Few people enjoy reading a wall of text. Content marketing will not work unless you engage in visual marketing.
But how to create an effective visual marketing strategy?
Here are a few tools to help you!
Create Images
1. Creatopy
Visuals are a very important part of any content. But it goes beyond stock images, no matter how good they might be. Creatopy is the perfect tool if you want to create professional level graphics of any kind, but don’t want to hire a designer to do it. Or if you happen to be a graphic designer yourself, but just don’t have the time to spend.
While the tool’s focus is to help you create ads, the functionality is much broader than that, from designing print assets (like brochures) to putting together photo collages.
Creatopy is easy to use, intuitive, affordable, and full of features, vectors, themes, and pre-mades for you to choose from.
2. Venngage
If you are in the market for infographics, Venngage may be more up your alley. Start with a premade theme, and then customize it. Drop in vectors and graphics, add in your own images, like a logo or watermark, fill in the text, move grids around… anything you need to make it your own.
This is among one of the easiest ways possible to create a high quality infographic or chart. I have used it myself for official meetings, and they have been a hit.
3. Annotate
Text over images are always popular. You don’t need to go through a quote generator, or use a visual editing tool to do it. Just use Annotate. It allows you to select images from your phone gallery, add and edit text in different fonts, apply filters, then publish on your Instagram account.
This is definitely one of the simpler ways to engage, as users seem very likely to save images cross platform when they have text across it. For example, you will find many inspirational images on Pinterest originating from IG accounts.
4. Layout
The most popular Instagram image I ever created with a four part collage set in a two up, two down grid. It showed how to make a super simple craft, and it was still receiving favorites and comments more than a year later.
I made it with Layout, the official Instagram collage maker that lets you combine and share multiple images in one post. It is easy to use, and a must if you want to increase the value of your content on that particular network.
Optimize Images
5. Text Optimizer
Google is getting much better at understanding images and videos but they still heavily rely on text content when ranking results. This is why creating relevant metadata (file name, alternative text, image title) as well as context (surrounding text) is so essential to get your images rank in Google.
This is where Text Optimizer comes incredibly helpful: It generates highly-relevant semantic context for your images for you to use when publishing your images on your site.
Here’s a more guide on image SEO for you to better understand the process.
6. Compressio
Images can greatly impact your page load time which is becoming an actual ranking factor. Make sure your images are high-quality, yet light to load fast.
Compressor.io is a free tool that makes your images lighter without sacrificing on their quality.
There are a few free WordPress plugins that can automate that for you if you don’t mind installing another plugin on your site.
Display Images
7. SnapWidget
Where is the best place to advertise your visual content? Your website! If you have a WordPress site (and who doesn’t, these days?), you can use this plugin to create a widget on your site that displays both photos and videos from Instagram, Facebook and more.
It is easy to use, looks good, and is perfect for connecting your social account with your ecommerce site. Or with a blog.
Make sure to select a responsive WordPress theme that optimizes images for different screen sizes. Here are a few good themes to select from.
8. Finteza
Finteza is not just another web analytics tool: It collects your data and helps you create personalized marketing campaigns to serve your users relevant content exactly when they need it.
For the best results install Finteza a few months prior to your promotional content to let it collect the data. Then set up goals and events to work as the basis for your marketing campaign. Set up your campaign to serve your images when certain criteria are met.
For example, you can show a certain image to a visitor who was referred to by a certain Instagram ad. This way you will visually personalize your landing page for your lead to feel more confident browsing your site.
Promote Your Images
9. Olapic
Formerly Piquora, this is a precision tool for better visual content curation. Olapic enables users to combine algorithms to make smarter content choices. It also automates activation, so you don’t have to manually make requests.
This is a great time saver, and a more advanced tool than many for Instagram.
Olapic has a powerful analytics feature that allows you to discover content that triggers higher engagement. You can also use the tool to find influencers to connect to.
10. Viral Content Bee
Viral Content Bee connects you to social media users who are willing to share your visual updates with their following. Simply share your URL, select relevant categories and VCB users will suggest your content to its vast community.
Use the “Interactions” tab to track who is sharing your images. Like, reshare and follow your promoters: This is the most meaningful way to grow your community.
Conclusion
Images may be the fundamental step to your digital marketing strategy success. They can boost your company’s digital marketing efforts on many levels, from creating alternative traffic sources to establishing a more credible brand image.
What other visual marketing tools are you using?