Develop Visual Content

If you are about to board on a content marketing promotion, you need to know precisely what will encourage online growth and engagement. Text-based content is constantly going to be an essential part of marketing, but to set yourself apart in the digital age, visual content must play a crucial role in all of your efforts.

Here are six kinds of visual content that will take your marketing promotion to the next level.

Images

When you break up a body of text with powerful images, people are more motivated to finish reading what you have written (given that the pictures are high quality and contextually appropriate).

Due to the overwhelming digital content and the boosted adoption of mobile internet access, interest spans are shorter than ever, making content produced in the form of big blocks of text very off-putting.

It is desirable to use original pictures or ones you take, as this adds a much-needed personal touch to your promotion. High-quality, appealing images are often expensive to buy or time-consuming to create. Happily, with resources like Canva, you can create distinctive, captivating images for free with a primary drag-and-drop interface.

Videos

Videos are beneficial for presenting common challenges and then showing the answers that your product can offer. While much cheaper visual content is available, an incredible video serves as extra clout for your promotion by demonstrating that you are ready to go the extra mile for quality.

Several types of videos can improve your business – you might consider animated explainer videos, how-to videos, demonstrations, or customer testimonials. Whatever your selection, it’s crucial that the videos are consistent with your product's overall style and ethos.

Infographics

Infographics are an extraordinary tool for drawing upon all of your detailed data and statistics and assembling them into a compelling, easily understandable visual display. Complemented by diligent promotional efforts, infographics can become an essential part of your content marketing strategy.

To gain the true rewards of an infographic, the layout and design must be as impressive as possible. The designer must combine the proper colors, shapes, and fonts to communicate your important data.

The data you choose to include in the infographic must be precise and contextually appropriate. Sometimes even the most mundane statistics can be brought to life when communicated as spectacular visualisations.

Memes

Memes are now usually known as images that are complemented by humorous captions. Not many people foreseen that memes would play a part in content marketing when they first began to gain power online, as they were predominantly shared and made famous as a kind of entertainment. However, they now represent a simple-to-create, unusual form of visual content.

Presentations

Presentations serve a related function to infographics, focusing on attractive design and color, thus drawing the reader into the text. Although, they vary though by having a more extensive scope. Therefore, if a topic is too long to be suitable for an infographic, a beautifully crafted presentation can be exceptionally effective at keeping individuals engaged with your content.

As your presentation is likely to include a great deal of information, it’s crucial to remain reliable with fonts, colors, and borders. Just like with any content, proofreading for spelling and grammar mistakes is vital.

Screenshots

Screenshot can give your audience a peek into the inner workings of your product or service. You can exhibit what services and functions you extend from a direct standpoint. You can even merge your screenshot with some marketing copy or a testimonial to improve your credibility.

Creating compelling visual content takes time, energy, resources, and know-how. While it may be enticing just to slap together some material and send it out the door, to make an effect truly, you need a great story told through captivating, high-quality design.

No matter what sort of visual content you are creating, following the principles of good design is essential. From color and typography to information design and proportion, easy tweaks can drastically enhance your work. If you are ready to improve your visual content, here are ten (10) simple design recommendations to keep in mind.

• Color: Make use of no more than five colors in a single design. Color must be used sparingly to highlight valuable information.
• Typography: All fonts must be legible and suitable for the communication style.
• Layout: Deliver content in a way that guides readers through in a logical hierarchy. Positioning the elements in a design with each other will help sustain consistency.
• Callouts: Use callouts carefully to highlight only vital information.
• Space: Keep important negative space. When copious information is in a layout, messaging becomes messy and incoherent.
• Illustration: Illustration must match tone and subject matter. Only include if it improves the content.
• Iconography: Icons should be plain, easy to understand, and common. Remember that they are meant to improve comprehension, never distract.
• Data: Don’t overpower the reader with multiple graphs of single data points when one combined is sufficient.
• Proportion: The eye can be misleading; make sure items are sized correctly in data visualisations to distort information.
• Simplicity: Prevent unnecessary design, including 3D charts, ornamental illustration, or unnecessary elements. Remember that minimum design can also be efficient, so long as you have a strong story.

Visuals can considerably enhance the impact of content. Pages that include visuals receive 94 percent more views and are more unforgettable than pages containing text. This is an excellent reason by itself to level-up up your visual content. Here are some ideas on how to make sure that your visual content is quality and effective:

Add value to the images and videos 

The traditional centered image is one of the best choices to break the monotony of text. Most content planners recommend that you use original ideas to help you distinguish your content even further. With today’s speedy internet browsing, videos are becoming highly available visual content, even from mobile devices. Videos frequently go further than any text explanation could.

Keep the images relevant and high quality 

All visual content must meet certain quality standards. Only include images that are:

• High resolution
• Relevant to the content
• Authentic
• On-Brand

Colour

Make use of no more than five colors in a single design. Color must be used sparingly to highlight valuable information.

Proportion

The eye can be misleading; make sure items are sized correctly in data visualisations to distort information.

Simplicity

Prevent unnecessary design, including 3D charts, ornamental illustration, or unnecessary elements. Remember that minimum design can also be efficient, so long as you have a strong story.

Illustration

Illustration must match tone and subject matter. Only include if it improves the content.

Iconography

Icons should be plain, easy to understand, and common. Remember that they are meant to improve comprehension, never distract.

Layout

Deliver content in a way that guides readers through in a logical hierarchy. Positioning the elements in a design with each other will help sustain consistency.

The best approach to improve the efficiency of your designs is to seek quality design feedback constantly. Receiving quality feedback is very valuable for all designers as well as other types of creative professionals. High-quality feedback gives designers an alternative point of view, which will eventually help them improve their current and future design projects.

Honest feedback is a significant currency for designers. There is a continuing collaboration between key stakeholders on an ideal team, including designers, product managers, and customers. For projects to be productive, constructive routes for feedback must happen between everyone involved.

Here are several tips for how to request for feedback in a way that aids you get an excellent quality input that can move your project forward:

State the goal of the project 

It’s not possible to give high-quality design feedback on something when you don’t know what it is, or what it purposes to be. Always start by stating the goal of your project.

Present the problem, not the solution 

Be sure that your feedback meeting is centered around the difficulty your design is trying to solve instead of the possible solution. This will assist in keeping the discussion open.

Announce the type of feedback you want 

After sharing the objective of your project, and the problem you are solving, it’s also good practice to tell them the purpose of your design feedback session.

Control the environment by using the right tools 

If you seek feedback remotely, sending your prototypes to specific personnel using project management or team collaboration tool can be specifically helpful

Limit the options 

A great way to get particular, actionable design feedback is to restrict the number of choices available.

Provide data to support design decisions 

Referring to information gathered testing or from a live product is a foolproof way to get informed feedback. Information can prove the effectiveness of a design in a way that personal opinion cannot.

Provide multiple opportunities for feedback 

Leave space for your reviewer to give their honest feedback. You must make sure that the reviewer feels relaxed giving you candid criticism and has multiple opportunities to provide feedback on each topic.

Accept feedback gracefully 

Above all else, the best approach to get helpful design feedback is to accept it graciously—both praise and critique constantly. A sure way to not get valuable feedback in the future is to come off as aggressive or too defensive when offered helpful criticism.