16 Surefire Ways To Improve Your Visual Marketing

The use of visual content is part of a larger trend toward more interactive and engaging marketing strategies. 

“The more engagement we have with the content, the longer we’re going to remember it,” Erica Keswin, workplace strategist and author of the book “Bring Your Human to Work”, told Fast Company.”

Takeaways
1. Incorporate storytelling in visuals.
2. Use high-quality and relevant images.
3. Optimize visuals for mobile devices.
4. Create attention-grabbing thumbnails.
5. Leverage user-generated content.
6. Experiment with video content.
7. Prioritize visual consistency.
8. Utilize color psychology effectively.
9. Implement clear calls to action.
10. Use visual hierarchy for emphasis.

1. Stop Selling

When we start selling a product or service, it’s easy to go overboard. 

We do this because we want to convince people, persuade them and convince ourselves that yes, this is the right decision for everyone involved. But there are better ways to sell your product without trying so hard.

One way is through visuals: use images of your product in action rather than text descriptions of what it looks like (I know, this seems obvious). 

Another great way is by having a story behind your brand or business that shows people exactly why they should care about what you have to offer rather than trying to convince them with a hard sell at every turn.

Implementing the best practices in B2B marketing is essential for success. In order to improve your visual marketing strategies, consider incorporating insights from our article on The 16 Best and Worst Practices in B2B Marketing. By doing so, you can enhance your overall marketing approach and achieve better results.

2. Be You

Authenticity is everything. It’s what makes you, you and it’s the best way to connect with your customers. 

When people know who you are, they can trust that when they buy from you, they’re getting exactly what they want. You don’t need to be a celebrity or even an authority figure in your industry; just be yourself!

After all, we are all unique individuals with our own stories and personalities so why not show them off? 

Your personality will come through in everything that touches your brand: your website, visual content like photos and videos (yes those are still relevant), social media posts…the list goes on and on!

3. Find Your Voice

The first step to improving your visual marketing is defining your brand. What do you stand for? What are the values that guide the way you do business? How do you want to be perceived by the people who buy from you and those who don’t yet know about what you sell?

Once you have articulated this, it’s time to find your voice the tone and style of communication that best represents who and what your brand stands for. 

Your messaging should feel personable and friendly (even if it’s not), but it also needs to be consistent with everything else about your company: its logo, its website design, even its product packaging. 

This will help build trust with customers through familiarity with each other’s visual cues.

Additionally, remember that even though we’re inundated with images every day, there are still only so many ways they can be presented before they start feeling overly familiar or generic. 

Be open-minded when trying new ideas out; sometimes finding an interesting way of putting something forward can make all the difference between a forgettable postcard versus one worth hanging up in my office!

Crafting a content marketing strategy that truly stands out requires careful planning and execution. Explore our guide on How to Construct a Content Marketing Strategy That Deserves to discover effective methods for creating compelling content that captures your audience’s attention and drives engagement.

4. Curate Your Content

When it comes to visual marketing, curating content is critical. Your audience will appreciate the time you’ve taken to select only the most relevant and engaging posts for them.

For example, if you’re using Pinterest as your primary visual platform, curate the best pins from across all of your boards in one place. It’s not enough just to create great content; it must also be shared effectively with those who need it most.

It’s important not to fall into the “publish everything” trap here it’s easy (and tempting) when we create something new or updated.

But resist! Instead, choose which pieces work best in terms of capturing attention and inspiring engagement on social media channels like Twitter or Facebook; then publish those instead of everything else!

5. Choose Context

You can’t discuss visual marketing without acknowledging the importance of context. Context is the surrounding environment that influences a person’s perception of a situation or event.

The level of context you choose has a significant effect on whether your audience understands and responds to what you’re sharing with them. So, if there’s anything we hope you take away from this guide, it’s this: always choose context wisely!

Your first step? Define your target audience. Know who they are and what they want out of their experience with your brand before choosing how you’ll use visuals in your content strategy. 

Then focus on creating content for their needs by focusing on one thing at a time a single message or thought—in each piece of content rather than trying to cram in everything at once (which seems fun but doesn’t make sense).

Another thing to remember when creating visual content is that everything has its story arc; even still images have motion within them! 

Your job as an artist is not only capturing moments exactly as they happen but also creating meaning through composition and lighting techniques which bring those moments together into something greater than themselves.”

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6. Get Specific

When it comes to content, you want to focus on one thing. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. 

For example, if your business is focused on selling a product or service and you’re creating an infographic about that topic, don’t also include information about your company’s history or broader industry news.

