When you sell a product, your consumers need to see what you have in the market. This is why big-shot enterprises hire models, pay a high cost to get professional photos, and work hard to create a specific aesthetic around their items. Marketing is all about finding ways to bring your consumer to your doorstep.
While the description of the product, followed by the cost of the item, can appeal to them in one way, the images you post seal the deal. Hence, this is why luxurious brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel readily work with supermodels to push their products, but the question arises, why? What’s so attractive about using images that can make any brand an overnight success? Here’s what you need to know:
- Images Are Vital for SEO
Pictures help in improving your search engine ranking. In this digitized age, it is common for consumers to look up your brand online and try to purchase the products they need from your website. However, appearing visible online is hard work. You’re competing with several other businesses in the same niche striving hard to get noticed. Hence, your best defense in ensuring you don’t get dominated online is to turn to search engine optimization.
The search engine uses bots to scan through your web page and rank it accordingly. You can rank at the top with a comprehensive website with the right images, descriptions, and tags. If you’re looking for quality images, you should download stock photos and add them to your website. These are legal and legitimate images that you can use without the fear of copyright. All you have to ensure is that the image fits the dimensions of your webpage, is compressed so it doesn’t get pixelated, and has the correct alt tags that make it identifiable for the search engine bots.
- Images Invoke An Emotion
Before consumers purchase any product, they need to gauge it from different angles. Aesthetics and the visual story you create play a significant role in this process. Your consumers need to feel connected with what they’re investing into, and the best way you can make this engagement is to post images. For example, if you’re a business specializing in weddings and products related to marriage, you would want to use images that capture a blissfully wedded couple.
So when your consumers log in, they’ll be greeted with this romantic picture and may feel a certain level of warmth looking at the couple. Likewise, a smiling photo of the bride with a ring on her finger may encourage your client to purchase the same product simply because it looks good. Never estimate the power of emotions. These are enough to send a strong message and capture your client’s attention making for a successful transaction.
- Easier To Keep Up With
Today’s world is incredibly fast-paced. Consumers want their answers in seconds and don’t have the patience to wait for minutes to solve their issues. This is why cell phones and portable devices are becoming increasingly popular. It allows people to do their work on the go and saves them the trouble of carrying a laptop or connecting the desktop to catch up. Hence while browsing the internet, most users need more time to read or see the article you’ve posted to describe what you’re selling.
For instance, if you’re promoting a celebrity, the best way to tell your audience about a live concert is by posting that celebrity’s picture with the concert dates and memorable catchphrases. This two-second trick is far more effective than writing a whole paragraph to inform your client about what’s to come. Likewise, if you make infographics or a summarized image of what your company does, that will have more weight than writing a detailed blog post.
Your consumers want the main idea, and if you provide too much information, you’ll lose them. Images are also compelling for consumers that have a limited attention span. If you have only a second, make them look your way and post an exciting picture.
- Image Are Faster To Communicate
You may have heard the phrase; a picture is worth a thousand words. That’s the logic that gets used in image marketing. It’s easier to show a picture than describe what you see. If your client wants to order something from your website or send it ahead to another person, they’ll screenshot the image and send it ahead. This is because a picture can ideally capture what the consumer wants without needing to type out what they want.
Remember the impact images have. For instance, if a historian wants to talk about the horrors of the world war, they will share pictures of that period. The naked human suffering is far more potent in an image than in words. Charitable organizations also use this approach. The right image that captures their purpose is enough to bring a tenfold donation. In more recent times, think about memes. These are images that are used humorously. A meme is an image capturing an expression that is contextually fitting. The internet meme culture can talk to any generation, attract viral attention, and leads to massive internet popularity.
Some cleverly disguised marketing campaigns are memes. The average millennial looks at 20 to 30 memes every day. Marketing graphics that are images made to sell a product only get 5% engagement, while memes can get more than 10% engagement online and increase organic interaction by 60%.
Conclusion
The cornerstone of marketing is consumer engagement. There’s a reason why companies invest in ads is that they want their clients to look their way and get incentivized to buy from them. This is why image marketing is effective out of all campaigns. You cannot deny the power an excellent and well-captured image holds. It is great for your SEO and blooms your online visibility. If you’re trying to invoke an emotional reaction in your consumers, use the right picture.
Furthermore, images can help the customer understand what your brand stands for without falling into a rabbit hole of information. Lastly, it is easy to share and much more effective than long blog posts and detailed articles. An image is enough to get the job done.
