When you start to think about famous marketing campaigns (think Pepsi or KFC), you realize that one thing stands out: a very planned concept of visual language.
We live in a visual-focused world where images capture our attention in a fraction of a second – but don’t always manage to keep it for much longer. Strong visual language in a marketing campaign can grab consumer attention, move them in some way, improve their mood, and help them memorize a brand even if they are not regular customers.
Big brands have invested millions of dollars and a lot of time to create a distinctive visual language. And how can you do this to help differentiate your business from the competition? Let’s take a look at the most efficient ways of integrating visual language into a marketing campaign.
Create a Base Template
Today, there are so many apps/platforms that help you create advertising material with two or three clicks (such as Canva) that it’s very common to go overboard and make dozens of completely different ads without any noticeable visual identity.
Think of it: you must create a base template for your future campaigns and follow the same specifications every time rather than designing a new ad creative for each visual you want to target. That way, you can scale campaigns faster by making a template once and just adapting it as needed, avoiding confusing consumers with different graphic elements each time.
Make Use of User-Generated Content
You’ve probably read countless articles about the importance of creating and posting your own content on blogs, websites, and social media. It helps, for sure, but today the most important component of any visual content marketing AI plan is user-generated content.
Also known by the acronym UGC, this material is not created by you or by your marketers but by customers and brand loyalists. They do it spontaneously and then publish it on their channels as images (on Facebook, Instagram, and so on), videos, reviews, or even as a podcast.
User-generated content is earned media; i.e., it's free! To create this kind of buzz, you can invest in targeted mailing lists, which are a quick and simple way to stay in touch with your consumers, establish brand loyalty and grow an online community around your business.
Brand Recognition and Identity Alignment
Remember when McDonald’s had golden squares instead of arches, and the Coca-Cola logo was blue instead of red?
Of course, you don’t remember; that never happened. And it's from successful examples like these that you should learn an important lesson: the visuals in your marketing plan should be engaging and easily recognizable. If you change them every week, it will result in poor effects and look pretty amateurish.
You need to create and faithfully follow your visual language. That way, your marketing campaigns will become consistent, and your target audience (both old and new customers) will more quickly identify your logo, slogan, themes, and colors, immediately associating all advertising pieces with your brand.
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Provide an Easy-to-Use Experience
In the early days of the Internet, websites were blocks of text with few images (because they took a long time to load). Today, however, the Internet is predominantly visual. If your company’s website or e-commerce is not eye-catching and easy to use, consumers won’t think twice about looking for another company on Google.
In addition to being customer-centric, a user-friendly interface for your website also plays an important role in developing a successful visual marketing strategy. Incorporating the same themes, colors, and graphics into your website’s content boosts your visitors' chances of becoming customers.
Here are some things you should put into practice ASAP:
- Your website or app needs to be easy to find and navigate.
- Do not overuse photos or images because the delay in loading the website can also alienate users.
- Reduce the number of steps to find something or to finish an order.
- Improve customer retention with promotions, cool newsletters, and other similar features.
- Offer different channels for the user to contact you – and always respond quickly.
Linking Visual Marketing with Social Media
There was a time when big brands invested millions in TV commercials or full-page newspaper or magazine ads. But things have changed: a visual campaign can only succeed in contemporary times by using social media as its nervous system.
This is the only way to have massive coverage today. The way you can link your visual marketing with social media can significantly increase the effectiveness of your campaigns. After all, a strong presence in social media helps increase engagement, reach more potential customers, and expand your brand’s reach.
But avoid writing too much: social media is all about images if you want to see your community grow (and your posts shared en masse), post amazing photos, animated GIFs, infographics, and even personalized memes regularly.
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
The human brain can process images thousands of times faster than words. That’s why visual language occupies an essential space in marketing: using interesting, engaging, and easily identifiable or recognizable visuals attracts the attention of more users, including people who didn’t know your brand or products before.
When creating your new marketing campaign, pay special attention to the role of visual language in the material. Correctly using images, logos, themes, and colors will enhance the pieces and help emphasize the points you want to communicate to your customers.
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