Have you ever considered including visual content such as images, videos, and infographics in your marketing? Are you unsure why it’s even important in the first place? Read on to understand why it is essential to your business.
According to Walt Disney, “Of all our inventions for mass communication, pictures speak the most universally understood language.” Indeed, images are quickly understood by people from different backgrounds as they have no language barrier.
Below are some reasons that show why visual content is important:
1. Visual content is more engaging
According to research by Dan Zarella on the effects of visual content, Tweets having images and videos were 94% more likely to be Retweeted. On the other hand, Tweets involving Instagram links were 42% less likely to be Retweeted
2. People prefer visual content to written content
Human beings prefer visual content as it is deemed brief and to the point. According to research done by Taylor (2014), 95% of B2B customers go for short, visual content.
General research on the analysis of Facebook data concurs that people prefer images and illustrations to traditionally written content.
Another research republished by Forbes ascertained that 91% of people would choose visual content such as infographics over the archaic written content.
3. Great for shorter attention spans
With the increasing demands of modern society and with so much information that the brain has to process, the human attention span is increasingly becoming shorter.
According to a study carried out by Webdam, only 20% of content viewers read content while 80% skim through. Out of the 20%, only 28% read significant content before moving on to other things.
4. Human beings are visual beings
According to a research article dubbed Picture Superiority Effect by Childersand Houston (1984), human beings are more endeared to pictures as compared to plain text. Mostly because pictures tend to give more details. These images are more likely to be remembered.
5. Visual content is easy to understand
Reading is a complex skill that requires high mental consciousness. Once we read something, the brain has to interpret it to something that makes sense. This interpretation requires alertness to understand what a text is saying. Images, on the other hand, are easily understood as they do not require a high level of alertness to interpret. Even someone sleepy can easily understand a message in an infographic.
6. Marketers see positive effects on their businesses
According to a study carried out by Venngage on the impact of visual content in marketing, 40.2% mentioned that their best performing visuals included original graphics and illustrations. This study clearly supports the use of original visual content such as infographics.
Visual content is a vital tool in marketing as:
- Consumers find it more engaging and interactive
- People prefer it to written content
- It takes into account our increasingly shorter attention span
- It is easy to understand, and marketers have already seen a positive impact on their businesses
Test yourself to see what you can remember more, the plain texts, or the infographics?