As we head into an increasingly digitized world, the success of a marketing campaign hinges on our ability to display information quickly and effectively. Visual content is currently the best way to do that, by using photographs, diagrams, and videos to draw customers in and earn their engagement.

Here are a few good reasons why visual content should be at the center of your marketing strategies and how to create and use visual content to increase engagement.

What is Visual Content Marketing?

Visual content marketing is a part of your content marketing strategy using images, graphics, videos, and other visual elements to convey a message or promote a product or service. It has become an essential part of digital marketing due to the rise of social media platforms and the increasing demand for visually appealing content.

So, visual content marketing is a key component of content marketing, helping you to achieve marketing goals and create engaging content.

How Visual Content Can Help Your Brand and Content Marketing Strategy

Visual content marketing can help your brand deliver valuable content that entertains, educates, and inspires. It can support the achievement of your marketing goals and provide a solution to common marketing challenges. 65% of people are visual learners, and presentations with visual aids are 43% more persuasive.

Images Market Themselves

Everyone has had a thumbnail catch their eye on sites like YouTube or social media when browsing the web. This is because images market themselves, especially when they’re the start (or a still capture) of a larger video. Through sheer curiosity alone, the most interested users will click on or investigate visuals that appeal to them. They can be accessible, engaging, and memorable.

It helps that with YouTube and other online businesses, visual content is the product. This is true for video-sharing sites, social media, and more interactive entertainment like iGaming. When users go to play online casino games at Paddy Power, they’re greeted by rows upon rows of thumbnails for games and live-streamed casino tables. This format also allows individual games to market themselves, distinct from the branding of the rest of the website. Branding is another reason you should lean into visual content. While branding has other aspects, it is mostly concerned with visual aesthetics.

These visual content benefits have existed since its inception but have become amplified in the digital age. Access to smartphones and editing software has made it easier to take photographs or shoot videos and then broadcast them to millions of people online. Even if your business peddles physical products or software unrelated to visual content, it’s a good idea to have a strong social media presence on sites like YouTube to reel audiences closer. Of course, this requires sound social media management, as Hootsuite explains here.

Video SEO Can Claim Position Zero

Visuals don’t just appeal to our natural curiosity. They are also important for satisfying Google’s ranking algorithms. The tech giant watches the online landscape closely, shifting its focus to give web surfers what they want. Unsurprisingly, this has been video content over the past decade. While it started with sites like YouTube, social platforms have also steadily moved from wordy blog formats to more visually oriented ones.

In response, video SEO emerged as one of the many sub-genres of SEO. Unlike other types of SEO that focus on keywords or backend maintenance of a site, video SEO is about ranking your video to attract an audience. For example, a small tech company could make a hardware tutorial and rank for queries related to a product. The same thing happens with recipes and cooking videos, which could be used to market a restaurant. In both cases, Google may place them in a video snippet above every other option on the search results page at the coveted position zero.

Today, we’re making a change so that video thumbnails only appear next to Google search results when the video is the main content of a page. This will make it easier for users to understand what to expect when they visit a page. Learn more at https://t.co/2Ek4uoKl3T pic.twitter.com/N9hnjvGdj2

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) April 13, 2023

Google has focused on video content because it’s more authentic and shows off first-hand experience with the subject matter. Written content doesn’t always reflect this, so Google has boosted video content to fill that authenticity gap.

Businesses that use videos as the core of their marketing can appear more trustworthy and relatable. However, there is an art to creating video, and the same can be said for video SEO. Level up your video SEO skills with Semrush for the best chances of success.

The content landscape will undoubtedly change in the future as the internet continues to evolve and become integrated with more of our lives. That said, visual content isn’t going out of style anytime soon, so it should be a core part of a business’s marketing strategy.

Types of Visual Content

There are many different types of visual content that businesses can utilize in their marketing strategies to engage and attract customers.

Some effective types of visual content you must include in your content creation process are the following:

1. Infographics

Infographics are visually appealing representations of data or information, making it easier for the audience to understand complex concepts. With such a visual content that is visually stimulating you can present complex data in a visually appealing way.

Infographics are great for presenting statistics, research findings, or step-by-step processes. They are highly shareable on social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram, making them a valuable tool for increasing your brand awareness and driving traffic to your website.

So, when you create infographics, think about data visualizations. Data visualizations should communicate complex information in a manner that is intuitive and easy to understand.

2. Videos

With the rise of platforms like YouTube and TikTok, video has become a popular form of visual content. Videos allow you to tell personal stories, showcase your products or services, and connect with your audience more dynamically. You can also create videos to demonstrate solutions to common problems customers can have with your products and services.

As mentioned earlier, videos have become a popular form of visual content due to their ability to capture attention and convey information quickly.

3. Images and photos

High-quality images can increase article views by 94%. They can make a big impact on your target audience, especially when used creatively and strategically.

