How to Present Visual Stories that Convert Viewers into Leads?

Have you ever felt like reading an entire post because you liked the article’s title? How many of you have read an entire book because you loved the opening paragraph? Similarly, have you ever started reading a book because you liked the cover page, but then lost interest due to bad writing? Chances are that all of this has happened because it happens in most cases! Images go a long way in helping to break the monotony of text on a page. Hence, visual storytelling and the subsequent marketing that accompanies it is an integral part of gaining and converting leads. Here’s a look at how visual stories help us convert viewers into viable leads.

Benefits of Visual Storytelling

• Quickly garner the audience’s attention

• Messages resonate easily with the audience

• Help build an emotional connect for the brand

• Helps messages stay in the minds of the audience for longer

• Easier to retain customers

• Encourages and improves brand loyalty

Why Does Visual storytelling Work?

Visual storytelling is an effective medium for marketing because our brains process images quickly and efficiently. Even while interpreting characters or text, our brain views them as tiny pictures. Therefore, the brain needs to put more effort into first identifying the character, and then putting it together with the rest to interpret information from it.

This leads to reading becoming inefficient as people retain only 10% of what they read. However, at the same time, when they gain information from images, they remember almost 65% of it! For instance, as per a study conducted by the Educational Technology R&D journal, people who read directions with the help of illustrations retain it 323% better than those without illustrations. Similarly, as per a study by Buffer, tweets that had images in them witnessed 18% more engagement than the others. So, simply put, people love images because they are easy to understand, remember and share.

Elements of Visual Storytelling

Photos

Photos work as symbolic representations and also as literal metaphors. Visual marketing using photos could be as easy as sharing photos from your company’s latest event on Instagram. Also, you could use more symbolic pictures which convey a larger idea through images. Such imagery goes a long way in helping to get the message across, loud and clear. However, if using this method, people must take care to choose high-quality images which resonate with the central idea being talked about.

GIFs

A GIF helps to pique the interest of people on your website or web page and is a great tool to improve your engagement rates. They can become a part of any type of media, be it, blog posts, Instagram stories or even social media posts. GIFs work because we have all used them at some point in time, and hence they make us seem very humane and relatable. Also, they can become integral parts of email marketing strategies, as a filler after you highlight something about a product. Email campaigns do tend to get a little dry somewhere in the middle, and a GIF is a great way to spice things up a bit.

Infographics

No one likes to spend minutes going through sophisticated statistics over and over again. Such complicated figures are hard to comprehend in a glance, and usually tends to bore the audience. This is where charts, graphs, and other infographics come into play. Even something as simple as a bar graph goes a long way in simplifying data. This not only helps you highlight important statistics, but also makes it easier to understand and retain the audience.

Memes

Memes provide a carefree approach to marketing and are extremely useful when the environment is casual. However, care must be taken to ensure that the memes used are popular enough to be funny. Let’s be honest, some memes are downright terrible and hard to understand. While trying to build a visual story, it is best to stay clear of such niche memes which people might not relate to. The biggest advantage when using memes is that they help to lighten the mood, while also getting a point across.

Presentations: Online presentations can serve as a great way to convert leads as they help you incorporate these visual tools. Companies can share online presentations with ease, and hence, they are a platform-independent marketing tool to get a point across. One of the biggest advantages of using online presentations is that they can combine textual and visual media with ease. Online presentations can be rich in infographics, may start with a video and can even utilize GIFs creatively. Furthermore, an online presence requires very little software and hardware to create and showcase, making it one of the best marketing tools to generate and retain leads.

Illustrations

These bring together text and a graphic creatively to help you effectively get a message across. Examples include posters, graphic designs and comic strips that have a social message or company product listing. Often regarded as the perfect marriage between text and visuals, illustrations can offer several interpretations. This allows for great engagement and also gives the reader a chance to think for themselves and form an opinion.

Videos

People retain almost 95% of the information they receive via videos. Hence, videos are an integral part of any visual storytelling campaign. Videos also really help in re-targeting and retaining customers.

How to Build Visual Stories

• Conduct a market analysis and figure out what your audience relates to.

• Find the driving force behind your audience’s purchases and understand exactly what they expect from products.

• Study the techniques used by a few competitors to get an idea about what works and what doesn’t.

• Find an underlying emotional tone or motive that you feel with resonating best with them.

• Some of the most commonly used emotional responses are Individuality, self-confidence, freedom, thrill and a sense of belonging.

• Choose a story that goes along with the morals, values, and goals of your company. Try to find a case study of one of your customers which has an emotional side to it.

• Make sure you choose high-impact visuals to go along with your story to complement it.

• Keep testing and adjusting your campaigns and always take feedback from your target audience to improve your campaigns.