Humans have an incredible ability to remember things far after they have seen it. According to John Medina, author of Brain Rules, if you hear a piece of information three days later, you will remember 10 percent of it. But, by just adding a picture, you will remember 65 percent of it. That being said, design and visual content remains a challenge for content marketers in understanding how to use it in conjunction with content to create relationships with customers. Let’s jump in and explore how visuals are key to creating great customer-brand connections that lead the way to long-term buying loyalty.
Understand Your Target Market
Your brand’s visuals have a huge impact on what current and potential customers learn and know about your brand, as well as how they engage with it. However, if you don’t know the people in your target market, you can’t properly create the visuals. This isn’t about you, but about THEM wanting to buy from you, and then telling their friends and family about it. These days people do a lot of research before purchasing and typically end up buying from the brand that is more relatable, even if it might end up costing a little bit more. Once you have a clear understanding of the emotional triggers in your demographic it will be easier to create and use appealing visuals that would make them choose your company over a competitor.
Emotional Appeal
What do you want consumers to think and feel when they interact with your brand? As mentioned previously, sometimes consumers will spend more on a brand that they can easily relate to and solve their problem. Not only is color and font type important, but photos, images and design elements should play a big part in your brand identity. The visual is going to catch someone’s eye first and then ready the copy to learn more. Food packaging is designed to create an emotional reaction when a hungry person walks by. Instagram images for a yoga apparel brand are designed to make people that practice yoga frequently feel like they can move easily while doing a class. A TV commercial for a tire company is built to create a sense of safe driving for people that live in areas that experience bad weather. It is important to generate an emotional reaction that leads consumers to make purchases.
Beyond the Logo
There is so much focus on creating a logo in line with a company’s mission and vision statement, that sometimes business owners forget that everything that comes after that needs to align as well. While it is the face of the brand, a logo can only go so far as a design element. Use the logo as a launching point to develop a website, social media, marketing collateral, advertising, employee headshots and signage that visually works together to tell your company’s story and sells its products/services.
Do the Research
Creating a strong visual brand takes time and you need to be willing to experiment to truly discover what resonates with your customers. Don’t try to create visual elements before understanding what is needed to stand out in crowded market spaces. One of the biggest mistakes brands and their marketing teams make is to create a strategy based on what they think they know about a target audience. Basing the visuals on qualitative and quantitative research will form a strong visual strategy and point your company in the right direction of connecting with the right customers.
Research has shown that 75 percent of consumers are inspired to make purchases based on images and video content that has appealed to their emotional well-being at that moment. Having a well-researched visual marketing strategy aligned with a content strategy, as well as being on brand, has the power to make your company stand above the competition.
Interested in learning more? Contact Creative Vortex today for insights on how we can help your business stand out in a crowd.