A Guide To Using Visual Techniques For Sales Success

As a brand, you want to see your marketing strategies drive brand recognition, awareness, visibility, grow your audience, and improve sales. For that to happen, creating content and hoping it’ll succeed isn’t a sustainable option. If you want any marketing efforts to be successful, you must first develop a marketing strategy that targets the right people, on the right platforms, and with the most suitable method. One way to do that is by using visual techniques. 

However, you have to create authentic, unique, eye-catching, and, most importantly, visually appealing content to benefit from visual techniques. Using sales presentation templates and slides is an excellent way to start creating and using visual techniques. Moreover, a well-coordinated visual brand strategy can help your business differentiate itself from its competitors and drive growth like never before. 

To reap the rewards of the various forms of visual marketing techniques, your sales team must first gain a thorough understanding of what they are and how to use them effectively to impact sales. To help you get started, this is a guide to using visual techniques for sales success.  

What are visual techniques? 

Visual techniques are the use of visual media elements to communicate your brand image to your target audience in your marketing campaign and strategy. These techniques include images, colors, videos, animation, infographics, illustrations, and data visualization, all of which are excellent ways to enhance your sales presentations.  

Since human beings are visual creatures, this marketing method is essential to your brand’s long-term success. Studies have even shown that people process images quicker than written content, with click-through rates better in sites with good images. (1)

How to use visual techniques for sales success

Like any other marketing strategy you use, visual marketing will only be effective if you do it right. Hence, you need to figure out the visual technique that works best with your target audience. 

Here are the steps to follow when using visual techniques to ensure sales success: 

Have a clear value proposition

When making an effective sales presentation, you have to tell a unique and compelling story about your brand, products, or services. It has to communicate your value proposition in alignment with your target audiences’ needs. You want to show your audience that no other business can give them what you’re offering. 

Similarly, when using visual techniques, you need to ensure that whatever you present to your audience is unique to your brand and the solution they need for their problems. Ask yourself these questions: Is it relevant to the target audience? Is it within the context of your brand’s offering? Ultimately, the technique you choose should add value to your target audience.  

Identify objectives for your visual techniques

Creating and using visual techniques without an objective is like taking a shot with an empty gun. Failure is inevitable without a clear understanding of what you’re looking to get out of the techniques you choose. You’ll only know if something is working if you have an idea or a measure of what ‘working’ is.  

Develop clearly defined specifics of what successful visual marketing techniques mean. For example, are you looking to improve click-through rates, boost traffic, or make content more shareable? Maybe you’re looking to increase your conversation rates or boost customer engagement? For this, create a list of a few key goals and objectives for your visual marketing technique and a time frame for achieving them.  

Identify your target audience and their buyer personas 

Whom do you want to engage with your visual content? Your target audience is right at the core of everything your brand does, including visual marketing. Do you know whom you’re targeting? Do you have a buyer persona of who’s likely to engage with your brand? The answers to these questions are critical when choosing a suitable visual marketing technique.  

Your customer market research should help you identify your target audience. Online behaviors, preferences, and demographics are crucial elements that can help you identify your audience. When you know whom you’re looking to reach, it’s easier to choose a visual technique and content that’s relevant and appealing to them. 

Ask yourself the following questions: 

Who are you creating visual content for? 

Where are you most likely to find them? 

What time are they more active? 

How can you engage with them? 

Which content do they consume and share? 

Handpick the most suitable technique

Using visual techniques in sales is more than adding images, videos, or graphics to your content and expecting it to work. The key is finding the technique that works best for your brand, offering, and target audience. You need to carefully select and pick the visual technique and medium that works best for your brand message. By doing so, you have a better chance of making a powerful impression on your target audience. 

But what do you look for when picking a technique? Here are some ideas on how you can get there: 

Use custom graphics and carousels when sharing actionable tips. This is the best way to turn flat and dry advice into content that your audience can enjoy and digest easily. 

Use infographics to explain research and stats. Infographics have been shown to boost traffic and content shares significantly. When tuning up your lengthy blog posts, infographics are the best option to help your audience visualize complex information. (2) 

Create how-to videos for step-by-step guides. This technique helps you quickly or practically explain steps your audience needs to complete a task. It’s engaging, fun, and easier to follow. 

The trick is in identifying and creating categories for your visual content. For example, you can’t use animation to represent company growth. Creating infographics and graphs will work best in serving that purpose. Break down what makes an effective visual marketing element keeping your brand objectives and audience in mind. 

Ensure that the visual techniques and elements you choose enhance your brand message in a clear and understandable way. Simply said, your visual technique should fit the context of your message and be appealing to your target audience. 

Create bespoke visual elements

When you decide to use visual techniques in your marketing efforts, you need to ensure the elements are the best available. It can be quite tempting to go to stock images and select a few relevant to your brand or shoot videos using a phone. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it makes your visual content less likely to create an impact on your audience.  

In addition, there’s a possibility that another brand in your niche has also used the stock images you’re eyeing, making what you do look unauthentic. It also makes it harder for you to develop something distinct for your brand, making it difficult for your audience to tell your brand from your competitors. Remember, your visual techniques should be consistent with your brand elements, including brand colors and fonts. 

When you invest in the visual elements you use in your marketing, it solidifies your brand’s image in the minds of your audience. You can use visual content marketing tools to create professional and original content that puts you on top of your audiences’ minds. (3) 

Build your story

When you look at it, people don’t really buy a product or service, but the brand and their connection towards it. For that reason, your visual techniques must focus more on activating emotions instead of jumping right in with a sales message. The latter approach might be detrimental to the success of your visual marketing strategy. 

The idea is to focus on things that speak to the audience directly in relation to their problems and needs. Instead of showing features, focus on value to the audience. Show them why your offering is the answer they need for their problems. Speaking directly to their pain points and providing a solution can help capture their emotions and trigger their interest.  

Track metrics and measure success

After following the steps above when using visual techniques, you mustn’t forget to track progress and measure success. This is why you need an objective so you can tell if your strategy is in line, has gaps that need to be filled, or needs a complete overhaul. Review your analytics regularly and let the data determine the direction your technique is moving. 

Social media and web content are some of the metrics you need to track when using visual techniques. The following are excellent starting points: 

Engagements and interactions: This includes all interactions users have with your content. It can be as simple as a like, sharing, commenting, or saving the post for viewing later. When you track these metrics, you can tell which visual techniques and elements are generating more traffic or engagement from readers. 

Time on page: Another crucial metric to track when you’re using visual techniques is the time they spend viewing it. The longer they last, the more deeply the content resonates with them.

Bounce rates: In the same way you want to know how long users are viewing your visual content, you should also track if they’re leaving the pages as soon as they land. A higher bounce rate indicates that the visual content isn’t relevant to the visitors, and you need to overhaul your strategy.  

Conversions: Your visual techniques should compel people to take action. Ensure you’re tracking crucial stats such as page visits and conversions.

Takeaway 

Hopefully, these steps have deepened your understanding of using visual techniques for sales success. Know your value proposition, have clear objectives for your techniques, be selective in the elements you choose, be authentic in telling your story, and keep track of your success.