There is a reason why kids books are filled with colorful images. Kids are more eager to listen and give attention when they read a book with their parents, if they can see a lot of pictures. This is largely because visual content engages and helps them understand complicated concepts better than just a whole bunch of text.
This video was made using Rocketium. You too can make amazing videos like this one for free. Sign up now!
What is Visual Content Marketing?
Content marketing has constantly evolved. White backgrounds with long paragraphs of black text are no longer holding the success of online marketing. Today, there is a new trend that’s taking the lead.
Visual content marketing refers to using visuals that include images and videos with inspiring or educational texts, branded images which promote the video, audio or written content, infographics and other related images and videos. This content conveys valuable information in an engaging visual format.
Because of the ever-increasing use of visual social media such as Instagram, Pinterest and Vine, online digital marketers and business owners are very busy in maximising the potential of these platforms for the marketing campaigns of their company.
How to Create Visual Content?
There are plenty of online tools available that let you make images and infographics. But there are very few video making tools that are free. The video above was made using Rocketium. You can upload your own images and footage (or choose from the 2B+ collection of royalty free media assets), add text overlays, animations and background music to make beautiful HD quality videos in minutes.
The best part? You don’t need any design or coding experience to use Rocketium.
Humans have always been comfortable with visual content and it seems doubly true on the internet. No one wants to read long lines of text. That would instantly trigger us to click on the back button. We all want to see engaging videos, images, and infographics, similar to social media. In fact, visual content plays a huge role in social media marketing!
[Tweet “Adding visuals to your content will make it more engaging for your audience.”]
Here, I have added a few visual content marketing statistics which illustrate the large impact of visual content in having social media engagement and reach:
In the year 2014, research has revealed that 39% of B2B buyers tend to share infographics on social media frequently.
Socialbakers revealed that the top 10% of its posts were made by over 30,000 Facebook business brand pages and the posts with visuals got the most engagement, accounting for an amazing 87% of total interactions.
Tweets with images get 150% more retweets, 89% more top favourites, and 18% more engagement.
An industry report and research showed that B2C digital marketers are more inclined to use original virtual assets (56% B2B vs. 63% B2C) and original videos (56% B2B vs. 63% B2C).
The importance of visual content for brands and marketers
A recent study found out that 86% of buyers expressed interest to access visual or interactive content on demand.
95% of B2B buyers said that they wanted shorter and highly visual contents.
Social Media Examiner conducted a research and asked marketers which type of content they most want to learn in 2015. The top responses are creating original visual assets which are then followed by video production.
By providing interactive contents, SlideShare and Brainshark have increased in popularity— from 21% in the year 2013 to 28% in the year 2014. This is because of the appearance of new tools like Visme which facilitates the creation of visual content.
A report in 2016 showed that 37% of marketers believed that visual marketing is the most important form of content, second only to blogging. If you want to try your hand at blogging, check out this in-depth guide by Ryan on how to start a blog today.
CISCOprojects that world internet traffic from videos will make 80% of all traffic by the year 2019.
Infographics are shared and “liked” on social media three times more than any other type of content.
Buzzsumoanalyzed more than a million articles and found out that their articles with a photo once every 75 to 100 words received double the social media shares than articles with fewer images.
Why is Visual Content in Marketing Effective?
All these statistics showed the impacts of visual content marketing. But why is it so effective? Here’s why:
1. Engages The Brain
One of the reasons why it is effective is that visual content is processed in a different and less busy part of our brain.
From the moment you wake up to the time you lay in your bed you are listening, reading, speaking or writing words. So many WORDS, all day long!
However, there is this fast part of your brain that is not as overworked; which is the visual cortex. So, when you tap on your audience’s visual cortex, you get to engage more areas of their brains.
2. Adds Interest To Your Page
Visual content is used to create a more inviting page.
When you break a page text with occasional, related images or videos, you show your reader or audience that the page is easy to understand and skim and it is not “BORING”. This helps information retention and boosts the time spent on your page.
3. Faster And Easier To Consume
Did you know?
When researchers tested on how long it takes for a human brain to process and images, they recorded only 13 milliseconds.
However, that may not be accurate. Why? Because our brain might even process images faster than that. And 13 milliseconds was the shortest measurable unit of time that they were able to capture.
Images or visual contents are understood in an instant. There is no process like Letters – Words – Sentences – Paragraphs. It is an image of something and we immediately “get” it, get it?
So, why not put that amazing speed to work in your marketing campaigns.
Sign up for Rocketium and start making videos for your brand right away.
Here is an infographic to tell you how visual content generates value
Conclusion
A picture is worth a thousand words, they said. And it’s true even in the web space of today. You are only given a few seconds to capture attention and to engage with your audience, and your content will make or break your whole chance of getting a customer. So, jump into the trend of digital content marketing now!
Steve Brown
Steve Brown is a regular contributor at many sites and mainly focuses on business-related topics. He also writes for a site https://www.lunamik.com.au/ which is a video production company in Melbourne.
Steve Brown 
