5 Reasons Visual Content Will Dominate Marketing in 2015
by Megan Ritter
Twenty-fifteen is just over the horizon and visual marketing is already ruling the online universe and will continue to rise in popularity when ringing in the New Year, especially considering the fact that the human brain processes images over text – 60,000 times faster.
This is one of the many reasons that marketers need to focus their attention (pun intended) on using visual content, videos, infographics, pictures, slideshows, presentations and other images to enhance their campaigns.
The age-old idiom “a picture is worth a thousand words” comes to mind when an image of a product can effectively showcased without specifically telling a potential customer a story about it or describing that item with words. Viewers can make their own purchasing decisions without feeling pressured by the business or retailer.
Here are five statistical examples of of how to effectively utilize these powerful tools in marketing:
#1 – It is 50-times easier to get a video to rank on the first page of Google
Who doesn’t want to be on the first page of the world’s largest search engine? Look at the popularity of Vines — those short, little six-second videos posted on their platform — which has gained over 40,000 users in just over a year of their existence. The production of a video doesn’t have to be an expensive, lengthy, studio quality piece as long as it is genuine, appealing and relevant.
#2 – Infographics can increase web traffic by 12% or more
The use of infographics, showing charts and graphs to quickly convey large amounts of data and statistics, have actually been around for hundreds of years. Abraham Lincoln used them to examine political data from all around the United States. You don’t necessarily have to spend an inordinate amount of time or money to create these visually appealing tools, there are even free tools available online.
#3 – The average person only reads 20% of text on a webpage
The year 2015 might be the time to re-evaluate your website or compliment the text on those pages with more images and videos. Some marketers are utilizing website surveys to gauge the effectiveness of those pages and get valuable feedback from consumers. These short questionnaires can also aid with customer service, user profiles, demographics and overall consumer satisfaction.
#4 – Social posts with visuals receive 94% more page visits and engagement
The explosion of social media has forever changed our daily lives and affected the business world in countless ways. Marketing aboard these platforms is vital to our success today and in the future. With hundreds of these sites available, one often wonders where to start. Regardless of which platform you choose to begin your social media journey, take your first step with an image. If you already have a social presence, make it more visually appealing moving forward.
#5 – Videos on landing pages increase conversion rates by 86%
With mobile devices continuously “on” and within arm’s reach of consumers at all times, it is not only easier to take videos using these tools, viewing them is also more accessible. People are watching these motion driven images on popular sharing platforms like YouTube and even using apps to watch television on their handheld devices. Embedding a video onto a website was challenging in the past, but today it is a simple “cut-and-paste” process via an external host such as YouTube.
Consumers want clear, concise images to cut through the clutter of textual data on the internet. Resolve to be more visually appealing to your audience in 2015.