How to make Visual Communication effective in today’s marketing world?

Table of contents

• Understanding the visual communication trend (Impact of Covid-19)
• Power of visual communication
• Value of Visual communication
• It builds trust and acceptance
• Understanding the Target Audience

The whole world now is moving towards the online sector where every complex and vast amount of datas are accessed by people from across the globe. Visual communication integrates graphic designing elements and effective communication so that the information or message is accepted and interpreted as per the planning and strategy of an individual person or an organization.

Time is ever changing and new technology keeps knocking at our door all the time. So, in this article we will look at certain key elements and strategies that will help us to use and employ visual communication in our businesses work effectively in today’s marketing world.

Understanding the visual communication trend (Impact of Covid-19)

Nowadays content is present everywhere if we open our mobile devices, in every app. This might in general lead to a digital fatigue or lack of attention span to many viewers since they are constantly bombarded with digital contents. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the consumer behavior was completely altered and the purchase actions, which previously need to be made in-store, talking to people and stuff were all substituted by online purchasing. The demand for Visual communication skyrocketed. According to a research conducted in the year 2020, it it is said that people were consuming content for about 6 hrs 59 mins per day, as compared to just around 3 hrs before the pandemic.

Videos, text, images, graphic elements which convey a certain message and emotion can swiftly get through to the desired audience making them engage and react to the corresponding content creator or a brand or any organization. Shorter form of video content on Instagram called the Reels, are in trend right now along with Shorts on YouTube. Both have the feature of uploading only a short video upto 30 or 60 seconds only. This is getting so much attraction and the engagement rate is also way high. So, all the influencers, brands are getting in into this action to reach more people adapting to the instagram algorithm.

Why do we have to go that far even? A brand’s logo is also a visual communication device or a tool. The colours, font, and the typography everything non-verbally communicates the essence of the brand. It will also depict the brand’s vision, mission and their philosophy with respect to the customers and their own work ethics. After covid-19, visual communication seems far more relevant and global than ever with different mediums coming up and creative way of communication, this is going to make the whole aspect of visual communication even more effective and important in today’s world.

Power of visual communication

Visual communication has the ability to map the growth of a company from 0 to 100 in a really swift and effective way. The companies that are in the top-quartile McKinsey design index, they have seen a 2x better industry-benchmark growth (in the year 2018, McKinsey) because of the proper usage of visual communication.

According to Lucid press, State of brand consistency 2019, if the brand’s message through visual communication is consistent, then there was an estimated revenue growth of 33%.

Like these above mentioned statistics, there are so many other examples, from which we can see the positive business growth because of visual communication. If there was a business growth, it means that many people who were just potential customers, turned into buyers because of the effective visual communication which acted as an invisible bridge between the brand and the customers, making customers cross the other side to become loyal customers of the brand.

Visual communication has always been there from time immemorial. The cave arts and carvings that we use now are also visual communication. This was the way Ancient Humans communicated and recorded how their life went about thousands of years ago. Those prehistorically recorded drawings have survived till now and we are still trying to understand and learn from that.

So, the retention rate or recall value of visual images is much higher than just text. That is why even on social media platforms, the engagement rate of a graphic post is much higher than a post with just text on it. I’m not saying that text by itself is not powerful, but if we have the option of images, gifs, and other graphic elements to aid us, it is going to be much more powerful and the message will be perceived quickly.

People buy emotions, people buy stories, which in-turn leads to people purchasing a product or service from a brand which is effective in communication.

This image is the best explanation of the power of visual communication. Even while reading this article, I’m pretty sure that you would have skipped some of the text part, but when it comes to images, you would have stopped scrolling to see what’s in it! The content consumption rate will be higher in a visual depiction than in long paragraphs of text. This is the power of visual communication.

Value of Visual communication

The value of visual communication lies in the strategies that it can offer. There are 2 parts to visual communication. One is the communication design (text, content, message) and the other one is Graphic design (adding graphic elements). These both work hand-in-hand creating immense value to it.

Some of the strategies that it can offer are as follows:

1. Data infographic (outline a certain process or a concept)
2. Usage of symbols, iconography, typography
3. Story telling
4. Use of design elements and principles to attract customers

Visual highlight or visual highlight creates so much value for a brand. Even in every post, there is a particular spot our eyes land when we are scrolling through the phone or laptop. This is the emphasis that a visual post can do, making you look at a specific information and thereby increasing the memory recall or retention value.

It builds trust and acceptance.

It takes into account the human feelings, thought process and emotions when designing a content. There is a connection that is being established because of the visuals and its corresponding messaging and information provided.

The website or application is designed in such a way that it makes the customer make the purchase action. The colour palette, graphics, and the entire user interface is to make purchase seem effortless and seamless from the comfort of your homes. The visual communication of the entire interface is what converts leads into customers.

This is the immediate and straightforward value. It creates business. Plain and simple. It helps in creating loyal customer base for your content.

Content creation is a huge business and has a market for itself now. For that, visual communication is of a immense value.

Understanding the Target Audience

We now live in a world where what is here is there and what is there is also here. What I’m trying to point out here is that we live in a diverse world now. People from all across the globe are here near us or at least we are easily connected to them because of the internet and technology. So, it is important to make sure our message and emotional value don’t hurt other people’s sentiment and belief also.

It has happened so many times that a particular poster/message or brand campaign has brought about so much hate and problems because the topic chosen was very sensitive. Since, visual communication is a powerful tool, it reaches people quickly and conveys what it was meant to convey.

So, it is important for the brand to understand their target audience and make sure their communication is not degrading or putting down any beliefs or values of people.

A good visual communication is where people from different sects come together and unite.

The channel to reach big groups of people are also not complicated. There is social media, website, print media, TV/Radio, newspaper, E-mail, etc. These routes have proven their effectiveness as we are online for most of the time throughout the day and contents are consumed in millions everyday. So, finding target audience is not an issue considering the fact that the segmentation in terms of demographics, psychographics, behavioral, are all done and the data’s of the potential or hypothetical customer is available. Then based on that, we can push our content targeting that specific group.

Endnote

In this article, we have covered elements which are speaking about visual communication, its power and value. The important take away is visual communication is always relevant and will always be no matter because that is the base for any communication that happens not only on our mobile screens, but also the billboard is a visual communication. Posters, signages in public places, Logos everything falls under the umbrella of visual communication. The brand’s marketing budget nowadays is very high because of the traffic that is there in the market. There are so many competitors and it is very difficult to come on top of another. Effective Visual communication can make the necessary difference between a trust worthy brand and a mediocre brand.