Visual Storytelling Marketing: Why It Matters
Visual storytelling is one of the most effective marketing techniques to help you get your message across and promote your business. Why? Because what we look at affects what we feel. In a world where every brand and business is fighting for the attention of their potential customers, your marketing needs to be more than just words. It needs to tell a visual story that can quickly get into your audience’s minds.
Visual storytelling marketing is an emerging trend taking over the digital marketing world. It’s becoming more important than ever before. However, many businesses still don’t fully grasp why it is so important.
So, in this article, we will explain what visual storytelling is, why it can give you a competitive edge, and how to use it in your marketing efforts.
What Is Visual Storytelling Marketing?
Visual storytelling marketing is a way to tell your brand story with the help of visuals. It can be a photo, an infographic, a video, or any other type of visual that complements the story you’re telling.
A visual narrative has been around since the beginning of time. Cave drawings, pictorial manuscripts, and even hieroglyphics were the earliest forms of visual storytelling. When humankind evolved, this early form of visual storytelling turned into theatre and film production to visual content marketing as we know it today.
Why Every Business Should Care About Visual Storytelling Marketing
One of the most potent ways for brands to connect with consumers is through visual storytelling marketing. The reason is simple: Everyone loves a good story.
So what’s unique about visual storytelling? Simply put, it’s the quickest way to stimulate an emotional response in someone. Stories are inherently emotional — they’re why we cry at movies, laugh at sitcoms, and get attached to characters in books. Visual storytelling marketing takes advantage of this response by becoming emotionally attached to brands. What’s more, when you tell a story with carefully chosen visuals, your prospects can relate to it and understand the value your product or service provides much more easily. So, it helps businesses increase sales and create a stronger emotional bond with their prospective customer.
This marketing technique is powerful because our brains find it easier to process images than words. In fact, people remember only 10% of the information they hear, while they can retain up to 65% of that same piece of information if it comes with a visual. Visuals help to engage your audience enough to stop scrolling and pay attention. And if they’re paying attention to your visuals, they’re also paying attention to your message.
How to Use Visual Storytelling Marketing?
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the right images can inspire thousands of actions. Here’s how you can use visual storytelling marketing to captivate your audience and encourage them to buy your products or services:
Photos & Images
Photos and images are the most common ways of implementing visual storytelling marketing. They can be used anywhere, either as a literal representation of your message or a symbolic one. Photos and images usually work best in social media ads, such as single photo ads or carousels.
Memes
Memes are everywhere. We love them because they are relatable and make us laugh. That’s why we can scroll through our Instagram feed laughing at memes for hours! Using memes in your marketing efforts can help your viewers grasp the depth of your message and relate to your brand.
GIFs
GIFs, just like memes, are relatable and funny. They are a perfect addition to marketing emails, Facebook posts, or blog posts. They can break the monotony of reading a longer text by adding an element of entertainment, which will keep your audience engaged.
Graphs & Charts
Graphs and charts are another great way to implement visual storytelling into your marketing efforts. Graphs and charts are an organized and neat way to communicate data, numbers, and statistics to your audience. This form of visual storytelling marketing usually works best for businesses and brands whose tone is more serious and data-focused.
Videos
There’s no denying that people love watching videos. According to a report by Hubspot, 54% of surveyed people prefer videos over any other type of content. Videos help businesses get their message across in the most engaging way possible, increasing conversions.
Infographics
Infographics are another form of visual storytelling marketing that can help your business get the message across, especially if you want to share numbers, statistics, or another type of data. By creating an eye-catching infographic, you can fit a lot of information in one graphic by structuring it into bite-size pieces.
Animation
We all love animated videos. They are easy to understand and fun to watch. This is why animated videos are becoming more and more popular amongst marketers. With the help of narration and soft background music, animated videos are a great way to explain the benefits of using your products or services, show the customers how your products or services work, or tell an engaging brand story.
Conclusion
In today’s visual-intensive world, your content needs to stand out to be heard. Using visuals, such as images, videos, memes, or infographics to promote your brand is no longer optional. You need to include visuals in your strategies if you want to impact your audience. That’s why savvy marketers are looking beyond text-based content and implementing visual storytelling marketing to capture the attention of their audiences and speak to them in original, memorable ways.
If you’re looking for an easy way to implement visual storytelling into your marketing efforts, Desygner has got you covered! Explore our library of templates to create captivating images, infographics, social media graphics, and more.
