This Guest post is written by Veronika Kavanova, Head of Marketing and PR at FreelanceHouse. She's a healthy lifestyle freak, and Game of Thrones enthusiast. You can find her on Twitter.
Arguably the biggest trend in digital marketing in 2016 is the rising popularity of visual content. In fact, almost every social media site has made changes to reflect this change.
But harnessing the power of visual content, while increasingly necessary, isn’t always easy!
Here are some facts to help you as you plan a marketing strategy with visual content.
IMAGES
- When surveyed, 34% of marketers said that visual assets were their most important content. A larger percentage chose blogging (45%), and only 19% chose videos.
- It has been found that three days after a person hears verbal information, he will remember only 10% of that information. But when a relevant image is paired with that same information, he will retain 65% of that facts after the same length of time.
- When surveyed, 65% of senior marketing executives said that visual property (such as photos, videos, and infographics) are at the heart of communicating the brand story.
- 39% of the marketers surveyed think that they need to dedicate more of their budget to creating or acquiring compelling visual content.
- Just 27% of marketers say they have a designated process for aggregating, organizing, and managing visual content used by their marketing teams.
- 59% say that of all types of visual content, professional photography performs best on desktops, and 55% say it is the type that performs best on a mobile.
VIDEO
- Worldwide, 51.9% of marketing professionals say that video is the type of content with the best ROI.
- Halfway through 2015, mobile video plays were up 74% from 2014, and 84 % since 2012.
- During the second quarter of 2015, mobile phones and tablets combined for 49% of video ad impressions. This was up from 38% in Quarter 1. In contrast, video ad impressions played on a PC dropped from 62% to 50%.
- If a shopper views a video, she is almost twice as likely to buy a product as someone who did not view it.
- The number of daily video views on Facebook doubled from 4 billion a day to 8 billion between April and November of 2015.
- In 2017, according to Syndacast, 74% of all Internet traffic will be video. By 2018, the video will account for 79% of the Internet traffic.
- The most popular types of video to watch online are instructional, how-to or tutorial videos, preferred by 67% of consumers.
INFOGRAPHICS
- The research shows that visuals with color will make people 80% more likely to read content.
- In the appealing studies, it was found that Internet users pay more attention to images that carry information. When the images are relevant, users will spend more time looking at them than they do reading the text.
- Compared to other types of content, infographics are liked and shared on social media three times more.
- Infographics increased the most as a business-to-business content marketing tactic, from 51% in 2014 to 62% in 2015.
VISUAL CONTENT IN GENERAL
- There is more than 40 times the likelihood that visual content will be shared on social media, compared with traditional content.
- 40% of business-to-community marketers believe that visual content is the most important type of content.
- When surveyed, most respondents said that visual content is four times more effective than other types of content.
- 49% of respondents in the same survey said they spend over a quarter of a day working on their visual content. This time was spent mostly on management, distribution and reporting (rather than the creation of content).
- 2% of those surveyed said that demographics related to age, gender, and socio-economic status are the essential component in the creation of effective visual marketing.
- The typical buyer now makes 67% of his journey digitally. 9 out of 10 of business-to-business buyers say online content has a moderate to major effect on their purchasing decisions.
- In spite of the fact that brands spend 25%-43% of their budget on content, only 23% of marketing directors believe that they are creating the right information for the proper audience, at the appropriate time, and in the right format.
- There is a great disparity between what the users want and the content marketers are presenting. 93% of marketers relate their content directly to the product or service they are selling. But 75% of business leaders claim they use content to investigate complicated business ideas within their industries. This represents a discrepancy between what buyers want and what marketers are creating.
As you can see, it will quickly become even more crucial for businesses to use quality visual content in their marketing, and to research the trends that will make this strategy more effective. As challenging as it is to create and use visual content, it is worth the effort, and even critical to success.
