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How to Create an Effective Visual Content Marketing Plan for Your Business

How to Create an Effective Visual Content Marketing Plan for Your Business

Curious how visual content marketing is essential for your business and it’s an unprecedented model in conjunction with writing to deliver your message to the point.

Once upon a time, blogs used to be one of the points of interaction over the internet, where a long post with tremendous information would be lovingly read by people with loads of patience.

Time changed, and then came the era of the addictive Facebook that hooked people to its timeline perpetually.

And now it’s trendy to be on Twitter, where the expression is presented in 140 characters or less.

Hence, one thing is quite clear people want to grab more for less. Social media has charged up the online marketing strategy, and the visual contents are just phenomenal. They not only connect instantly to the mass but also have the ability to send a powerful message without banality affecting them.

social media tree

Wherever you go, whichever social media you use, there is no escape from the bewitching visuals- an overpowering tool that allows the emotions to do their job to perfection.  This art of ‘selling and sharing’ has gone beyond the text in this generation.

“Whether it is Starbucks on Instagram, Coca-Cola on Tumblr, or GeneralElectric on Pinterest; the big brands are making continuous efforts to be ‘alive’ in the minds of people, to continuously infuse the brain with their powerful presence and lure people with emotion-embedded visuals, that has a long-lasting influence (until the next one).”

Why Embrace Visual Content Marketing?

The other day I was alone with my three years old nieces when she started crying profusely, and I was too perplexed to do anything but start trying different methods to calm her down; after trying for few failed methods, something clicked with me, and there I was sitting with her on the couch playing the baby videos! Ahh, and I thought dealing with kids was so hard.

Kids, youngsters, or adults, everyone loves the look and feel of a visual. It stimulates the brain faster and more forcefully!

how brain works


Source: the next web

8 Reasons To invest More In Creative Visual Content

the power of visual content

  • Intensifies Social Media Presence: Only a stronger and more effective social media conversation can make you pose affirmatively in the crowd of marketers.
  • Effective Story Teller: Tell your story, be a folklorist. Nothing can beat visuals when it comes to voicing your brand in an active, engaging, and effortless manner.
  • Offers Stronger User-Engagement: The more captivating images and videos, the stronger the temptation to share them gets.
  • Elevates your SEO ranking: Compelling Visual content with strong messages is shared by people more, which can help in uplifting your SEO ranking.
  • Breaks the Language Wall: A video, a photo story, GIF, a comic strip, or a meme can attract more viewers than a full-page ad.
  • Creates a strong brand identity: Share photos from the foundation day or how a day in your organization looks like, share the testimonial video of your employees or a black and white photo from the past.
  • Generate Referrals and Triggers Purchase: It not only creates backlinks and forces customers to stay more on your website but prompts purchases. It’s all about profit, isn’t it?

Not convinced yet? Have a look at the statistics

role of visual content marketing

Some of the stats you can refer

  • 63% of social media is made up of images and videos
  • 66%of new posts on social media are visual content
  • 50% of users repost the images/videos they come across online
  • The content with images gets 94% more views
  • Tweets with images get 150% more retweet
  • Facebook posts with images get 37% more attention
  • 60% of consumers make contact with companies whose images appear in local search
  • 66% of new posts are in the form of visuals
  • 50% of the users share the video/image they came across online
  • Images receive 94% more views (source: MDG Advertising )

The nine different forms of Visual Content

  1. Intriguing FACEBOOK POSTS
  2. Emotion Provoking VIDEOS
  3. Custom-made quirky MEMES
  4. Amusing and humorous COMICS
  5. Creative & Artistic PHOTOGRAPHS
  6. Products/Services SCREENSHOTS
  7. Facts and figures VISUALIZING DATA
  8. Interesting & OFFBEAT BUSINESS CARDS
  9. Informative yet entertaining INFOGRAPHICS

How To Create Effective Visual Content Marketing For Your Business

All said and done, now that you know WHY venturing into the world of visual content marketing is essential for your business and how it’s an unprecedented model in conjunction with writing to deliver your message to the point.

visual content facts

Visual content is evolving steadily and dominates social media. With the rise of businesses trying to keep their users engaged with one or other ‘interesting affairs,’ there is no doubt that to survive in the ‘novelty-hungry world, one has to make efforts to not only craft a visual that catches the user’s attention but also force them to share it as much as they can.

fast growing visual platforms

1. Social Media Profile:

The foremost thing to start with is to create a compelling social media profile and top it up with a branded cover photo Make sure this is what you are, both in the virtual and real world. Getting into a chatty avatar would only improve your relationship with people. For e.g., the Twitter profile of Pizza Hut defines its brand strongly.

social media profile

2. Tell A Story:

It is always easy to portray a story visually in the form of an image, funny animation or a video than in words. The emotion keeps them engrossed for seconds, and that’s what matters.

