According to data from eMarketer, two-thirds of North American marketers indicated that Visual content was crucial to their brand marketing efforts (emarketer.com/Article/Marketing-Storytellers-Eye-Visual-Content/1012853). With an ever-increasing appetite for this type of content, brand marketers can’t afford to treat visuals like an afterthought. Audience interaction can be significantly impacted by the addition of appropriate visuals; for content marketing ROI maximization, visuals need to be treated with the same reverence as text-based content creation.

Whether your customer outreach team is attempting to increase brand awareness on Social Media or improve your company’s search engine placement via custom content creation, Visual Marketing needs to be an integral part of every outreach action your business makes.

If you want to develop a stellar visual marketing strategy for your brand, following are 10 tantalizing tips you should bear in mind:

• When creating blog post header images, add shadows to your keyword text for increased depth. Offer flat text for surrounding words and shadow text for the main keyword phrase. This one simple tweak can make your header images pop and drive home the importance of your subject matter.
• Don’t be afraid to adjust lighting when creating visual marketing images. Adjust the brightness, pump up the contrast, or create a spotlight effect on your keywords. Tools like Canva.com make it easy to customize lighting; use this to your advantage by making your images irresistible.
• Know your target audience. Each gender is more likely to respond to visual marketing images of their own gender; use this knowledge to develop your strategy accordingly.
• Create multiple images for each content marketing post you share on social media and track engagement results. Pay attention to the times of images your audience reacts to so you can create more of those types of images in the future.
• Social media images are a perfect opportunity to build brand awareness. Watermark the bottom of your social media and content marketing images with one of your social media handles or your business URL.
• Don’t forget to optimize your image files for maximum search engine impact. Create SEO-friendly file names during the save process and when uploading to your website or social networking platform.
• For maximum visual impact, avoid gender stereotypes. Making the effort to avoid gender stereotyping will help your images stand out and might even garner your content extra social shares.
• Variety is essential for increased visual marketing ROI. Use photographs, GIFs, video, looping video, infographics, and slide presentations to add visual interest to content you share with your audience.
• Use hashtags in your images. Hashtags aren’t just for sharing on social media; create hashtags for specific events or integrate trending tags into your visual content outreach efforts. Change the color of your chosen hashtag to make it stand out and add extra visual interest to your images.
• Image collages are an often-overlooked visual marketing tool. Use a tool like Loupe (getloupe.com/create), Canva, and PicMonkey, or create your own images collages with a mobile app on your smartphone.

Becoming a visual marketing wizard doesn’t have to be tough if you are willing to be creative with your approach. Monitor engagement rates for everything from social media images to blog post images to see which types of images your audience enjoys most. In an increasingly mobile world, visual content is going to be more important than ever. Large blocks of text and social media content without eye candy just won’t do. Savvy brand builders who up their visual marketing game will stand out from others failing to adopt this easy audience engagement hack.

Will you be boosting your visual marketing efforts this year?

Andrea Kalli
Video Virtual Assistant – Video Editing Services

The post How to Become a Visual Marketing Wizard – 10 Tantalizing Tips for Busy Business Builders appeared first on Video Editing Service & Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant.