How to Use Visuals in Marketing for Better Traffic and Lead Generation

hi this is andy from orbit media and i
want to show you how visuals in
marketing are going to help you get
everything that you want so many of the
most important outcomes in marketing are
contingent upon the images the visuals
that we use including
engagement on articles
play rates of youtube videos engagement
in social media has a lot to do with
images open rates and email marketing
surprise this one surprised me
email marketing open rates and search
rankings even search rankings are
affected by images let's jump right in
for starters
images have everything to do with the
engagement on a piece of content on an
article here's an example this is an
article there's an article i did about
marketing videos and as you scroll down
in this article there's going to be a
diagram or an image and when that image
disappears we go past that point i'm
going to show you another image and
another image basically bottom line i'm
making sure that there's something of
visual interest at every scroll depth
it's not sufficient to have one good
picture now we want a good picture at
every scroll depth so literally no
matter how far down you go in this piece
of content i'm going to be holding your
attention because i'm using lots and
lots of visuals makes a big difference
if you'd like to prove it to yourself
you can install a tool such as hotjar
that will give you scroll heat maps and
just test it you'll see like the
engagement rate like the percentage of
people who continue to scroll has a lot
to do with whether or not there's
something of visual interest right is it
helping the scan reader keep flowing
through this content very important
google knows that images keep visitors
engaged and if you compare google search
results pages across over the years i'm
searching for modern wedding dresses in
2019 and then searching for it again in
the year 2022 yes we collect screenshots
google search results you'll see a
ridiculous increase in the number of
images on the google search results page
where it used to be 12. now it's 54.
looks like a bridal magazine
why would google do this engagement they
know very well
another way is to add videos if you've
got a a successful post and you put a
video at the top of it it's going to do
amazing things for the engagement on
that if you'd set up event tracking and
track the play rate on that video and
then create a segment in google
analytics to view separately people who
watch and don't watch you will quickly
find that those visitors who watch
although they may not be the majority
are what are less likely to leave after
seeing just one page are more likely to
spend more time on each page and have a
greater chance of taking action in this
case subscribing to the newsletter 350
increase in the percentage of visitors
who subscribe
wow just by adding a video very very
powerful
speaking of video let's move on i'm
going to show you how images can drive
engagement on videos themselves the
thumbnail i'm talking about the
thumbnail uploaded to youtube custom
thumbnails the ideal thumbnails seem to
be those that have both a face which
captures attention and a headline
embedded into the image that's going to
give people the reason to click in other
words i'm going to
capture i want you to see this and i
want you to have a reason to take action
so i made this one i thought it was a
good one until i looked at the
competition and realized that brian dean
and neil patel have doing a better job
through contrasting colors through
engagement but they are still using the
face and the headline
so from just no face and just a few
words not very effective middle example
here yes it's got a face but it's sort
of a little bit small and the text is
too small the one on the right you can
imagine that be more effective right
more engaging it's got a reason it's
telling you the level of knowledge it's
got to fit you know kind of um looks
friendly uh clickable
uh so being close to the image i would
say it's it's helpful you sort of don't
shoot the picture until you can see the
whites in your eyes in other words you
want to be that close to the frame where
you can feel a personal connection the
elements of a high
high click-through rate thumbnail image
is it's simple because it's going to be
very small in some contexts it's got a
headline it gives a reason to click it's
got a face to capture that attention and
bright or contrasting colors
it might look a little weird when you
get to your youtube videos page and it's
showing all of them all at once but most
people don't see it in this context
anyway not a big deal but you can see
the idea here it's very obvious what
we're doing
moving right along videos that drive
social engagement social engagement i'm
going to make the case that it's worth
it to upgrade your setup because uh
having a better camera maybe something
that connects to like a dslr camera that
connects to a cam link getting a good
light acoustical tiles sounds good you
got a microphone like this one right
here cam and using some basic video
editing software i'm using camtasia uh
makes a big difference to upgrade look
at the before this is my laptop camera
with no light and the after
dslr i'm using a sony camera and i've
got a cam link the cam link is what
connects to the computer from the camera
through the hdmi port to tell the
computer that that feed is in fact a
webcam it allows you to turn a normal
dslr camera into a webcam
now i'm going to make a social media
post that uses this first i'm going to
make sure that it's got a headline with
strong benefits reasons to click this is
my social post checklist numbers sounds
scannable easy to be easy to consume
hashtags help it get discovered line
breaks kind of keep it from being a big
blocky paragraph
mentions of other people who are
involved in the creation of that content
make sure to use contributor quotes
gives you a reason to mention other
people when you share it on social the
video plus captions captions are really
important because you're trying to make
a thumb stopper where the person slows
down because they can get value by
looking just at the video even if sound
is off it'll be sound will be off for
most of the people who see this in their
streams and then finally the link to be
to view the post
in other words i'm suggesting making a
one minute commercial for that piece of
content that you created and if you add
the campaign tracking code to the link
you're going to get
data in your campaign report attributing
all the conversions and traffic to that
actual specific social media post
not strange to see a single social media
post with hundreds of clicks and even
actual conversions that you can measure
from that bottom line the best content
doesn't win it's the best promoted
content that wins it's our job to
promote this content and nothing better
than a on social media than an actual
video of you giving a reason to watch or
you know to uh to consume this content
moving right along i'm going to show you
now how videos can actually drive email
engagement
even before the email gets opened here's
an email that we sent it's called steal
my content marketing template yes if you
put an image into the email it's in the
creative it's an it's an html based
email and they now they can see at a
glance a preview of what's in the
