5 Ways Visual Content Can Accelerate Your Marketing Strategy

According to the study, adding visuals to presentations helps improve audience attention and influence action. Visual content facilitates the absorption of data, helping illustrate information that might require further elaboration. This creates a more informative and palatable reading experience. Your business plan is a catalogue of diverse information and data, but also serves to be an effective marketing document. A strong business plan will be one that both anticipates and answers an investor’s questions. Using visuals to organize complex data or support abstract concepts will make for an easily digestible report, presented as a convincing and compelling proposal.

The way modern audiences consume information has changed. A 2008 study conducted by the Nielsen Norman Group found that, among a data set of 45,000+ web page visits, users read about 20% of the words on the average page. [7] Alternatively, MIT researchers have found that individuals can process the meaning of an image in as little as 13 milliseconds [8] – about 10 times faster than the blink of an eye! [9] These separate studies offer some insight into why image posts produce such a high engagement rate – individuals are naturally more inclined to consume visual information. When looking for ways to reach your target audience, whether through a social media or email campaign, visual content can go a long way in generating customer engagement.

Colour decisions for brand identities and marketing collateral go far beyond superficial aesthetics. The relationships between colours and human psychological functions have been studied since 1810 [12], and scholars have since been building upon theories that suggest how certain colours impact emotional experience and cognitive processing. Strategic storytelling, whether by way of pitch deck or product packaging design, seeks to inform as much as it serves to elicit an emotional response. Careful considerations of colour palettes and their uses throughout your marketing materials can dramatically impact how well those materials are received.

Congruent with the Nielsen Norman study referenced in #2, the Forbes Insights survey found that individuals prefer more convenient means of absorbing information. Videos, from animated explainer videos to 3D virtual modeling, are increasingly permeating social media as much as they are finding their way into the C-Suite. In fact, organizations in professional services, communications and technology were among a small group of industries that published over 300 videos in 2018 [14]. Using videos to educate or influence an audience is one of the most effective means of communication today, and can significantly enhance your storytelling strategy – in both the boardroom and the newsfeed.

While the myth regarding shrinking attention spans has been debunked, the range of content readily available for consumption is increasing by the minute. Prezi’s report found that 95% of business professionals admit to multitasking during meetings. This is not due to an innate inability to focus – it’s a conscious decision to choose one source of information over another. For example, if you’re making your pitch without providing value to your audience, they might lose interest and redirect their attention to things that do bring them value – perhaps an unopened email or a pending transaction.

There are ways to mitigate these challenges. The same study found that visual content was incredibly effective in capturing individuals’ attention, with 79% of respondents asserting that animated visuals helped keep their audiences engaged. Research also finds that visuals are much more memorable than text [16]. When preparing for an important meeting with investors or business partners, it’s important to keep in mind that each individual in the room is making a choice to listen and participate – and they can just as easily make the choice to redirect their attention if your presentation isn’t compelling enough.

References

[1] Data Never Sleeps 7.0. (2019). DOMO.

[2] Silver, L. (2019). Smartphone Ownership Is Growing Rapidly Around the World, but Not Always Equally. Pew Research Center.

[3] A Day in Data. (2019). Raconteur.

[4] Gunn, R., David, B., Delannoy, J.J. & Katherine, M. (2017). The past 500 years of rock art at Nawarla Gabarnmang, central-western Arnhem Land, The Archeology of Rock Art in Western Arnhem Land, Australia. 303-328.

[5] Vogel, D. R., Dickson, G. W. & Lehman, J. A. (1986). Persuasion and the Role of Visual Presentation Support: The UM/3M Study.

[6] Social Intelligence Report Q4 2013. Adobe Digital Index.

[7] Weinreich, H., Obendorf, H., Herder, E. & Mayer, M. Not Quite the Average: An Empirical Study of Web Use, ACM Transactions on the Web, Vol. 2.

[8] Wyble, B., Potter, M.C., Hagmann, C, & McCourt, E.S. (2013). Detecting meaning in RSVP at 13 ms per picture, Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics. 76, 2. 270–279.

[9] Bristow, D., Haynes, J.D., Sylvester, R., Frith, C., & Rees, G. (2005). Blinking suppresses the neural response to unchanging retinal stimulation, Current Biology. 15, 4.

[10] Business Papers in Color. Just a Shade Better. Modern Office Technology, 34, 7. 98-102.

[11] Johnson, V. (1992). The Power of Color. Successful Meetings, 41, 7. 87-90.

[12] Elliot, A.J. (2015). Color and psychological functioning: a review of theoretical and empirical work. Frontiers in Psychology.

[13] Rizy, C., Feil, S., Sniderman, B. & Millar, B. (2010). Video in the C-Suite: Executives Embrace the Non-Text Web. Forbes Insights.

[14] 2019 Video in Business Benchmark Report. Vidyard.

[15] Lacerdino, I. (2019). 2018 State of Attention. Prezi.

[16] Stenberg, G. (2006). Conceptual and perceptual factors in the picture superiority effect. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology. 1-35.