Actionable Image Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs
We are proud inhabitants of visual culture, a culture that thrives on prompt gratification. How often do we find ourselves skimming and scrolling through our social handles? How hastily are we scrolling? Are we paying attention to the text and status updates? Are we just pausing and reading something that catches our attention? How often is that thing a captivating image?
These few statements highlight the prime reason why you, me, and anyone who is nurturing robust marketing strategies need to inculcate images. People worship enticing photos, and honestly, there’s no better way than choosing to show rather than tell. A good picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t it?
So, if your Facebook business page just displays text updates, you are in a grave problem. For me, my most viewed and engaged posts are either memes or images. Historically, this has been true for social platforms like Twitter and Facebook. But now, Snapchat, Instagram, and Pinterest have all realized their importance. These platforms have gained unbounded popularity and are broadly image-based. And it just doesn’t stand true for social media updates. Even blogs with images placed in the right places are proven to have more page views and readers.
So, coming up, we have five powerful yet easy to execute image strategies.
#1: Always include an image in every 100 words.
Your content, even your most informative piece, calls for more images than you think. Buzzsumo, a tool for content marketers, figured out that content with an image after every 75 to 100 words received the most share across different platforms.
Place images at the beginning of every post you publish. You can place it either before the text or after the first sentence or paragraph. Moreover, this is a sweet spot for a featured image, an image your audience can use when they share your posts on their social handles.
Further, practice more, and include images between paragraphs unless your paragraphs are less wordy. Next, include them if you are breaking sections with sub-pointers. A section with no images comes across as unimportant, skippable, and uninteresting.
#2: Choose colorful images over monotonous ones.
It’s simple, content updates with colorful, brighter, saturated images gauge a ton more audience engagement — channel this color power in your marketing strategy.
Don’t just stop there. Take this newly found color update to the next level, include your brand colors wherever possible. Put forward content that exhibits a consistent color scheme across your images to strengthen your branding and gain recognisability among your target audience.
#3: Practice a blend of informative yet fun images.
Who doesn’t love charts, graphs, other forms of data porn? Sum up your love for churning content with data visualizations in your content marketing.
Begin with creating your data, and then turning it visual. If you have an in-house designer or maybe, the budget to outsource, you can transform your data into infographics. If that sounds too much pressure, just put Excel to fair use, but remember to slap your logo to get the brand exposure when your audience re-uses it.
#4: Don’t just go for the generic stock images.
I’m tired of seeing stock images in almost every martech post. Game up! Rather than choosing generic photos to convey your idea, practice illustrations or photographs that convey emotion rather than a stock image featuring a person staring oddly at its mobile phone.
#5: Keyword(s) optimize your images.
Did you think I was going to get through the entire article without mentioning SEO? Optimizing your images for search engines is not an optional activity. It’s a mandate.
I mean, while there might be many on-page levers you can pull to rank up your content, your images are the most important of them all. Here’s how you can do it:
- Use the target keywords and their variations in your image names. For example, if you target ‘mattresses,’ your images should support file names like ‘best-mattresses.png,’ ‘how-to-choose-a-mattress.png,’ etc.
- Repeat this with the alt text fields for your marketing images. Always choose to keep both the alt texts and file names as descriptive as possible, but do not practice it to the extremes of keyword stuffing. For instance, stay miles away from ‘mattress-everything-about-mattresses-I-love-mattress-did-I-mention-mattress.png,’ just stay reasonable.
- Bonus points if your images are mobile-responsive and load faster.
In closing…
Always remember, a strong marketing strategy doubled up with imagery isn’t just about the look and feel. There’s a lot more to it. It improves marketing performance across many platforms.
Images stir up emotions and make your content, mission, and services or products you are trying to sell exponentially interesting, relatable, and easy to decipher. They have an insane power to make your audience feel a particular way without even needing to spare a considerable time reading your texts.
It’s clear that images are an essential puzzle piece to complete your marketing strategies, but that doesn’t mean it’s a one-shoe-fits-all cookie cutter. Always stay selective when choosing photos to use. Choose images that,
- Align with your message, and aren’t falsely advertising products and services you don’t or can’t offer.
- Stay consistent. Choose images that blend with the overall look of your brand. These images should be similar in style. Don’t be hesitant to use the same images across all of your social outlets.
- Respect copyright laws. Never, under any circumstances, claim someone else’s image. Numerous affordable and free photography websites can boost your image gallery without embezzling someone else’s work.
Use images as much as possible. It will help you establish your brand voice across many audiences and platforms. And in no time, your audience will start recognizing how great your products and services come across, and they’ll be drawn to you.
As you slowly and steadily gain speed with blending imagery into your marketing campaigns, don’t shy away from asking for help. These days, there are numerous platforms for every possible industry out there. For example, we even got a tattoo studio management software to help zillions maintain the right balance between their marketing platforms and overall business operations. The future is visual and integration.
