Visual Communication — Why You Need It for Your Brand?

Nowadays, it is all about visual communication for brands to reach new heights. This is evident with the fact that people look for visual stories on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. Internet users engage better with images and videos. Forbes reports that internet users spend billions of hours on YouTube on a daily basis, with a staggering 91% of buyers preferring visual content over the more traditional text-based content.

Cisco has predicted that 80% of internet traffic will wholly consume video content by 2020. Based on this staggering percentage, it is not difficult to see why visual content will eventually outdo its text counterpart. But the real question here is why it is so important at all? How it can help brands in the long run?

Without further ado, let’s take a look at what visual communication is and how it is important, more specifically for brands that want to achieve the best results in a short amount of time.

Understanding Visual Communication

Visual communication is exactly what you think it is — it is about conveying messages through images. It explores the idea that visual messages with text have greater power to educate, inform and persuade a person or the masses to make a lasting impact.

So, the next time you incorporate an image in your tweet, you will increase its chances of changing minds and being shared. But of course, you already had an idea about this. Where it really gets interesting is looking at the far-reaching impact of visual communication.

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Importance of Visual Communication for Your Brand

If you haven’t noticed, people do not have as much time as they did before. They simply do not have the time to go through your latest blog and assess each and every detail. This is why people actually think the AVEs metric is meaningless. Because it does not clearly indicate how many people are being exposed and absorbing the content.

The keyword here is absorbing. This is why visual communication is changing things by taking over.

The importance of visual communication cannot be denied; it can aid your brand in more ways than you can possibly imagine, such as:

It Saves Time

If it is not obvious enough, visual communication saves time. In this day and age, people constantly look for content that is easily digestible.

Visual signals are easily processed than reading a sentence from a paragraph full of text. Images pass a ton of information in a short amount of time. Why? Because the human brain can process images 60,000 times faster than text.

By using visual communication, brands convey their message effortlessly and effectively, saving time for their customers so that they can make an informed decision in no time.

It Leaves a Lasting Impression

Similar to how nonverbal communication leaves a big impact when you meet someone for the very first time. The same applies to visual communication as well.

Take into account how videos, photos, and graphs make it easier for potential customers to analyze and assess.

Should you buy a particular product? Do you invest at all? Do you return to the website? These are some question to which you can easily get answers via visual content.

By giving your target audience visual content you are able to inform, engage and entertain them. You can actually leave a good impression by using the right textures, typography, data visualization, colors and more.

Allows for Usage of Branding as a Tool

Branding is a disciplined process. It is relied upon to increase customer loyalty and awareness. If you think about your favorite brands, you will actually understand how this works.

In any business, branding requires a willingness from the upper management to invest in the future. This is because branding is all about grabbing each and every one of those opportunities to communicate with people as to why they should choose one brand over the rest.

By taking advantage of branding, companies show their enthusiasm to market leaders. They arm their employees with the best tools to reach their customers, which in turn allows them to outpace their competition.

Steadily investing in design will be rewarded with an increase in competitiveness. This kind of brand strategy clearly defines a unique value proposition, differentiation, and positioning.

According to Milton Glaser, one of the most influential visual designers, logos serve as a gateway to the brand. Top notch visual design engages intelligence, imagination, and emotion in a way unlike any other while cementing customer loyalty and recall.

Builds Brand Identity

Brands that utilize visuals do not have a hard time building a visual identity which is consistent.

There is no doubt that words are powerful, but visuals serve as an important element to remain relevant in your customer’s mind.

For instance, BMW has an iconic logo which features blue, black and white in a circle with three alphabets. McDonald’s has its golden arches, and Starbucks has its unique green siren that can be found on cups everywhere.

Visuals are vital for being associated with brands. It builds an identity, a long-lasting and effective one at that.

Influences Emotion

Think about how videos with a Christmas tree and a family reunion at an airport make people feel something.

Brands can use visuals to elicit emotion, so it should not come as a surprise that consumers let their emotions influence their decisions, not excluding those pertaining to purchases.

With visuals, brands can engage their customers and convince them to be interested in their products and services.

Visuals provide a story, which is necessary for drawing out emotions.