It’s hard enough as it is for people who are interested in this product or service and by extension, you to find things they like on social media without being inundated with other stuff that doesn’t matter as much right now. I mean sure! 

You can always add tags like “our story” or “who we are”. But don’t make those the headline of your graphic unless it relates directly back to what they’ll get out of reading/viewing it (like if there’s something specifically relevant about how many years ago the company started).

7. Always Ask Why…

As a business owner and visual marketing expert, I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of asking why. 

While it might sound like an odd question at first, asking why is what drives innovation. Asking why will help you improve your visual marketing strategy and thus, your bottom line.

Why am I doing this?

The first step to improving your visual marketing strategy is determining the whys behind it. Why are you doing this? Why not something else? How does one piece fit into the larger puzzle? 

Asking these questions about every piece of content (both in-house and outsourced) is crucial for understanding how each piece fits into a cohesive whole for potential customers.

You may be thinking: “Okay great, now that we know WHY…what do we do with this information?” Well, good news! We’ve got 25 tips just for you!

8. Put Yourself In The User’s Shoes

It’s easy to get caught up in the technical side of your marketing, but it’s important to remember that you need to direct your creative efforts toward solving a problem or fulfilling a desire.

Put yourself in the user’s shoes and think about what their motivations are for using your brand, product, or service. What was their last experience like? How did they feel about it? How can you use visual content to improve this situation?

To accomplish this, we recommend asking yourself these questions:

Who is my audience? What do they want from me? What do they need from me? How do they think about things? How do they feel about things?

Where does my target audience hang out online (or offline)? What are their habits there what sites do they visit regularly; 

What time of day/weekend/month do they spend the most time on social media; where would I find them when researching information relevant to my industry (for example: if I’m a clothing brand looking into men’s fashion trends then maybe searching “fashion trends” might be useful!)

Crafting marketing content that resonates with your target audience is a skill that requires finesse. Learn techniques to boost click-through rates with insights from our article on How to Write Marketing Content That Gets More Click-Throughs. Implementing these strategies can help you create content that captures attention and encourages action.

9. Say It With Visuals

Visuals are an excellent way to explain your message and make it more memorable and persuasive, interesting, and engaging.

Visuals can help you communicate your ideas in a way that’s more memorable and persuasive than plain text alone. 

This is especially true when you need to get someone’s attention quickly for example, if they’re scanning through social media posts on their phone while they wait in line at the supermarket or riding public transportation between meetings all day long.

10. Know Your Format And Use It Wisely

If you’re creating visual content, it’s important to know the format of your content. In other words, what is the size, shape, and style of your images? For example, if you’re uploading an image on Facebook, it will be at least 1200 pixels wide and 624 pixels tall. 

That’s the minimum size they’ll allow (though they recommend larger). If you upload a smaller image than this, it will be stretched out by default so that all users see a full-size version.

On Instagram, videos can only be 15 seconds long (but can also be up to 60 seconds), whereas photos must be square (no more than 1080 x 1080) and landscape mode only (no portrait). 

Additionally, animated GIFs are allowed on both platforms but must not exceed 10MB in size. More information about these policies can be found here:

• [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/post/194196082785/)
• [Facebook](https://www.facebookinsiderpagesubsidytemplatesweddinginvitationsprintablefreeonlineforwardingemailtemplategeneratorcharactersforthemessage

11. Cut Out The Fluff

Cutting out the fluff is one of the best ways to improve your visual marketing. It’s easier than you think:

Use fewer words. Use only what you need and no more, because unnecessary words make it harder for people to understand what you’re trying to say.

Use fewer images. The same goes for images use only as many as are necessary, but no more than that! Don’t feel like you have to include an image with every blog post or social media post just because it looks nicer (it doesn’t).

Use fewer colors in each piece of content: If a piece of content has too many distinct colors on it (for example, in something like a graph).

Then this can make it difficult for people who are colorblind or color dyslexic (people who have difficulty distinguishing between certain shades of color) to see the important information quickly and clearly!

12. Take A Stand On What Matters To You

Be authentic. Let your brand’s personality shine through. If you’re trying to be something that you aren’t, people will see right through it and move on. 

Your visual content must reflect who you are and what matters most to your business as a whole (and if there’s one thing we’ve learned from our experience with marketing ourselves is that authenticity is crucial).

Show passion for what matters most. If a project or product doesn’t align with your values, don’t take it on or at least make sure that the message around it is clear enough so everyone knows exactly where they stand (pun intended). 

