Okay people

We’re a month in to 2016. The question: What have you done to aid in the facilitation of your New Year’s resolution marketing goals? We hope you’re well on your way to bringing those goals to fruition. If you’re still wrapping your mind around the next 11 months, here are 16 thoughts/ideas to get the visual side of your content marketing up to snuff in 2016.

Content is king. That cannot be disputed. It’s important to carefully, strategically, and religiously be updating your organization’s content regularly. Have a content creation calendar. Fresh content helps with many things, from SEO, to user engagement, to customer loyalty. Within that content, you MUST be considering how it’s presented. The easiest and most proven solution? Graphics. You know, illustrations, photos, video, animated gifs, infographics… things of that nature. People respond to imagery. While words are important, images help pull people in to the messages your spinning.

Here we go

1. Supporting colored visual graphics are proven to greatly increase an individual’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%.

2. When a person hears a piece of information, they typically retain only 10% of that particular message a mere three days after initial consumption. When that piece of information is paired with a relevant image, however, the retention rate escalates to 65% over the same span of time (three days). (Source)

3. 65% of senior level marketing executives believe that visual assets – which include photos, video, illustrations and infographics – are vital to the heart of how their brand’s story is communicated.
(Source)

4. It’s worth noting that 39% of marketing professionals stand firm in their belief that more of an organization’s budget should be allocated specifically to the acquisition or creation of captivating, persuasive visual assets.

5. 73% of content creation professionals have made strategic plans to prioritize the creation of more engaging content in 2016, and 55% have placed an emphasis on prioritizing creating visual content to help push their brand’s stories. (Source)

What else?

6. Video is very much on the rise. 52% of marketers around the globe proclaim that video is the piece of marketing collateral with the best ROI. (Source)

7. On that topic, research shows that simply using the word “video” in an email subject line actually increases open rates by 19%, active click-through rates by 65%, and reduces unsubscribes by 26%.
(Source)

8. If we can look back for a moment (only to provide insight into the future): At the midway point of 2015, mobile video plays exceeded 44%. That number is up a whopping 74% from 2014 and an almost unfathomable 844% since 2012! Mobile marketing is real people…
(Source)

9. Okay, let’s keep blowing minds with video fueled marketing stats… Ready? Between April of 2015 and November of 2015, the average daily video views on Facebook doubled from 4 billion to 8 billion views per day. Yes, we’re talking billions. That’s a lot of zeros. (Source)

10. Not yet sold on mobile marketing? Here you go: In Quarter two of 2015, mobile phones (34%) and personal tablets (15%) combined for 49% of video ad impressions. That’s up from 38% in Quarter one of the very same year. How does that compare to the good ‘ol personal computer? Well, statistics show that PC impressions dropped from 62% to 50% during the same timeframe. Mobile is on the rise. PC’s are on the decline… Believe it. Embrace it. (Source)

There’s more?

11. This one’s bold, but who are we if we aren’t bold? Syndacast predicts that 74% of ALL Internet traffic in 2017 will be video. Where content is king, video is the castle my friends. (Source)

12. 58% of consumers consider organizations that produce videos more trustworthy. So, for more than half of your target audience, videos play a psychological role in their consumption habits. Remember that. (Source)

13. In general, visual content is 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. (Source)

14. Along those lines (and more specifically) infographics are “liked” and “shared” on social media channels 3X more than any other type of content. Video is on the rise, but infographics really do catch the eye… (Source)

15. Folks like to tweet. This one’s for you: Buffer reported that, for its user base specifically, tweets with images received 150% more retweets (you know, engagement in the Twittersphere) than tweets without images. (Source)

16. In parting, let’s not forget about the power of the quick snap and how you may need to start (if you haven’t started already) considering platforms such as Instagram as a viable piece of your marketing initiatives. Why? Simple. The Instagram community has grown to more than 400 million as of September 2015. 400 million. That’s no joke. (Source)