Content marketing is a key part of any digital strategy, no matter what your end goals are. Content is a vital element of your website and marketing campaigns whichever way you look at it. While we already know that it can help to attract and engage your audience while telling them more about who you are and what you do, could it go further? What else could your content strategy utilise in order to improve your online performance even more? When you think about content marketing, you often think about the written word, but there is so much more to it than that. Visual content could be missing part of your next strategy. 65% of us are visual learners, so it would make sense for marketers to include visual elements into their future content strategies. When used in presentations, visual content can be around 43% more persuasive; it seems visual content may have a psychological effect on your audience that could boost your brand.

What does visual content include?

You can use any number of visual content elements in your campaign, the most obvious being images. Splitting up your blocks of text with high quality and interesting images could actually encourage your reader to continue, rather than clicking off. It has been said that articles with images receive 94% more views than articles without. The attention span of your audience is gradually getting shorter, meaning you need to find new ways to entice them to connect with your content. Infographics can be incredibly successful in this way; providing you with a method to compile all your data and statistics into one visual display. With the right design and colours, your infographic could become highly shareable content for your brand. Screenshots are another popular form of visual content. They can provide your audience with an insight into your product or service from a different perspective. With 88% of people reading reviews to determine the quality of a business, it’s important that you create the right image for your business. By providing screenshots of the inner workings your brand, you can show your potential customers what you are all about. Videos can be very useful for providing your audience with further information in the form of a demonstration. How-to videos or reviews of products can enhance your brand and show that you are willing to do more to help your customers. As long as it is all aligned with your brand, it can do wonders for your company. Including the likes of these in your social media posts, blogs and even e-marketing campaigns can enhance your efforts and enable your customers to connect your brand even further. Companies such as Creative Spark specialize in such strategies that would benefit them in huge ways.

How can it benefit you?

Using visual content can do so much more than provide some pretty colours and breaks in your text. Visual content itself is often so full of information that may be easier for readers to digest. Researchers have found that visual elements can increase a reader’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. Creating visual content is one of the top priorities for marketers this year. In the digital age we are often bombarded with articles and an overload of information; to stand out, you need to do something a little different. Visual content could allow you to stand out and if it’s done well, it could enhance your brand awareness and much more. For example, infographics are shared on social media three times more than any other type of content. 52% of marketing professionals across the world have claimed that video content has the best ROI. It’s very clear that visual content can hold some important weight when it comes to executing a successful content strategy.