Visual content is both alluring and rewarding at the same time— courtesy the levels of engagement on offer. Be it an array of YouTube videos, Facebook snippets, infographics or data visualizations— visual content is the new fad— slowly inching towards the marketing zenith.
While there are many perks of adopting visual content marking on a grand scale, marketers tend to goof up the strategy with obsolete techniques and redundant strategies. In this post, we will be talking about the 9 latest trends concerning visual content and its adoption in 2017— more as a marketing tool. Be it building online engagement or redirecting links to the website— visual content is the best bet for early adopters and needs to be promoted on a large scale.
This post isn’t random and has the backing of more than 300 marketers— spread across multiple domains. So, let’s get back to counting:
#1. The Growth but Obvious
2016 was a great year for visual content with as many as 53 percent marketers opting to go for this exciting version of marketing. If reports are to be believed, a minimum of 91 percent adoption rate was witnessed with the maximum being 100 percent. As compared to 40.5 percent in 2015, this was a massive surge.
Expectations- 2017 is expected to be a better year and a minimum visual content adoption of 98 percent is surely on the cards. However, we must be hopeful and look to offer great content instead of concentrating more on quantity. Text-based content won’t die either as we will be witnessing the best of both worlds— in perfect proportions.
#2. Reincarnation of Stock Photos
Which form of visual content will be more popular in 2017?
Trust me when I say that stock photos are going to rule the roost for the better part of 2017. This calls for a minimum of 35 percent market share as compared to infographics— closely competing the former at 30 percent. While videos, presentations, GIFs, memes and charts are also going to make a difference, they might lose the top spot to stock photos— mainly due to easy availability.
Expectations- While we are upbeat for stock photos in general, overdoing the same might bring in repetitive and boring images. The idea would be to implement stock photos with precision.
#3. Infographics Bring Engagement
Although stock photos are expected to win the popular vote, Infographics will be hot favorites in 2017— in terms of engagement. Next in line, would be data visualizations and charts, closely followed by video presentations. Stock photos barely bring engagement and GIFs make the bottom of the list at 5 percent.
Expectations- Infographics are slightly elitist and are expected to work well for the more established firms. 2017, on the other hand, will still offer equal opportunities to GIFs, memes, charts and other forms of visual content even though the king’s share of online engagement is received by Infographics. The likes of developers, mobile app development firms and even technological startups will benefit immensely by the growth of Infographics.
#4. Marketers Ignore Visuals
Even though visual content is the latest fad, marketers are spending less time concentrating on the creation of proper visuals. Only 11 percent of them are putting in more than 15 hours on a weekly basis.
Expectations- To be precise, there is no proposed time limit which one needs to put in while creating powerful visual content. At the end, it all pans down to feasibility. 2017 will see a surge in visual content marketing and not necessarily the timeframe of content creation. However, a definite amount of effort needs to be put in for making things compelling and interesting.
#5. Growth of DIY Tools
As per the survey, DIY tools came out to be popular while talking about visual content marketing. Graphic design tools came out to be the favorites followed by in-house designers and freelancers. Website extension and other tools including YouTube downloader and Mp3 converters were also asked for— allowing marketers to research videos and add certain sounds to their visual escapades.
Expectations- This marketing trend is synonymous to your financial position. Hiring of qualified individuals will skyrocket in 2017 as efficiency is needed when it comes to handling DIY tools and visual content.
#6. Consistency and the Challenge
Visual content should never be a one-off strategy and being consistent is the biggest challenge here. When marketers were asked, almost 36 percent stood in favor of consistency as the most obstinate marketing challenge. Apart from this, we also have the likes of quality, audience retention and content format as some of the burning visual marketing factors.
Expectations- These are some of the real challenges which can only be combated using data, creativity and talent. While traits like these hardly guarantee success, they surely increase the odds in favor of the marketer.
#7. Rooting for Necessity
Those planning to do without visual content in 2017 should readily get a reality check. As per the recently concluded survey, 60 percent of marketers are rooting for visual content while 31 percent are hell-bent upon adopting the same.
Expectations- While some amateurs are still planning to give it a miss, 2017 will even persuade them towards opting for this form of marketing.
#8. Visual Content = Value for Money
Everything boils down to the budget and on closer scrutiny we can infer than visual content, if adopted correctly, can be the most feasible form of marketing. 56 percent of established marketers believe that visual content marketing only requires 20 percent of the entire campaign revenue.
Expectations- Affordability, in general, is expected to improve as marketers in 2017 are expected to go visual with majority of their content marketing goals. However, to reap the actual benefits one must wait for a few months.
#9. Growing Investments
In 2017, visual content marketing investments are going to skyrocket. The recently concluded survey suggests that 35 percent of established marketers are willing to spend more than 30 percent of the entire marketing budget on this aspect.
Expectations- While we aren’t sure about the exact figures, visual marketing investments won’t skyrocket overnight but over a period of time. Even with visual content as a priority, 42 percent of marketers are still not willing to invest more than 20 percent of the overall budget.
Bottom Line
It has been a deliberate attempt not to include infographics along with this post. I hope things weren’t difficult to understand as the sole aim of this article is to make readers accustomed to the lack of visual additions and crave for the same in the subsequent pieces.
Visual content is on the way up and there is no getting rid of it— at least in 2017.