This goes back to being authentic: if people can tell how much time and effort went into creating this content, they’ll be more likely to buy from you in the future because of how much respect they have for what you do!

Share what makes sense for both parties involved: Your customers should know why they’re buying from YOU instead of someone else; likewise when someone decides whether or not working together would make sense as well.”

13. Create A Compelling Story Arc

The story arc is the plot of a story. It’s the way a story unfolds and is told, structured, and presented.

If you’re not sure what the story arc is, think of it like this: imagine you’re reading a book that has no chapters or breaks between scenes (this would be called nonlinear storytelling). 

The author just keeps writing until he or she gets to the end of their idea. This type of storytelling presents all of its information at once in one big chunk and it can be very confusing!

On the other hand, if you were given three or four different books with each one containing only one chapter from each book (this would be called linear storytelling).

You could put them together to create your custom-tailored version that suits your needs much better than having all those random stories floating around out there unattached from each other would allow for.

Utilizing effective copywriting techniques is a cornerstone of successful B2B marketing campaigns. Discover insights into copywriting methods that resonate with your audience in our article on The 19 Most Used Copy Techniques in B2B Marketing. By applying these techniques, you can craft persuasive and impactful marketing messages that drive results.

14. Push The Boundaries Of Your Brand’s Visual Identity

There are dozens of different ways you can push the boundaries of your visual identity. There are so many that we can’t possibly list them all here. But to get you started, here are 20 ways to push the boundaries of your brand’s visual identity:

• Use different fonts and colors.
• Use different shapes and sizes.
• Use different images.
• Use different backgrounds.

The best way to get started is by doing an inventory of all the elements in your logo design (fonts, colors, graphics).

And then deciding which ones should be used as part of an ongoing campaign strategy instead of just as part of an annual rebranding effort or worse yet, never again!

15. Tell It Like It Is, Even If It’s Difficult To Hear

The best marketing is honest, authentic, and transparent. It’s human. It’s real. It’s vulnerable.

It tells the truth even if it hurts to hear the message or if your audience doesn’t like what you have to say.

Being brave enough to stand out and be different will help you grow your brand in ways that others cannot follow along with easily because they aren’t being themselves 100% of the time either! 

You need a strong personality that stands out from others so people take notice of what you have to offer as a business/brand or service provider!

16. Collaborate With Others Who Share Your Vision

Collaboration is important. It’s a skill that many people don’t seem to have, and even those who do can struggle with it at times. But collaboration isn’t just a way to get things done more efficiently; it’s also an opportunity to grow your business and learn new skills.

If you’re not a natural collaborator, here are some tips on how to approach collaboration:

• Don’t be afraid of rejection or failure
• Take advantage of resources available in your community (i.e., meetup groups)
• Ask questions first before jumping into any kind of project

Conclusion

Do it! If you’ve been inspired by any of these tips, or if you have ideas for how to improve your visual marketing, then don’t wait any longer. 

Try something new. Collaborate with a colleague or a friend who is an expert in this topic and create something awesome together. And remember that the best way to understand how to be successful at visual marketing (or anything else) is to just try it out for yourself.

Further Reading

16 Surefire Ways to Use Graphics to Promote Your Business: Discover effective strategies to leverage graphics for enhancing your business’s promotional efforts.

5 Ways to Boost Your Visual Marketing Results: Learn actionable tips to improve your visual marketing outcomes and engage your audience more effectively.

Types of Content Marketing: The Ultimate Guide: Explore the different types of content marketing strategies and how they can be utilized to achieve your business goals.

And now, here’s the “FAQs” section based on the semantic of the titles:

FAQs

How Can Graphics Enhance Business Promotion?

Graphics play a crucial role in promoting businesses by visually conveying information, enhancing brand identity, and capturing audience attention.

What are the Benefits of Visual Marketing?

Visual marketing offers benefits such as improved engagement, better message retention, increased website traffic, and enhanced brand recognition.

How Does Content Marketing Impact Business Growth?

Content marketing contributes to business growth by establishing thought leadership, building relationships with customers, and driving organic traffic to websites.

What Are the Key Elements of Effective Visual Marketing?

Effective visual marketing relies on factors like clear design, compelling visuals, consistency with brand identity, and alignment with the target audience’s preferences.

How Can Different Types of Content Marketing be Utilized?

Different types of content marketing, including blogs, videos, infographics, and social media posts, can be strategically used to engage specific audiences and achieve various marketing goals.