content. In addition to that, photos showing faces are 38% more likely to get likes than photos not showing any faces. This clearly proves that in order to engage with the audience, it has become mandatory to use visual content along with textual.
Now, that we have an understanding of why visual content is highly crucial for digital marketing let us take a closer look at what types of visual content perform better when incorporated into digital marketing strategies.
Just having plain text to read, usually, makes a person lose interest in the content. This is why it is advisable to split the body of text with images. This way people are more inclined to finish reading what you have written. But one should ensure that the images are contextually relevant and of high quality.
In order to make your content even more engaging, you can also add gifs. But one should be aware that using too many gifs can be counter-effective and can result in the message being lost. Therefore, it’s good to be economical when incorporating gifs into marketing campaigns.
Videos have an incredible grip on readers when you want to depict a problem and highlight the solution that you have. It has a far greater impact as the readers can easily relate to a video. You can create various videos like how to, self-explanatory, or customer testimonials with the help of video storytelling tools that brand marketing experts use.
When it comes to complex data, nothing can beat infographics. By drawing all the statistics and data into a compelling and easy to understand visual display, you are able to intelligibly put forth all the information seamlessly. Infographics have always been highly loved by users and are most likely to be circulated across the web.
There was a time when slideshows and presentations were limited to the boardrooms and team meetings. Nowadays it has become an integral part of any digital marketing campaign. These presentations allow you to properly communicate with your audience regarding your product and services.
Incorporating visuals into content is the biggest challenge for content marketing experts. The first thing to keep in mind is that not every kind of visual fused into your content will have an equal impact. Also, going overboard with visuals can end up doing more harm than good. A visual content-based digital marketing strategy ought to be executed at the right place in order to garner optimal results. Following are some of the crucial strategies involving visual content:
It is a standard practice across any type of website, of including an image at the beginning of every article. Also, ensure that this featured image perfectly highlights the crux of the article, so that the readers get an idea immediately what the article is all about.
A well-written and thorough article usually ranges between 1500-2000 words. Just having a featured image at the start of the article will not do justice to the article. To make it more engaging you must incorporate an image after every 300-400 words. Therefore, a 2000-worded article must have five images for it to become engaging.
Just having images as the core of your digital strategy will not suffice. You need to mix it up a little and include other visual contents like videos, infographics, presentations as well as charts. This will not only diversify your content but also make it more engaging.
Times have changed and just focusing on textual content for sharing information is not enough these days. In the current age having a full-blown digital marketing campaign, emphasizing on visual content is the way to go. Marketing studies have shown that visual assets like photos, videos, infographics, etc. are the core to how a branding story is communicated to the targeted user base. In order to make sure that the audience absorbs your message completely, you ought to take full advantage of the visual content.
Like with any type of content, it is the substance, which counts. However, the style in which the content is displayed makes it more appreciative.
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Comments (1)
I proud to be an indian
Another Nice article.
Thanks ketan for sharing.