Much of Content Marketing World has been focused on how we use words to tell a story to a customer. But there is one thing that isn’t being taken into consideration says Maria Pergolino, Senior Director of Marketing at Marketo: Our prospects have less time to read these words, even when we tell a great story. Most digital readers are flirting with information overflow and are yearning for easy-to-read, easy-to-understand content that they can get the just of in just a few seconds.
Maria claims that visual storytelling is the future because the same old wordy content we’ve been reading forever isn’t as appealing. She sees 3 big themes that will cause this shift:
- Weighty Words: We’re drowning in content
- Death by text: We dont’ ahve enough time to read everything we want information about
- Copypasta: Images are more shareable than text
Solution: Visual Content! Marketo has been using a variety of visual content so far this year to drive website traffic
Memes
Memes have been working well for Marketo because of their witty and funny nature. Maria suggests that when creating a meme it’s important to not only have fun, but to tie back to your brand or services.
Tip: Brand specific memes connect better with your immediate audience, but the more generalized topics have a better chance of going viral and breaking through your initial reach.
Infographics
Infographics have become one of the most popular content formats today. They’re very easy to share, visually appealing (if well done), and can convey a a vast amount of information quickly and in a memorable way. The success of infographics as a tool for driving traffic and building links has made them ubiquitous.
Videos
An obvious content format that can be utilize to share stories. Depending on where the customer is in the buying cycle, video can often times be a really attractive format for telling a brand or product story.
Tip: Pay attention to the line you walk between quality and price.
Visual Note-Taking
Visual note-taking is a recent phenomenon that is sweeping across major events in 2012. Similar to mind mapping content, visual note-taking adds an artistic flare that makes the content fun and exciting to read.
Keys to Visual Marketing Success
1) Create a compelling story
2) Choose the right type of content for the audience
3) Find the right partners
4) Focus on great design and branding
5) Promote your content strategically
So, we’ve created all this great visual content, what are the best channels for engaging our audience with this content?
- Flickr
- YouTube
- Slideshare
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