Branded images and photos can help break up text-heavy content on your business blog post, making your articles more visually appealing and engaging.

Also, images and photos can also serve as a powerful tool for storytelling. They can communicate emotions, add context to your message, and bring your content to life.

4. GIFs and Memes

Another popular trend in visual content is the use of GIFs and memes. These short, animated images add a touch of humor and entertainment to your content, making it more relatable and shareable.

Animated GIFs and memes are often used in social media posts and can add an element of humor or personality to your brand’s messaging.

However, it’s important to use these elements sparingly and in appropriate contexts. Overusing them can make your content appear unprofessional or irrelevant.

5. Interactive content

Interactive content allows active participation from your audience, making it more engaging and memorable.

It means you will create quizzes, polls, and games that engage the audience and encourage them to interact with your brand. This type of content can also provide you valuable insights into the preferences and behaviors of your audience.

6. User-generated content

User-generated content is any form of content such as customer testimonials, reviews, images, videos, or social media posts created by your customers or followers of your brand. This type of content can be highly effective as it showcases real experiences and testimonials from satisfied customers.

So, you want to encourage your customers to create content for your brand.

How to Build a Visual Content Marketing Strategy

Let’s break it down step by step:

1. Define Your Brand Objectives

The first step to any visual content strategy is to define your objectives. This will help guide your content and make sure it’s on brand message. What do you want to achieve with visual content? Increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or promote a product?

2. Who is Your Audience

Knowing who your audience is key to creating great visual content. So you must know their demographics, interests and behaviors to tailor your content to them.

To better understand your audience I would recommend you to create a buyer’s journey map so you can create visual content for each stage of buyer’s journey.

This will help you create more engaging and relevant visuals that will speak to your audience.

3. Research and Choose Your Channels and Social Media

Different visual content types are for different channels.

For example, Instagram is great for showcasing your products or services through high-quality images, while YouTube is perfect for video tutorials or behind-the-scenes content.

So, it’s really important for you to research and know which channels your audience uses the most.

4. Get the Right Team and Brainstorm Your Ideas

Creating professional and engaging visual content can be a team effort. You may need to work with designers, photographers, videographers, or even influencers to bring your ideas to life. Make sure you have the right team in place to execute your vision.

Everyone on your team should be able to contribute to the ideas.

5. Choose Your Format and Tell a Story

When it comes to visual content, you have endless options – from still images and infographics to videos and animations. Choose a format that suits your brand and message and tell a strong story with your visuals.

Your visual content should look good and convey a message or call to action. This will keep your audience engaged and interested in what you have to offer.

6. Use Your Branding Elements in Your Visual Content

Make sure to include the brand’s visual identity in your visual content – logos, colors, fonts, and slogans. This will help create consistency across all your marketing materials and make it easy for viewers to recognize your brand.

Having a consistent brand look helps establish recognition and trust with your audience. It also gives your visual content a cohesive feel and look, making it more appealing and recognizable. Use the same colors, fonts, and design elements across all your visual content to build a strong brand identity.

7. Design and Distribute

Once you have your visual content created, you need to improve and update it regularly. This will keep your content fresh and relevant and attract new audience and keep your existing audience engaged.

One way to improve your design is by using professional graphics software like Adobe Creative Suite or Canva where you can use stock photos and build upon original images. These tools have a wide range of stock photos, templates, fonts and design elements that can help you create great content.

Or you can hire a graphic designer to design your visual content for better brand credibility.

Another important part of creating visual content is the distribution strategy because, without the right distribution, no one will see your visual content.

It’s not enough to create great visuals, you need to make sure they are seen by your audience. Share your visual content on social media platforms like Instagram (Instagram stories, reels), Facebook, LinkedIn and X (previously Twitter).

You can also use some tools to manage your content, email marketing campaigns, or paid advertising to reach a bigger audience.

8. Measure Your ROI and Optimize for Higher Engagement

As with anything in your strategy, you need to measure the return on investment (ROI) for your visual content. This will help you know which type of visuals are working best for your audience and conversions.

Some metrics to track are views, clicks, shares and conversions. Use analytics tools to track these and adjust your visual content accordingly.

Also, consider optimizing your visuals for higher engagement. This could be A/B testing different designs or using interactive elements like quizzes or polls. By measuring and optimizing your visual content continuously you will make data driven decisions that will drive conversions and keep your audience engaged.

Remember compelling visuals in your content is key to success today. By tracking metrics and optimizing your visuals you will make decisions that will drive conversions and keep your audience interested.

The Latest Trends and Statistics in Visual Content Marketing

To stay ahead, you must stay educated about the latest trends and statistics in visual content marketing and experiment with new formats.

Visual content marketing statistics show that content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without images.

Also, another important visual content marketing statistics from the 2024 Social Media Marketing Industry Report show that still in 2024, visual content is the most used content type in the marketing game by companies.