Elevating Your Marketing Strategy: The Power of Visual Content

In digital marketing, everything you publish requires visual content. Your campaigns, no matter how big or small — a paid ad, an email, a webinar, etc. — need captivating front covers. If I’m honest, that’s one of the hardest parts of my job. I’m no designer, but I know how important it is to find the right visuals. In fact, when it comes to campaign performance, I’ve found that a visual can be the deciding factor between high and low engagement. Out of diligence, I dedicate a meaningful portion of time to finding good imagery before I push things live. It’s a choice I make, because I value the role it plays in elevating performance.

If you’re a digital marketer and you aren’t paying attention to visuals, I hope to convince you of its importance and to prove to you that the right visuals can make or break campaigns.

The Impactful Thumbnail: Stop the Scroll

Digital marketers, we live and breathe by one rule. Say it with me: "Stop the Scroll”. It’s all about the thumbnail. It’s the new virtual storefront. A thumbnail tells viewers what to expect behind the door. How’s your curb appeal? I can tell you this, if your post doesn’t make people double-take, it’s never going to stand a chance.

It doesn’t matter how witty you think your caption is. People won’t give you the time of day if you can’t convey your message within their one-second glance. I challenge you to scroll through social media right now — Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, even LinkedIn. Thumbnails everywhere are screaming, "Pick me!" Remember, we must stand out amidst the digital noise.

My advice:

• Don’t overlook thumbnails. Find a way to “Stop the Scroll”. Remember, you have sub-seconds to get a viewer’s attention. The thumbnail is your chance to hook people in.
• Brainstorm keywords that describe your promo to help you search for eye-catching thumbnails that align with your brand. Ask yourself what would make you stop?

From creator

@kirbygladstein

I like this photo because it made me pause to take a second look. There is so much beauty from the model’s glazing eyes, to her fierce accessories, and her artistic presence. It screams, “Stop and look at me!”

Match the Image to Your Key Message

Don’t just pick a stunning shot for the sake of! Make sure it’s relevant and connected to the topic of your campaign or marketing asset. The images you incorporate into your campaigns serve as aids in comprehension. They’re not mere placeholders. Whatever your message is, think about the way this message relates to other fields outside of your brand’s industry. For example, my team published a blog a few weeks ago announcing a new homepage on our digital platform. The thumbnail we used? A lovely house on a mountain — a home. Consider what parallels you can draw from your business world to the real world, then try exploring online creative communities for visual inspiration.

To summarize:

• Visual content needs to be relevant to the words and the message you’re sharing. In fact, visuals have the ability to help readers digest information much more easily.
• Search online creative communities to find unique ways to draw parallels between the real world and your particular business or industry.

From creator

@michaelandmatt

Here’s my endeavor to supplement text with imagery. In the preceding paragraph, I talked about how visuals can serve as an aid in comprehension. In other words, visuals can help make the light bulbs “go on”. This photograph is a powerful symbol of the ideas we can plant in someone’s mind, to make them say “Aha!” and the string of ideas that can come to life in a person’s mind.

Video Content: From Headache to Highlight

Thanks to platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram, anyone can produce a video and post it to the internet. Consumers have an appetite for more than just high production video content. For marketers, that means videos are no longer a financial burden to produce. Rather, we have the ability to leverage lo-fi videos, short clips, and even gifs to tell our stories. There are myriad ways to leverage video in your marketing. Let's transform the perception of video from a daunting challenge into a shining highlight within your marketing arsenal.

Here are some quick tips:

• Explore TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels to study the art of short clips.
• To get your feet wet, take a long-form video that exists in your resource library, e.g. from a webinar recording, and clip it for social media.

From creator

@whatalexdid

This 3-minute video depicts a grandfather's journey with dementia, none of it scripted. It’s a string of real life recordings. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, videos are worth a trillion!

The Strategic Role of Imagery

We should always remember to follow brand guidelines. Any imagery we use should suit your brand visually and also tell your brand story. When picking visuals for your campaigns, this is a helpful reminder to make sure that your campaign speaks to a much larger company vision and mission. The visuals that front cover your message help add to your brand identity and play a significant role in building brand recognition. For digital marketers, it’s a nice break away from our main job responsibility, that we have the opportunity to contribute to the brand by aligning the imagery to our broader business objectives.

To summarize:

• Shift focus to the strategic role of visuals, going beyond mere aesthetics.
• Leverage visuals to build brand identity and foster recognition.
• Harness the power of strategically crafted visuals for enhanced marketing success.

From creator

@thejurgys

I like this image because it reminds me that sometimes when I’m facing big challenges, it helps to shift my perspective. When you allow yourself to think differently or expose yourself to new things, the world reveals its myriad colors through the lens of possibility.

As marketers, we’re so focused on pushing campaigns that we often forget to pause and give thought to the details. My whole world is centered around performance and measurable results. For some reason, I used to think visuals were inconsequential. The truth is that they make all the difference. It’s not to say visuals are more important than the message you’re conveying. But consider this: the visual and the message have two different jobs. The visual gets people to walk through the front door, and the message keeps them inside the shop. Your message won’t even stand a chance if the visual doesn’t succeed first.

So I leave you with this one anecdote. I once found myself stuck in a creative rut trying to find the right visuals to incorporate into my campaigns. Finally, in my online search, I stumbled upon an image that took me off guard, like the ones above. I couldn’t explain why I was drawn to the image, and ordinarily I would never have thought this image would fit my campaign so perfectly. It taught me the power of shifting perspective. Behind every images there are hidden depths, a fresh outlook can transform our approach to marketing. So let's remember the importance of visuals in our campaigns, recognizing their ability to captivate our audience from the first glance. After all, in today's fast-paced digital landscape, it's the visuals that often pave the way for meaningful engagement and lasting connections.