Visual content is such a powerful tool for conveying information and making a lasting impression. But far too often businesses forget to incorporate visual content marketing into their overall marketing strategy. Maybe it’s a simple oversight, maybe it’s because of the misconception that B2B visual content isn’t interesting, but either way, that’s a bad excuse.
The only way to overcome this is to make a conscious effort to correct this problem and improve the visual marketing aspect of your strategy. Not sure how to get started? Here’s some ways you can incorporate visual content marketing into your overall marketing strategy.
Incorporate Images
The simpilest way to create more visually heavy content is to not only incorporate a feature image in each blog post, but to create specific pieces of content that use images throughout the post. Of course, this isn’t something you should do in every single blog post, but it is a great way to break up copy and make your posts more visually interesting.
Also, don’t be afraid to create visuals of important stats or graphs to make your point. Or consider pulling key quotes from your blogs and place them over relevant images and use those within your blog posts. This also gives you a prime image for social media sharing.
Share Screen Shots
For detailed how-to’s or simple illustrations of a hard to explain concept, use screen shots to demonstrate exactly what you mean. This is a great tool for visually conveying an action without wasting a lot of words trying to do just that.
Depending on the tool you use, you can incorporate arrows, highlighting, and text boxes to really make the important information pop on the actual screen shot image.
Make Memes
Trying to inject some humor into your blog posts or social media posts? Meme marketing is a fun way to do just that and to increase the shareability of your content. While this option is not for every audience, it can be a fun way to spice up your content and create very niche pieces of content.
Integrate Infographics
This idea is a bit more intimidating to those who aren’t graphic designers. But creating infographics doesn’t have to be difficult or complex, and you don’t necessarily have to be a professional designer (although it helps).
Once you decide on your topic and copy, there are several free tools you can use to transfer your copy into an infographic. Canva offers pre-set infographic templates that can easily be edited in their tool to reflect the information you want and HubSpot provides free infographic templates you can edit in PowerPoint.
Create Videos
Again, this method may seem intimidating at first, but with the right tools it doesn’t have to be difficult. Using the right video editor, you can create an interesting video with visual slides. Or you can make more casual videos with your smart phone and post them to social channels or include them in your blog posts.
The trick is to not over complicate things and start small. Be creative and see what works for your business.
Don’t Forget Social Media
There are so many platforms and ways to incorporate visuals into social media. Not only should you be creating and using great visual content on your Instagram, Snapchat, and other visual sites, but also be sure that your blog posts include social sharing and allow social sharers to select the image they want to include in their social post.
Visual content marketing matters and will continue to grow well beyond 2016. Don’t get left behind. Instead, start incorporating visual content into your overall strategy and measure your results. Then refocus your strategy around what your audience wants and keep moving forward.