The Importance of Visual Content in Digital Marketing
Shhh. Here’s a secret search engines don’t want you to know. Visuals are more powerful than words if your target is a human instead of a search bot.Visual Content plays a critical and unheralded role in digital communications.
Every day, more than 300,000 images are uploaded to Google. Social networks like Pinterest are devoted to nothing but images. Small wonder. People interpret images 60,000 times faster than text. Perhaps as never before, visual communication is integral to success in business online and off. Visuals are everywhere it seems except in the marketing toolbox of small business.
Looka Here
In a world bombarded by visual stimulus, the interrogative phrase ”You see what I’m sayin’?” is egregiously overused in casual conversation of today’s youth. It’s interesting though that the phrase is “You see [sic] ?” instead of the more accurate, “You hear”. A difference confirms the dominance of the more powerful visual communication over auditory in everyday discourse. So even when speaking, visuals trump words. In this case, the spoken word. Big marketers know the value of visuals. Visuals permeate every facet of business. Visuals tell the story.
Visually Bankrupt Businesses
Most small businesses count only a logo in their company’s visual arsenal. Lack of a library of customized images prevents businesses from taking advantage of promotional opportunities that often arise unexpectedly. They lose their ability to be tactical. And tactics are at the heart of marketing. Any kind of marketing.
The opportunity to have an ad in a souvenir journal is missed because no creative is available. A need to move inventory fast is acted upon slowly because no ON SALE NOW creative stands ready and waiting. A website’s stale content could be easily refreshed and rank improved with an infusion of new keyword optimized images.
And probably most importantly, images create brands. Just ask P&G how valuable that little side benefit is to business success. So no visuals for visual’s sake. Use that visual bait to communicate your brand or selling message.
In today’s digital world, every business needs a library of visual content. It should includes content for social media, RFPs, the website. Certainly for ecommerce businesses having, opportunistic promotional creative such as On Sale Now!, Coming Soon, seasonal selling, holiday greetings is a must. And most definitely always keep a stream of fresh visual content for online advertising.
This article first appeared on LinkedIn.
