One of my friends was searching for a lovely dress for her date and was about to hit the ‘Add to Cart button. However, something held her back. The website looked absolutely professional and classy, but still, something was amiss. She wasn’t a size zero person, so for obvious reasons she wanted to see some user-generated pictures or how a dress actually looks like on a standard size 25 years young woman. But alas! That conversion turned up sour. Right visual content is extremely important for a conversion to happen and make the audience feel connected to your product. To be honest, wrong or improper visuals can kill sales as fast as an appropriate visual increase it.
We all have wondered at some point in time, how do gorgeous and flashy images attract our gaze and make heads turn. Why won’t it be? Almost 80-90% of the information we absorb, comes through vision.
These websites are image-heavy and enjoy the lion’s share of viewership and traffic than other websites that are primarily text-oriented. The importance of visual content has reached its peak, and by the coming years, its significance will be higher and higher.
With time, consumers have become more and more sensitive towards engaging visuals, making the era of text meet a slow death. Well, though one cannot totally do away with texts as they play an integral role in marketing strategy.
However, still, visual contents happen to be an indispensable marketing tool in the current age. The visual content statistics predict that by 2020, businesses will heavily rely on images.
Content Marketing and Visual Content Marketing – Connecting with Your Target Audience
When we talk about audience, customers or consumers, we are talking about those tech-savvy and demanding folks who are there to judge your product inside out, compare it with other similar products, check your online reputation, and most importantly, seek for a customized approach.
Consumers nowadays can no longer befooled by gimmicks or one-size-fits-all marketing tactics. These ploys worked a few years back even, but now things have changed. A marketer must strive to earn his customers’ and prospects’ trust. Only then one can smell success and sustain in the market.
Now, where does this trust come from? From personalization of course. Engaging, personalized and memorable content is something that every marketer dreams of. But how many accomplish it successfully? Once you establish a connection between your target audience and your product/brand, you open the door for them to return again and again.
All our recent marketing strategy and campaigns involve visuals, as visual content influences and increase brand awareness, sales, website traffic and engagement. In fact, brands with custom visuals have 7X higher conversion rate than brands with less to no visuals. Visuals and graphic images are all the more favorite by all, given their shareability, and visual marketing has become a robust marketing tool for marketers at every corner.
So how do you ensure optimum ROI through visual content marketing? How do you make your visual content strategy worthwhile enough to turn it into a revenue generator!
At the present time, marketers everywhere are coming up with unique ways of publishing quality contents. Through videos, Infographics, social media posts, blogs, e-books and several other channels, valuable content is disseminated. And numerous such visual contents are created each second across the world.
In order to stand out, personalizing your content is key. When you create content based on your consumers’ lifestyles, interests and preferences, it engages and converts more people. So let us catch some knowledge about the tips to personalize your visual content so that you make your customers and prospects feel connected and valuable.
1. Behind the Scene Actions – Loved by All
Behind the scenes, bloopers or clips of what goes on create a pleasant feeling in people’s mind. These kinds of behind the scenes create a sense of intimacy and establish confidence. Showcasing visuals that show more than what is usually seen, is key to building brand loyalty.
We usually don’t get to see what goes behind a fashion brand or a movie, and when we get to see them, we are left with more curiosity about the closed doors. This is a tip for marketers to follow if they are really after building trust and loyalty. Try to show more and more behind the scenes of your brand and give your audience access to sneak peek.
This simple yet fond gesture will make them feel privileged and valued. And once they start getting the feel of it, your sales rate will see a hike.
2. Incorporate Current Events – Keep the Time and Humor Right!
Reacting to an incident or an event that has a strong cultural impact, is the most personalized move one can ever do. And Oreo has slain in this move. Be it the blackout at the Super Bowl XLVII, or the latest season of Game of Thrones, Oreo is omnipotent and omnipresent.
This approach is also called newsjacking where you jack a piece of news or an event in your content. And thus piggyback on the fame of the cultural importance/impact of the event. When the blackout occurred during the Super Bowl, Oreo was clever enough to come up with a witty post “You can still dunk in the dark”. It was as if Oreo took a human shape and was with you the whole time, sitting on the sofa, watching the match and cracking the joke.
