Think you use enough pictures in your online marketing? Here are 5 great reasons why you should take a good look at your visual marketing efforts.
1. Our brains naturally process images faster and easier.
90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000x faster in the brain than text (HubSpot, 2017). People are busy. The popularity of short-form content –think Twitter and its 140-character max– proves people like to skim and move on. Using images makes your content easier to consume.
It’s probably also why articles with images get 94% more views!
2. It’s cheap and easy.
For small businesses such as resorts or roofing contractors, taking your own pictures makes for easy and cheap marketing assets. If you’re running your local government site, it is also a way to draw people to your site. Almost everyone these days has their smartphone attached to their hand. Many smartphones tout features like high-definition cameras and built-in image and photo editing. It has never been easier to take and share pictures.
Pictures you take may not be nice enough to feature on your homepage or print. However, they can make excellent material for social media, blog posts, and case studies. Businesses on Facebook see a 37% increase in engagement when they include a photograph with their posts. What a perfect reason to use your phone to snap a picture and then post it to your Facebook page!
3. Appeal to your audience.
Do you know where your target audience hangs out online? If they like to read blog posts or hang out on Pinterest or Instagram, you need to ensure you are there with content they would love to share and consume.
Even if your audience isn’t Instagramming or Snapchatting their days away, don’t discount the power of using images – 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text. They will even recall 65% of the visual content they see for three days longer than text.
Studies show that people can recall 65% of the visual content they see almost three days later (HubSpot, 2017).
4. Stay competitive.
At Art Unlimited, we aren’t about keeping up with the Joneses (although we are about keeping up with the Phoneses…), but we think it is a good idea to check out what your competitors are doing. According to HubSpot, 68% of marketers plan to increase their use of original visual assets in 2019. If your competition loads their blog posts and Facebook pages with great pictures, don’t get left in the dust.
5. Use Your Pictures to Look Professional and Trustworthy.
Visual cues can say more to a potential customer than you might think. According to one study, 60% of consumers are more likely to consider a business whose images appear in local search results.
More importantly, over 46% of people say a website’s design is the number one criterion for deciding whether a company is credible. Do you depend on your customers to trust you? If you do, you might want to ensure you look at the amount and quality of images on your website.
Go Forth and Start Snapping Pictures
If you are looking for marketing tips on taking better pictures, check out our image quality and optimization post. Or, if you are looking for helpful solutions to using more images in your social media marketing, we wrote about that too. There are countless ways and places to use images in your marketing, many easy and appealing!
Do you need help creating a better visual strategy for your online marketing? Check out more helpful marketing tips or connect with Art Unlimited to talk with a marketing guide. We are excited to collaborate on your custom marketing path to success.