Visual Marketing: Definition, Roles, Forms & Principles
One way to attract and increase potential customer interaction in today's digital transformation era is to cleverly utilize Visual Marketing, making it an important part of the business's Marketing strategy. So what is Visual marketing? How to build an attractive Visual Marketing? Let's find out with this blog of Mosyne!
What is Visual Marketing?
Visual Marketing is the activity of researching, studying, analyzing, using images and multimedia content to convey messages about products/services directly or indirectly so that customers can see.
Nowadays, Visual Marketing is becoming more and more important in Marketing campaigns. Because customers increasingly tend to look for attractive, intuitive, and valuable content instead of simple information such as text.
Therefore, Visual Marketing can help businesses attract and make a strong impression on customers. The most obvious signs to identify Visual Marketing can be logos, graphics, uniforms, colors, etc.
What is the role of Visual Marketing?
Visual Marketing is considered the "touch point of the brand with customers" because of the following roles:
Increase website and page traffic
Visual Marketing is one of the most effective ways to increase website traffic. Especially for new brands that are not yet well known, using an attractive Visual Marketing campaign will make a strong impression on online users. From there, it helps products and services easily reach potential customers, boosting the conversion rate.
Brand positioning
Building a Visual Marketing campaign requires consistency. The synchronization from logo, website, page to color messages suitable for the style and business sector will easily leave an impression in the eyes of customers. It also contributes to influencing and positioning the business brand with users.
High spread
People often need to share with friends and relatives information that stimulates their own psychology. In particular, sharing on social networks is extremely simple, with just one click. Therefore, it will not be too difficult for your brand to spread to everyone if you have an effective visual marketing campaign.
Fast message transmission
Today, there are many factors that distract customers' attention, because of the huge amount of information updated every second on social networking platforms. Therefore, the content of Visual Marketing with few words, concise and eye-catching also makes viewers more interested. From there, conveying messages to customers also becomes easier and more accessible.
The most effective forms of Visual Marketing
Depending on the Marketing plan, marketers can choose many suitable forms of Visual Marketing. Below are the most popular and effective forms of Visual Marketing today:
Image form
Visual Marketing in the form of images is one of the easiest ways to implement. It helps the article become more attractive, attracting the attention of readers. Note, that it is necessary to prioritize the use of appropriate images for the best effect.
According to QuickSprout's research, blog posts containing images will receive 258% more followers than blog posts with other content.
Video format
Visual Marketing in the form of videos (especially short videos) can convey more content and have a more multi-dimensional impact. It not only helps businesses attract a large amount of attention from users but these videos can also be reuploaded on multiple platforms. From there, it saves maximum time and marketing costs for businesses.
Optimize videos under 2 minutes, even 30s videos. In particular, provide the most attractive images in the first 3 seconds of the video. Note, optimize videos for mobile devices, and don't forget to annotate your videos to enhance the customer experience when watching that video.
Gif format
GIF is a low-resolution image file consisting of short and repetitive movements. This is a very interesting form of Visual Marketing because it allows businesses and customers using the Internet around the world to share stories and quick messages with entertaining messages.
Visual Marketing in GIF format is understood as an animated image file format, without sound.
The advantage of GIF is that it conveys messages that are easy to understand, close, and easy to spread. Therefore, it is often used to convey stories and emotions instead of long messages.
Businesses can easily use free resources to create their own GIFs according to trends to spread brand awareness to customers.
Slideshow Visual Marketing
A presentation presented using PowerPoint, Prezi, or Visme is always more interesting than a long and text-heavy post. A slideshow is the act of displaying a series of images, pages containing information, etc. on the screen in succession. To show a Slideshow, people must use specialized equipment so that the images/information on the slide are displayed on a large screen.
This type of Visual Content is not suitable for social networking platforms, but if operating in a professional community, this will be the most highly appreciated form.
Illustration
Illustrations are images that "illustrate" the content being mentioned. Illustrations are necessary for every business's Visual Marketing campaign. It helps articles become more polished, attractive, and easy to understand. In many cases, Illustrations also have the ability to impact customers' psychology and motivate them to make quick purchasing decisions.
Infographic format
Businesses make business decisions or customers make purchases based on the data they collect, but not everyone has time to read lengthy reports and research. Visual Marketing Infographics help summarize important information in a concise, easy-to-understand, and easy-to-share way. Businesses can include Infographics in blogs and E-book articles to help customers escape the boredom of traditional text. In addition, businesses can also share Infographics on social media platforms to increase the accessibility of product/service messages.