article it's going to make the email
itself more engaging but the subject
line can also indicate that the thing's
engaging these are subject lines that
we've from from emails that we've sent
and i want to highlight for you
something different about these subject
lines they all use
image words
image words pictures flowcharts charts
diagrams these are words that indicate
that if they were to open this email
they're going to find something that's
visual
do these correlate with high open rates
yes they do
they do wow it surprised me myself when
i saw this so similar the way that
numbers indicate that the content is
scannable increasing open and
click-through rates image words can
indicate that the content is is easily
consumed it's like oh wow you know this
is going to be a bunch of diagrams uh or
an image or a flow chart or an
infographic or whatever it might be it
kind of indicates to the visitor that
they're not going to have to work so
hard to consume it
this is a screenshot of our analytics
showing one year of email marketing
campaigns and below it a screenshot
showing the previous year of email
marketing campaigns the two winners both
those years
were subject line emails that had an
image word in the subject line so i'm
seeing a correlation test it for
yourself
moving right along i'm going to suggest
now that videos can actually increase
the increase uh search rankings
uh one obvious way is that if you if you
uh publish uh videos that those videos
themselves have a chance of ranking it's
very very much the case that uh google
search results are now much more
engaging than they once were and
therefore uh you know there's lots of
videos and other things appearing in
there which sort of decreases the
click-through rate on normal web pages
that rank uh and if that's the case if
there's if there's videos in there
you've got to play that game as well
right the upside is saying well now you
get two bites at the apple you've got a
chance of actually getting your video
itself to rank as well as the web page
on which that video lives
images also have a way of keeping the
visitor engaged on that content content
that's very visual can increase dwell
time in other words the video comes from
google and lands in that page is more
likely to hang out for you know half a
minute longer than if they hit the back
button google saw that they were there
for longer that can increase dwell time
dwell time is a user interaction signal
that google can use to decide if the
content is high quality so i definitely
recommend creating highly visual content
just so that visitors who come from
search tend to stay on the article for
longer because google knows how long
they've stayed
also videos can attract links links are
an important part of the google search
ranking algorithm and diagrams i just
here's a diagram of what i was
explaining a minute ago the social post
checklist uh are the kind of things
these people link to all the time
uh why follow other people on social
media well the reason why people follow
each other and the reason why marketers
think people follow each other is very
different this is almost like
newsworthy like you can imagine how a
journalist or a blogger would pick this
up and talk about it
i could describe and text that you're
pick that your finger's 60 pixels wide
or i could make a diagram for it people
use this diagram this diagram is helpful
in other people's content they're likely
to
use it in theirs and then reference and
cite and link back to yours and
obviously infographics infographics it's
a super common seo strategy is to do
research
put that research into a visual combine
that with outreach to journalists and
bloggers to see if they'd like to
publish that that visual on their site
also if you ever get the chance to
contribute to content on someone else's
website in your contribution put an
image put an image into your
contribution because then that image is
going to have the editors will leave in
the image source link
i'm describing image source link
building if you ever contribute to a
roundup or you're part of a post or
interviewed for something or
contributing and a quote to something
like you've hopefully include others in
your content
include an image in that and then
there'll be an image source link
underneath it they're very likely to
leave that in uh literally hundreds of
websites have linked to there's hundreds
of links to our website with the text
image source in the text of the link as
the anchor text
i'm describing a way to
drive links back to your own site by
including images in your contributions
to other sites
fifth and final point
visuals can improve conversion rates how
they're always at the top of the visual
hierarchy here's an example of a website
is this company credible yes they are
the nasa logo jumps off the page and is
the product any good well yes that
diagram at the top of this shows exactly
the value of this product that is the
point it's it's a solar simulator and
i'm and this this diagram shows uh the
spectral profile of light from their
product compared to the sun and it's
maps perfectly like any scientist who
sees this and is looking for that nose
this is an excellent option and then
down below there's a content offer and
that has a diagram in it so again
suggesting easily consumable content you
can imagine just how well that would
work
also the testimonial the video
testimonial super powerful super
engaging uh doesn't the tone of voice
and body language there's nothing more
powerful on a web page than a video
testimonial
it's at the top of the visual hierarchy
the messenger is the audience themselves
and it can answer a question an
important question to that potential
prospect
also we found that when you put a face
near a call to action that improves the
visual prominence of that part of the
page guiding the eye toward that part of
the page can improve engagement and it
shows implicitly like who i might talk
to
look what's your strategy discuss your
site with sarah look there's sarah so
the visitor is already feeling like
they're having a conversation with that
person at that company
before they even fill out the contact
form and sometimes when they do fill out
the contact form we get leads that have
said like hi sarah wow this person is
feels like they're very engaged with the
that's that's engagement that's
conversion that's trust that's the goal
of lead gen site is to start a
conversation without a face it doesn't
feel like you're starting a conversation
why do you have a big faceless website
why don't you be more human
weirdly big companies always try to look
small and small companies always try to
look big
really everyone should just try to look
more human how do you do that faces
images support conversion goals
super fun hope you enjoyed that lots of
stuff we covered in a very short time uh
there's a link below in the description
if you're on youtube to get to the
article that breaks this down in detail
and if you're in the article and you um
you'll find all the resources here
thanks for coming uh thanks for watching
if you know anyone else who struggles to
uh achieve any of the metrics related in
this piece feel free to share this with
them we'd be grateful and as always
don't forget to subscribe if you'd like
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comes out again andy from orbit media
see you next time