Creative Ways to Use Visuals in Your Content Marketing Campaigns
Content is king on the internet but with so much content available, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. Using visuals creatively can help you stand out.
Photos
These days, everyone has a camera on their phone, so there is really no excuse to not use images to support your content. Use high-quality images from every angle for the products you are trying to sell. Look at how Amazon does this on their site, with clickable thumbnails so you can look through the different views.
Great images are essential for any sales letter you produce. Place the images and the “Buy Now” buttons or links close together to stimulate sales.
Memes
Memes are a great chance to be creative and create a strong visual impact. They are also highly shareable on social media, so they can bring you plenty of traffic provided they are fun, interesting, and not (too) offensive.
When creating your memes, use high-quality images. They can be your own, common meme backgrounds like Lord of the Rings or Willy Wonka, or stock images. Use one of the popular free meme makers online or use a program like PowerPoint and save your memes as jpgs.
Use a very readable font such as Impact. Watch out for color contrasts in terms of using the photo as a background, versus the color of the lettering you are using. You want everything to be as readable as possible. Avoid making them more than 500 pixels wide so you can use them on all social sites. Be sure to put your URL on each meme you create to help drive traffic back to your site.
Infographics
Infographics are highly shareable and a wonderfully creative way to present what can sometimes be dull statistics in a whole new light. Even if you don’t have a lot of graphics, the color, layout and font can really grab the attention and make people willing to share the information on social networks.
Presentations
PowerPoint presentations can often lead to “bored to death by bullet points,” but adding images can really make them pop. Again, your own photos, stock images and memes can enhance the deck. So too can “Smart Art,” creating charts, diagrams and more to make the information stand out.
Video
If a picture is worth a thousand words, videos can be worth vast numbers. Product videos can give details about an item consumers are considering buying without having to wade through a long written sales letter. Product demonstration videos are ideal because seeing is believing.
Review videos also save a lot of time, typing and reading compared to written reviews.
Videos from your presentations are a handy shortcut that can help you build your YouTube channel. Put transition between the slides and set the time each slide should be seen, such as 10 seconds. Save as an MP4. Create a keyworded title and description so people interested in your niche will be able to find it, and upload it to YouTube. Click the Share button and get the embed code so you can add it to any page or blog post at your site.
Pinboards
Pinterest is a very popular social media site – especially with women, who make up about 90% of their users. Pinboards with images of your products and services can be a great way to attract attention. Your followers can share your pins with their followers too. You can invite people to pin on your boards as well if you wish, so colleagues, for example, can help you create great boards.
Instagram’s popularity is growing by leaps and bounds. It is now owned by Facebook and is becoming the go-to site for looking at amazing images. Be sure to have an account there and format your images as squares in order to make them look their best.