Opens New Doors

Seeing how competition offers a lot of choices than ever before, companies constantly look for ways to emotionally connect with their customers, and in the process of doing so, create long-lasting relationships, perhaps even for life.

Powerful brands separate themselves from the rest of the crowd by making their customers “fall in love with them”. They make them believe as though they are the absolute best out there, which is made possible by conceiving and executing highly effective visual communication designs.

How brands are perceived has a direct impact on its success or failure, regardless of whether it is a non-start-up, non-profit, product or even a service. Good design equals good business.

It is safe to say businesses now are only as strong as their brands, and nothing comes close to empowering business leaders with greater leverage than good visual communication.

If the primary functions of brands were to be highlighted, they would be as follows:

Good visual communication incorporates the most useful and beautiful designs to guide customers in navigating a highly competitive market place while reassuring them at the same time, allowing them to positively connect with the brand. For this reason, business leaders will go out of their way to invest in good visual design.

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Improving Visual Communication for your Brand

You need to use a mix of visual imagery for your brand to reach your goals. Visual communication makes it possible for internet users to engage with your brand through all marketing channels, like social media, website content, email and so on.

With the help of rich media, such as video advertising and banner advertising, you are able to strengthen your brand story by making it more interesting.

You already know the importance of visual communication for your brand, but now let’s take a look at how you can improve it:

Use Infographics

To communicate an idea or share a message, use infographics in your online marketing campaigns. Your campaigns will benefit from them greatly.

Sharing well-structured and well-designed infographics automatically attract natural links for your website, thus increasing your brand visibility online. When combined with social media sharing, infographics also increase brand awareness and the traffic to your website.

Use Visual Presentations

Engaging presentations allow you to communicate and teach your audience, regardless of what device they use, be it a laptop, phone or a tablet.

If your presentations have a lot of information, you need to be consistent in your usage of borders, colors, and fonts. These should be thoughtfully considered and tested to make sure you create the desired impact.

Make Bland Data Fun to Understand

Enough emphasis cannot be placed on the fact that you need to make bland data fun to understand. This way, it will be easy to digest, no matter how technical everything might be.

People will be more receptive to boring percentages, figures, and facts if you present the information in a playful and fun manner. For this reason, do not hesitate from using effective animations and vector graphics, as it can make all the difference in the world.

Use Demos to Sell New Products

You can always use high-quality images with annotations and animations on demos for your new products.

Everyone already knows the purpose of product demos; they are there to sell your product, but this does not mean your messages need to be aimed at your customers directly.

Successful demos are those that do not focus on selling the product. They rely on effective marketing communication to reel the viewer in by provoking strong emotions. If used correctly, this trick will get your product the attention it deserves without fail and it will be remembered by customers for years to come.

Ensure Your Messages are Easy to Understand

Effective communication is a mix of different types of people and forms of communication.

How can you determine which form of visual imagery will be best for your brand? It depends on your target audience. Be careful about the medium of communication you use, as it could do more harm than good.

If you do not know how to go about constructing the proper marketing message, then ask yourself the following questions:

During Live Events use Rich Media

During product demonstrations or while speaking to new customers in public, you should have the best platform to work with. Your only goal would be for people to adopt and spread your message.

Create vivid presentations so that you can attract new customers and convert your stakeholders.

A combination of strong graphical media, presentations, imagery, and video you will be able to get the word out regarding what your brand stands for. Once you have an amazing design, it can be syndicated all over the internet using platforms like Live Journal, Weebly and Reddit.

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Final Words

The world of visual communication is quite elaborate, giving you enough room to play with to improve your brand. If you want to stay relevant and competitive, especially in this day and age, there is no option, but to adopt visual communication to boost your business. Apply as many visual communication techniques and strategies for your business and you will get the results you were hoping to achieve, and much more, in a short amount of time.

This article is written by Emma Megan, a marketing and business blogger. She loves to engage with readers who are seeking B2B and B2C marketing related information on the internet. She is a featured blogger at various high authority blogs and magazines in which she shared her research and experience with the vast online community. Currently, she is associated with an Orlando based SEO Company ‘PNC Digital’.

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