Strategic Visual Marketing: Tips and Trends

Did you know that 93% of all human communication is nonverbal? In fact, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is reportedly visual, and marketers are investing heavily into visual content as a result.

Some other noteworthy statistics:

• 74% of marketers use visual assets in their social media marketing – Social Media Examiner
• 93% of senior marketers say photography is either important or critical to their overall marketing strategies – CMO Council
• Video will account for 80% of all internet traffic by 2021 – Cisco

If you’re reading this and wondering, “How do I produce visual content that will boost engagement and drive traffic to my website?” fret no more. Lúgh Studio has extensive experience with designing engaging, branded visuals for integrated marketing campaigns. For example, we’ve helped our client Elsevier over the last few years maximize their visual impact by creating consistent and interactive digital content, including infographics, videos, GIFs, images and other branded materials, which have been shared across a variety of channels and reached over 30 million customers worldwide. (You can view all of our work for Elsevier here.)

Outlined below are tips for how to create a viable, visual presence online that will attract, convert and retain leads.

1. Build a consistent visual identity across platforms

The strongest brands are those who have a consistent visual identity across all platforms. Visual branding is more than just a logo–its about maintaining guidelines across all mediums, including color, style, imagery and graphics, so that all of your social media channels sync with your website, and brand recognition is established.

2. Communicate your value visually

Consumers don’t identify with products or services–they connect with a brand’s value. It should be made immediately clear what your brand aims to accomplish and why people should care. Your visuals should create an original message and communicate your brand’s vision and utility. Take a page as simple as www.youtube-to-mp3-converter.org. There is an abundance of services offering format conversion of youtube videos, but rarely do you see it expressed in the page design. The sense of lightness the page exudes, gives one a feeling of easily extracting sound out of any given youtube clip.

3. Prioritize high-quality photography

Prospects are more likely to connect and engage with quality photos than they are with standard stock images. The photography that you produce or source should feel branded in that all photos appear consistent, coherent and speak the same visual language.

4. Utilize video and GIF engagement and shareability

Video is an efficient marketing tool for engaging your audience, especially when explaining complex ideas and concepts. It’s great for audience retention and can increase purchase intent by 97% according to MediaPost. Moreover, videos are perfect for visual storytelling and stand out more to users on social media, resulting in their increased shareability. Likewise, GIFs provide users with the ability to watch short videos on loop and communicate a message quick and concisely.

5. Take advantage of Infographics and Images

According to SEMrush, infographics are shared 3X more than any other piece of visual content. They make content easy to read and are therefore super shareable, which explains their high-level of engagement. When executed correctly, eye-catching infographics (and images in general) can be powerful marketing tools that help articulate a lot of information thoroughly and quickly.

In the age of autoplay videos, eye-catching infographics and attention-grabbing GIFs, large blocks of text will not optimally deliver. Rather, sharing quality visual content on your website and social is what will ultimately garner more activity across digital mediums and generate leads.

Need help with your visual content strategy? Let us help. Book a free consultation with Lúgh Studio today.