These personalized approaches hit the audience hard, but in a witty and humorous way. The more they start liking your brand, it is likely they would like to try you at least once.
3. Leverage the Power of Localization
Identifying what is important to which target audience, and when, is another smart personalized move that ensures increased sales. Ideally, a brand must look human and accessible to its target audience. Humans by nature are inclined to human touch or any other mortal presence.
The moment a customer gets that feeling; your product seems more accessible. If a brand alienates itself from its target audience, it loses the opportunity to attract the right audience at the right time.
For e.g., McDonald’s effort to localize their content to target different communities helped them to uncover the latest trends and create personalized visual contents.
4. Don’t make your Brand Obvious
It is not a good behavior these days to shove your brand someone’s throat to gain traction. This gesture mostly backfires and garners notoriety. Your visual content must be soothing, out of any marketing pitch, only displaying quality content. Just like Nike does; in every photo, they upload on their Instagram handle, none of those are jam-packed with their logo.
The images they upload are generally inspiring and fierce. Incorporating company logo in them, somewhat tones down the intended seriousness. They leave the photos that way, just as the way they are shot. And this is what their target audience likes about Nike, yielding 88 Million Instagram followers!
So this tip goes like, don’t be overly enthusiastic about your brand, but give your audience something good to see. They don’t always want to behold your logo hovering around the visual. Be subtle, be wise!
5. Choose the Platform Meticulously
Knowing which platform will appeal to which target segment is probably the best way to personalize your content and boost your sales. Random post uploads in every social handle will never pay you back but will be a sheer futile attempt. Each social platform has its target audience group, so something that works on Instagram, might not work on Twitter.
Just like Snapchat is a platform that focuses on the customer demographic ranging between 13-17. So anything that appeals to this age group will benefit the brand. For e.g., Adidas ran an ad campaign that incorporated AR techniques. The viewers could try Adidas’ new Ultraboost trainers through AR.
This campaign appealed greatly to the demographic of Snapchat, comprising of the teens. Brands that leverage visual content, have bigger chances of hooking their audience across all the platforms. Along with giving their conversions a boost. Visual content for social media must be created wisely, same goes while choosing platforms for these contents.
6. Make your Brand Friendly to your Target Audience
When Coca Cola started their multi-national “Share A Coke” campaign in 2011, it catapulted Coca Cola to greater fame. The beverage giant was finding a unique way to reach the greater mass, and with this campaign, they garnered widespread attention and praise. This campaign was a bold step as it de-branded the traditional Coke logo. Imagine removing your company logo from your product!
The Coke logo was replaced with the phrase “Share a Coke with” followed by a random person’s name. Millions of Coke lovers could connect emotionally with this that escalated the sales. The campaign began in 2011 and even now it is immensely popular across the world.
When the consumers see their names of their friends, relatives, parents, girlfriends/boyfriends, spouses – on the label, not only they are amused instantly, but also their urge of getting a bottle of Coke increases. Along with around 500 common names, the company also had alternative pre-printed monikers like “bestie,” “star” or “BFF”.
And these were translated into the vernaculars of the respective countries. This kind of personalized visual content has a powerful potential to connect millions in a single thread. If we have to cite an example of a successful campaign of personalized visuals, then undoubtedly Coca Cola’s “Share A Coke” is the most successful in history.
These kind of marketing strategies not only generate business but also create happiness and satisfaction worldwide.
7. Hacks and DIYs – Be a Guide to your Target Audience
Have you ever saw the delicious videos of Tasty? Yes, delicious. Because this food blog doesn’t only share lip-smacking recipes, but also uploads videos of these dishes being cooked. The presentation of each of their featured videos are ingenious and the background score adds a tinge of fun element to the visuals. From each of the videos, one can learn the recipes as well as the process to prepare.