Chart-based Visual Marketing
A chart describes the growth and development of a product/service or market trends. For reports and statistics with lots of numbers, a chart is the simplest way to help businesses convey information to readers easily. The more intuitive the data, the more valuable the information and the easier it is for readers to build trust.
Screenshot
The screenshot is a type of image used by businesses to display customer feedback, step-by-step instructions, or when introducing a new feature in a product/service. This is a popular visual format used a lot on social networks because it is easy to understand. Therefore, Screenshots can help businesses convey messages and gain customer trust more easily.
Meme, Quote
Meme and Quote are 2 types of Visual Marketing that are highly viral and interactive. If memes are entertaining and funny, quotes deeply touch the reader's mind.
The formula to create an attractive Meme and Quote is an attractive image, accompanied by an easy-to-read text. This is a type of Visual Marketing that is created simply but has an extremely high viral effect.
The common point of these two types of Visual Marketing is that they both directly affect the emotions and mood of the viewer, helping the brand connect with them through an invisible emotional thread.
Call to action
Call to Action is abbreviated as CTA, also known as CTA Button. The purpose of a Call to action is to directly stimulate user behavior, turning them into customers or potential customers. Use your design skills and software to highlight your Call to action. Then your business will get positive results in increasing the number of potential customers.
Elements to evaluate a quality Visual Marketing campaign
When we understand what Visual Marketing is and its common forms, we will continue to learn about the principles to build the most perfect campaign. This needs to be done carefully because just one small mistake can negatively affect the business.
Recognition ability
Images or other multimedia content used in the Visual Marketing campaign are of high quality, outstanding, emotional, easy to attract and inspire customers about the business's message.
Visual Marketing content
The content is easy to read, easy to understand, easy to access for all customers, receiving a lot of attention, interaction and feedback from customers.
Useful and unique
Useful valuable content will easily spread to users. However, to be shared a lot, you need to be the only or first person to create that content. If it is old information, try to exploit it in a new direction.
Practical Visual Marketing application
Visual Marketing campaign supports businesses to better understand their products/services. From there, it encourages businesses to come up with new ideas, exploit new features to provide a variety of products/services. This is also the foundation for the successful application of future Visual Marketing campaigns.
Convey emotions
Emotions are the decisive factor in the spreading behavior of users. Emotions in a Viral Marketing campaign need to touch the heart instead of half-hearted, unclear emotions. But it also needs to be suitable for the product and brand of the business.
Support from social channels
Using communication channels, Social Media such as Facebook, YouTube, Blog, etc. not only helps bring content to many people but also saves costs for businesses.
Principles of Visual Marketing
In addition to creating Visual Marketing content, you can also apply the principles of layout, color, and font to make the campaign more effective. Specifically:
Applying mathematical principles in design
Some mathematical principles commonly applied in creating Visual Marketing Content include:
The ⅓ rule
The ⅓ rule is a classic principle of composition in photography, it is created by 2 straight lines intersecting with 2 horizontal lines and creating 9 equal parts in a frame. A picture that follows the ⅓ rule has the subject touching as many lines as possible.
The golden ratio rule
The golden ratio rule in architecture and engineering states that proportions and dimensions designed to follow the ratio of approximately 1:1.618 (the golden ratio) create structures and spaces that are visually harmonious, balanced, and aesthetically pleasing. This rule is applied to achieve both functional efficiency and a natural sense of beauty, leveraging the human perception of proportionality and symmetry.
The golden ratio rule is often used in architecture and engineering. But we can also apply it in Visual Marketing campaigns. You can consider this classic rule in your projects.
Grasp the principles of color and font
To create good and attractive Visual Content Marketing, it is necessary to grasp the principles of color and font.
Color principle
Human vision and emotions are easily influenced by color. Research shows that 60% of customers' purchasing decisions are based solely on the color of the product and those decisions are made within the first 90 seconds of interacting with it. Therefore, choosing the right color will be the key to determining the effectiveness of a business's Marketing strategy.
Font principle
In addition to color, using the right font helps businesses evoke customers' emotions when approaching their messages. Normally, you should only use a maximum of 3 fonts in a content template so that customers can easily visualize, read, and remember the message. The colors combined with the appropriate fonts will create a more harmonious whole.
Conclusion
Visual Marketing is a useful tool to help businesses reach potential customers and enhance brand recognition. Through each type of Visual Content Marketing, businesses can create a competitive advantage over competitors. One thing to note is that businesses should not use too many types of Visual Content Marketing if they find it inappropriate to optimize costs and increase the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. I hope managers can choose the types of Visual Marketing that are suitable for their marketing strategy.