An exceptional piece of creative work of “text+visual” is a perfect combo.

visual plus text

3. Use Stunning photographs:

It may happen that people may forget what you wrote, but usually, they won’t forget what you showed. Select from the beautiful high-quality stock photography available online for free, or create your own version with a powerful message that I am sure won’t waste. You may use online and offline resources to create amazing visual content, such as Canva, BeFunky, Skitch, Pictaculous, Picmonkey, Compfight, photos from HubSpot, and PowerPoint templates, to name a few.

Well, Nothing can be more satisfying for a marketer when a picture speaks for itself and has delivered exactly what was needed.

stunning photograph

Also, don't forget to retouch your photos, as the percentage of your sales depends on the quality of your visual content 75%. Photography plays a very important role in choosing the customer. Therefore, no matter who retouches your photos, you or online professional photo editing services for a couple of dollars, photo editing will make your photos perfect.

photo retouch

4. Create to-the-point Visuals:

Visuals cut off the cliche that is an obstruction between your message and the user. Depending upon the brand, consider an unambiguous and creative visual. The visual should be too powerful to express the message even without text. Be specific, and communicate effectively.

points visual

5. Infographics- Colourful presentation of information:

A simple chart with pretty colors and interesting data is what Infographics are all about, and that’s the reason it’s no surprise you can see Infographics all over the internet. Infographics are a gripping way to clearly communicate your message to the global audience without overstuffing the message and bypassing the language barricades. Well, writing about it will be an irony. So check the reasons why you need them!

visual content infographics

6. Right Emotion always connects:

Strike that ‘emotional chord’ with the mass with an artistic vision with the right message perfectly suits your brand image. Show only what you want as a brand to reach people’s brains. The “emotional branding” used by Nike has always paid in the form of deep connection that has built trust over the years.

Nike has always been associated with courage evoking sentiments in its wonderful advertisements.

emotional with marketing

7. Use Interactive landing pages:

Landing pages are often visualized as not a dynamic part of the website, but you can make them distinctive and interactive so that whenever people land on the page, they feel welcomed personally. This can aid in increasing the conversion rate, and yes, people always remember a name that is different from the crowd. Check this creative landing page of Bills.com

how bills landing page works

Hashtags have been quite trendy nowadays on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and other social media. The use of the hashtag gives you a good reason to be found on google images and drives more traffic to your website. Use the hashtag for the brand, product, service, image, and message. This will give you an edge in the search engine and increase your SEO ranking. You can use short and simple Hashtags so that people remember them easily and can use them repeatedly.

how effectively use hashtags

9. Focus on user-engagement campaign:

As said before, a great social media profile on various platforms can help you strengthen your brand image- Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram are some of the happening places as far as a “user-engagement campaign” is concerned. Create contests, and ask for product reviews and photos sharing while using a particular hashtag. Revitalize the way you communicate, get closer to the customers, and see how amazingly they shower the timeline with their personal photos and videos.

10. Be Consistent with your Brand Image:

This is critical as far as your business is concerned. Present the way you want your customers to recognize and remember you. Emotions trigger a powerful response, and people see you in them. Be wise to go online only with the kind of emotion you strongly feel about- funny, sarcastic, emotional, socially inclined or whatsoever. Be consistent with the ‘brand personality you want to create because you neither want to snub your target market nor confuse them.

One of my favorites is the Twitter account of Taco Bell and Old spice. Look at the conversation between these two brands, and you will know why they never fail to amuse you. Whoever handles their account deserves loud applause.

brand image

11. Business Cards, a prominent tool for offline promotion:

This deserves special mention because while you are trying so hard to get your online visual content marketing high and stylish, business cards that are still very much in use form an important element of your identity. Amit Dhungal at The Business Printers says combining online, business proposals, and print is again a great way for comprehensive branding. You don’t want your business card to be one of them who travels from table-card holder-dustbin!

Let your business card be fresh. Create something that is remembered, is given special treatment, and stays with your client.

Combine this with QR Codes on business cards and link them to a professional-looking business proposal, and you’re onto a winner!

12. Experiment with various social media & visual contents:

Last but not least, experiment with various media- make a presentation and share it on SlideShare, get exclusive photo sharing on Instagram (or Snapchat), use Twitter and Facebook to directly communicate with users, and run a brand campaign that keeps people occupied. If you are good at creating images, then you have an added benefit otherwise, hiring a freelance creative designer is a better idea to start with.

mix visual content

Be Authentic, Be Creative and Make Headlines!

Sawaram Suthar is the founder of TheNextScoop and Jagat Media. A digital marketing consultant, he has experience in branding, promotions, page optimization, research, and strategy. He has an MBA from the University of Pune. Anyone can find him on Twitter @sawarams.

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