This kind of personalization where you learn something new by seeing brings outstanding results. Just like Tasty, numerous brands on social media show such kind of DIY videos where one can learn how to cook meals, do their make-up, bake a cake or make a dessert. They take personalization to the next level and make it look just as a friend sharing some help to another friend in need.
8. Build a Social Media Community filled with Customer Interaction
Brands always choose a way to connect with their audience or target group. In the present time, brands fail to sustain in the market if there’s no personalization in their marketing strategy. And we can expect the most human personalization and interaction happens in a social community.
Creating a Facebook page and inviting the users to post some of their on-brand photos creates a sense of involvement within the community. User-generated content has long been hailed as a great tool to generate brand awareness. Also, these kinds of personalized visual approaches form a small world feel making the consumer part of the brand.
When consumers see themselves as a part of the brand they admire, it makes them feel valuable. Bud Light did this experiment and requested to their consumers to post photos of them with their favorite drink, in the official Instagram handle of Bud Light. This was kind of a win-win situation where the brand receives an extensive library of free-use images, and the consumers get a great feeling with their photos being seen on a public forum.
9. Create Engaging CTAs with Brilliant Copies
A smart way of increasing your sales is to include an impactful Call to Action. This creates a sense of urgency in the minds of the viewers and piques their buying decision. A brilliant way of personalizing this CTA buttons is to write killer two or three words content. Buttons that are tailored to an individual converts better than any other CTA.
And as stats say personalized CTAs convert 202% better than a generic CTA. But why do they? Because these contents are targeted towards the interest and knowledge of the audience. Generic “Submit”, “Read More”, don’t work any longer. Buyers hesitate to click if the copy of the CTA button is too bland and common.
Make more personalized copies with phrases like “Find Out How”, “Get Them Today”, “Grab Now”, “Get It Till The Stock Lasts” – etc, appeal more to the audience and make them click.
10. Old is Gold – Bring back the Past
Reflecting old nostalgia is a remarkable technique of personalizing your visuals. References to the 90’s magic or the Retro-classics evoke fond memories, also amuse the new generation. Numerous content and data are published every moment. To cut through the noise, going old school and giving references to the by-gone decades appeal many of your users.
These visual contents are instrumental in bringing back the flashbacks. Identify which era your target group considers as nostalgic and then target your content accordingly. You might have to refer analytics you get from CRM software. Harnessing past memories and nostalgia personalize visual contents big time and generates higher conversion rates.
Often, global companies like Lego, Coca-Cola, KFC, try to evoke the feelings of the past, that creates a sensation. Try the technique and enjoy the benefits.
An Added Bonus..
11. Quotations
Quotations and inspiring words touch people’s heart. Whether it is a good pearl of wisdom or quotes by famous scholars or celebrities, or even someone anonymous – quotes that have deep inner meanings, connect with the viewers. A quote graphics is the easiest as you just need a great quote and a standard design. And you have your conversion generating tool ready!
Why do quotations appeal to all? Because they can motivate the demotivated, inspire the uninspired and bring back a loving memory of a lover. This personal touch where a person can relate himself/herself to, is the success point for any brand. Quotation graphics are also highly shareable, the more you make them personalized the higher will be the shares, and automatically your sales.
So… Time to Tie up the Loose Ends
Enhancing your content visually is nothing new; the concept is here with us for long. But the effective execution of it matters. Many a time we see visuals and graphics from brands that fail. Be it a failed attempt in newsjacking, or over the top garish content.
One must strike a balance between the content or the copy and the design. A professional visual content designer has the right mix of everything that a brand needs to stand out. Personalizing your visual content involves integrating ideas, movements, aesthetics and trends to drive more engagement.
That is the way you can win the marketing game in 2019, 2020 and all the coming years.
A visual content creator can smell success in a short time by giving his audience exactly what they want. This can be attained by defining the target audience, their preferences and style. There are myriads of approach when it comes to visual content strategy.
But no matter what you do, if you are not different and memorable, your strategy will meet an early death. So how has a visual content strategy helped you? And how can personalizing your visual contents proved to be beneficial? Answer to all these in the comments section below. We would love to discuss them in our next blog post.
Happy Blogging!
