Why is Visual Content Marketing so Important? [UPDATED FOR 2021]

How we do business, from HR to sales to customer service has changed since March 2020 as we were forced to quickly adapt ourlives when the pandemic hit. Content Marketing has been no different. As our daily lives changed, so to do how, where and when we consumer content, and, with our minds overwhelmed from the unimaginable realities of what we have been living through, our attention spans shrunk. Content marketers and content creators had to adapt as visual content has never been more important.

But why is visual content so important?

According to a survey carried out by Venngage, 56.6% of marketers had to pivot their visual content marketing strategy during the pandemic. 48% of their marketing content involved visuals with infographics, illustrations and other original graphics taking up the bulk of their campaigns. In other words, original, quick-to-view, eye-catching, visual content took precedent above all other forms of content. Long form content, such as white papers and reports, made up just over 5% of the content produced during the pandemic, the marketers clearly tuned into our weakening attention spans.  What’s more is, 40.8% of these marketers said these short-form, eye-catching pieces of visual content helped them to achieve their goals more than any other content they released.

It’s clear to see that visual content is the centerpoint of marketing in 2021 and it’s the type of content that is driving results for brands.

Effect Visual Content Strategies

Visual Content has long been one of, if not the, most important element for any brand marketer, but it must be unique to the brand. The same survey above revealed that the majority of marketers found that stock photos were the least effective form of visual content in their campaigns. This tells us one thing: custom, original content matters to content consumers.

Take world renowned brand Nike for example. Their Unlimited campaign is a perfect example of using visual content to inspire positive conversations about your brand and to have a real impact on how your brand is portrayed.

The Unlimited campaign builds on the already well-known tagline “Just Do It”, and it shows how ordinary people living everyday lives can be incredibly inspirational. It tells a story and uses familiar imagery and settings that their audiences will be familiar with.

Artificial Intelligence and Visual Content Campaigns

But how can a content marketer truely understand what visuals their target audience with relate to, or what they will respond positively? Without spending hours combing through social media and analyzing images manually, Artificial Intelligence is realistically the only way this kind of data can be accurately obtained.

Computer Vision enables marketers to unlock data that they would otherwise miss. Who is posting their brand online? Where are they posting it? What situations do people associate the brand with? What colors and words do they associate with the brand? Object and Scene detection can reveal that, for example, 46% of images posted by consumers on social media featuring a particular clothing brand are in urban settings or that a specific chocolate bar is posted along side a glass of wine in 52% of images and videos shared. This is enough information to power an effective visual content campaign that really speaks to the audience you’re targeting.

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