Kitty Hound - The Power Of Visual Marketing: How To Use Visual Content To Drive Brand Engagement

Copyright Kitty Hound 2019. All right reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: What is Visual Marketing?

The value of images

Why images are important?

CHAPTER 2: Promoting Your Brand Through Images

Putting your best image forward

Why does consistent brand image matter?

How do you avoid a cookie cutter site?

CHAPTER 3: Planning Your Visual Marketing Strategies

What kind of images can you use?

Using entertaining, clever, eye-catching images in your advertising

Where to use images

CHAPTER 4: Create Your Own Images

Tools for creating graphics

Drawing, paint and graphics programs

3D and animation programs

Tips for creating product packaging

Using unconventional images

Types of image

Finding good images

Make stock images unique

CHAPTER 5: Create Powerful Infographics

Brainstorm

Design plan

Create and use graphics that convey your ideas

Choose a colour scheme

Choose your font size

Graphics

Information and knowledge

CHAPTER 6: Using Social Images To Engage

How to make the most of visual sharing sites

Instagram

SnapChat

Pinterest

Tumblr

CHAPTER 1

What is Visual Marketing?

According to Wikipedia.com, Visual marketing focuses on the studying and analyzing how images can be used to make objects the center of visual communication. Images when done deftly can turn concepts and intangible things into something concrete. That helps people envision a brand and its message in their minds eye and remember it when it comes time to buy.

In simpler terms, visual marketing is the act of connecting the power of images with your written content to create memorable marketing. Images have the ability to turn your ideas and concepts or brand values into an actual visual that people can see and remember.

Visual marketing enhances a marketing campaign by increasing a consumers buying behavior through recall, memory and identification.

The growth of social networking platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Timeline feature of Facebook are proof that people want to see what they are buying.

Visual marketing includes everything that offers a visual cue: your logo, sales tools, signage, uniforms, brochures, websites, your brand and anything that comes in contact with your customer.

The use of visuals isnt limited to photos and images. Visuals include images, graphics, charts, infographics, cartoons, graphs, memes, photos, videos and visual note-taking or graphic facilitation. Graphic facilitation is the exercise of using words and images together to create a conceptual map of a conversation, often used in meetings, conferences and similar types of meetings.

The Value of Images

Youve probably heard the saying, A picture is worth a thousand words. It has been proven as a fact, especially since the advances in the Internet. This saying is actually back by proof. Its been shown that the brain processes images up to 60,000 times faster than text. The value of images can be marked in the way it increases (or decreases) your traffic and conversion rates, the retention kept by your audience and the way customers remember your brand.

Check out these facts on visual marketing:

- 90% of information sent to the brain is through our vision. Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text is. (Sources: 3M Corporation and Zabisco.

- 46.1% of people say a websites design is the number one gauge they use for the credibility of a company. (Source: Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab)

- People respond better to visual information than plain text.

- Infographics grow traffic an average of 12% more for publishers than those who dont use them. (Source: AnsonAlex)

- Visual content drives engagement. Photos and videos on Facebook Timeline for brands saw an increase of 65%.

- Blog posts with videos attract 3 times more inbound links than text posts. Viewers stay on a page with videos on them up to 100% more time than those without.

- Over 60 hours of videos are uploaded every minute on YouTube.

- 85% of US internet users watch videos online. Adult males spend 40% more time watching videos online than females.

- Articles or blog posts with images will get viewed 94% more often than those with text only. In fact, visuals can attract up to 3 times more traffic.

- Visuals on your website can increase monthly unique visitors by up to 300%.

- After watching a product video, viewers are 85% more likely to purchase.

Visuals add value to your marketing because of the way the brain processes images quickly. Placing an image or video in your post can increase viewership and more likely be shared through social media.

Why images are importan t

Images are more important than ever in your online marketing plan. Savvy online marketers are using images everywhere, on social media sites like Pinterest to Infographics on their own sites and every place they build content. These marketers are using them effectively to present their message to their specific target market.

Images provide several useful functions online:

- Images provide a visual way for you to communicate your message by supporting the story you are telling. People can try to visualize something you are saying in written content, but add an image and the picture becomes instantly clear to them. The saying, let me show you what I mean might possibly be one of the best ways to get your idea across. Giving a visual reverence rivets your markets attention.

- They can give you another way to get search engine optimization for your blog posts, social media blurbs or your web pages. By placing a keyword related alt tag and associated text on your image, you can easily increase your SEO optimization.

- Images make your marketing more interesting. Studies have shown that an image-based marketing message will be more likely to go viral and be shared than a text-based message.

- Images evoke our emotions and capture our attention. We make purchases based on how we respond to an image. Give the viewer a picture of what you are talking about and you get their attention. Emotions like shock, sympathy and scandal will always grab attention.

- Most messages can be reinforced with one simple emotional image to go with the emotional content you write.

Images are important in your online and offline marketing efforts. They evoke emotions, grab our attention and help you improve your SEO. Images are the reason sites like Pinterest and YouTube are so popular.

CHAPTER 2

Promoting your Brand through Images

You know the importance of images in your marketing strategy. But how and where do you use images to promote your brand? If youre not sure what types of images you should be adding to your marketing, start by what you want to achieve. Do you want to help people? Show your expertise in something? Are you wanting to start a conversation? Then you can work backwards to how you can accomplish this with images.

Here are some ideas on promoting your brand with images:

- One of the most important marketing tools is your brand image or logo. Your goal is brand recognition. It gives your business credibility while inspiring others to share your business with others. Place your logo on your business stationary, within your business cards, in your email signatures, on brochures and signs. Your brand should be included on your website and all your merchandising materials.