4 Things Every Business Leader Should Know About Visual Communication
.
It’s a new year, a fresh start, and a golden opportunity to make changes to how you run your business and communicate with your customers. If creating high-quality visuals to convey your message and grow your business is still an afterthought, let this new year be the time that visual content becomes a priority.
1. Embrace it.
Processing print isn’t something the human brain was built for. The printed word is a human artifact. It’s very convenient and it’s worked very well for us for 5,000 years, but it’s an invention of human beings. By contrast Mother Nature has built into our brain our ability to see the visual world and interpret it. Even the spoken language is much more a given biologically than reading written language. – Marcel Just, Director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University
According to Just, our brains are designed to process visuals; the human mind is less equipped for reading text and comprehending spoken language. The physiological slant towards visuals helps explain why visuals and design in general are critical for the success of most modern businesses.
Business leaders need sophisticated visuals to deliver persuasive presentations that are superior to the Death by PowerPoint presentation style, which is text-heavy, light on visuals, and lacking in design overall.
In addition, marketers need photography, infographics, videos, and ebooks to gain new customers, educate clients, and increase brand awareness. According to Adage.com, 65% of marketers said they believe visual assets, including photos, videos, illustrations and infographics, are core to how their brand story is communicated.
To inspire you to add visual content to your to-do list for the new year, check out these resources to learn more about the power of visuals:
10 Facts About Visual Content For Digital Marketing
Why Visual Content Matters For Your Marketing
Once you fully embrace why your business needs visual content, it is time to learn how to create visual content.
2. Allocate for it.
To grow your business with visual content, you need to budget appropriately. Whether you are developing an important presentation for investors, or enhancing your digital marketing campaign, a chunk of your budget needs to be allocated for professional visual content.
Only 29% of senior marketers said their marketing budget is allocated appropriately and at the right level toward acquiring or creating visual assets, and 39% said more budget should be allocated to creating visual assets, according to the article, Study: Marketers Want More Money for Visual Content.
Don’t be among the professionals regretting their budgeting choices. Plan for visual content at the beginning of the year so you can create content that will get you the results you need.
3. Partner on it.
You might be thinking, why do I need a budget for visuals when there are so many great stock photos available for free?
That question is understandable as there are many stock photo sites offering beautiful photos free of charge. However photography alone is not sufficient for most types of content, including presentations, ebooks, and ads.
While visuals, such as photography, are an essential component of communicating with an audience, visuals typically need to be accompanied with some other elements to reach maximum effectiveness.
Visuals need supporting elements because almost 90% of visual information is lost in transmission to the brain. Your mind will prefer the visuals, and also process the visuals quickly, however the other elements, such as text, will help the mind fully comprehend the nuances of your specific message. If you don’t enhance your visuals with supporting elements such as text, your audience might come to a conclusion you did not intend – even if you think your visuals are picture perfect representations of a concept.
This is where visual content gets tricky; combining the right visuals with the best supporting elements to tell a particular story for a certain audience is an art and a science – it’s a challenge that should be left to professional designers, if your budget allows.
To make sure your visual content hits the right target, partner with professionals to create visual content that sings the right song to inspire your audience.
4. Recycle it.
Once you have embraced the power of visual content, budgeted for it, partnered on it, and consequently created great visuals, don’t let any of your new, valuable assets go to waste. Recycle your visuals to get the best ROI.
For example, if you invest in a stunning pitch deck, reuse your slides to tell your company’s story on your website. In addition, transform your presentation into a video for a YouTube marketing campaign. The possibilities for recycling visual content are seemingly endless. Have fun with it; get creative to stretch your investment beyond the original intended use.
For inspiration, check out these articles:
Use Presentations To Create Video Marketing Magic
The Mega-Might of Presentations for Content Marketing
Conclusion
Yes, creating effective visual content is important and also difficult, and therefore sometimes expensive. However visual content is worth the investment – especially if you partner with professionals to create content that will tell a compelling story and resonate with your audience.
For final inspiration, enjoy the infographic below.
It’s an oldie but a goodie, and it is all about the wonderful world of visual content:
