The combination of visual imagery, branding, copy and calls to action (CTAs) in a well-planned content campaign allows organisations to attract, acquire and engage customers at each stage of the buying lifecycle – from prospect to long-term repeat customer – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
In terms of a digital campaign’s performance, data gathered by MDG Advertising show that:
- 94% more total views are attracted as a result of visual content
- 60% of customers are more likely to consider a business whose images appear in search results
- Page views increase by 48% when news contains video and images
- Facebook posts see a 37% increase in engagement when they include photographs
Indeed, some of the key benefits of visual content (‘5 facts prove visual content is a guaranteed winner’) are:
- Being social media friendly and easily digestible
- Showing the product and its main characteristics rather than describing it
- Enhancing the brand
- Supporting search optimization
- Eliminating language barriers
However, in some cases, major opportunities can be missed without a contextually relevant CTA that guides customers towards the desired action. One of the weaknesses of visual story telling is to forget that audience needs always to be led, from the beginning to the end of their journey, while many visual pieces hope that the audience will figure out how to navigate them: that’s actually where good written copy becomes crucial. For example, the aim of an infographic needs to be clear from the beginning – within the title – before the viewers start their journey through it, so they can make sure that is really relevant for them.
Paradoxically another risk that visual content faces is that images don’t get noticed in an increasingly visual world due to high competition. However, with the right CTAs, content consumption and sharing can increase (How to increase your content sharing). For that purpose, CTAs should be personalised to match the relevant content with the relevant target audience. For example, a video CTA for a new prospect could be “Discover the new product from XYZ dedicated to XYZ operations”, while for an existing customer “Find out what other customers think of our XYZ dedicated to XYZ operations”.
Additionally, using the 2nd person singular may overcome one of the main errors many B2B copywriters make – treating the audience like decision-making robots and not humans that need to believe what is being said. Making this subtle change has been shown to generate increased engagement, e.g. “Download our XYZ whitepaper and we will tell you all you need to know about new industry trends”.
