Our visual stimulus has been here from the beginning.
Humans are still the gatherers and hunters of old from our humble beginnings.
Now we gather and hunt data visually in an interconnected, wireless world of tangible aspirations.
It’s never been easier to tap into this stream of consciousness of future customers through social media for example, but it has to be a story worth telling in order for people to pay closer attention to what you have to say.
Don’t think for a minute that visual storytelling is only for B2C and the consumer market!
Visual marketing can be equally as effective for B2B companies and organizations looking to make an impact across all of their digital channels.
Visual Marketing Tips for B2B
While remembering that branding is key, it’s important to be somewhat unique to stand out from the clutter of daily media that pops into everyone’s news feed.
Here are some methods and techniques to employ to help your business target customers with effective visual marketing.
Try using humor:
A humorous piece of #visualmarketing H&R Block put together.
It takes two topics, hipsters and tax time (current events) to mesh together an ironic and tongue-in-cheek approach to a series of marketing campaigns targeted at new to semi-new tax filers.
Use images whenever possible:
Managing Your Visual Content Provider – Frame Concepts http://t.co/8UPn8ascJ2 #visualmarketing strategies pic.twitter.com/UWnT7tAFcO
— Marketer Dan (@MarketerDan) April 17, 2015
More retweets and engagement will come from posts in social that include images. Obviously you can over do it with too many visuals thereby diluting your own social stream.
So it’s crucial to be “high quality” and not just high quantity when it comes to visuals for maximum visibility and interaction.
Be sure to use #hashtags
Why are hashtags so important to use?
This little piece of meta data has turned regular tweets into “beacons of light” for specific topics and the people who care about them.
One way to utilize them is to think of hashtags as topic areas that surround-sound your brand.
In your editorial calendar, you can create a thoughtful approach to using hashtags by attaching them to scheduled posts throughout the month.
You can also weave them quite cleverly into your own marketing campaigns:
There’s tons of value hidden in your unrefined data. What if you didn’t have to search for it? #makedatawork pic.twitter.com/t63ql0H1cV
— IBM InfoSphere (@IBM_InfoSphere) November 20, 2014
Following a hashtag Twitter stream can give you live and up-to-date statuses on a topic, conversation or brand.
For a live view into the power of the hashtag, have a look here: https://twitter.com/hashtag/visualmarketing
Understand Visual Trends
Storytelling is at the core of this, but the visual trend goes beyond mere storytelling.
Stats:
*Some interesting stats for marketers from the “Power of Visual Storytelling” presentation:
- Articles that contain images get 94% more views than articles without
- 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text
- 83% of human learning is visual
- 44% of users are more likely to engage with brands if they post pictures.
*Thanks to Tom De Baere.
Get Engaging!
Now that you have some ideas to add into your own visual marketing mix, get going with it.
We’ve seen numerous times where a few well-placed visuals in social media have gone on to create awareness, generate leads and increase ROI – all in relatively free to use media channels!
If you’d like a partner to help you lead the way and dominate visual marketing – let us know.
We’d be happy to help and can cover all aspects of your project, from inception to implementation.