15 tips on optimizing visual content for lead generation
Visual content is becoming more important than ever before.
In today’s digital age, urged on by the fact that 90% of bloggers use visual content, consumers now expect to see high-quality images and video content on websites. This means that marketers need to take advantage of these opportunities to engage their target audience and generate leads.
Visual content has become the new standard for marketing. Why? Around 65% of people are visual learners. And as our social media feeds become increasingly busy, brands have to compete for attention and a post with no visual content, will easily get lost in the feed.
This means that if you want to capture attention, you need to create high-quality visuals. Visual content is your chance to do something original to appeal to your target audience.
The lead generation process is a complex one, and it can be difficult to know where to start when you’re looking for new leads. That’s why we’ve put together this guide on how to optimize your visuals for lead generation.
But what role does visual content play in lead generation? Visual content is more eye-catching than text and it is also more easily processed, therefore increasing your chances of attracting leads to your business.
There are several ways to optimize visual content for better lead generation. The key is to create compelling visuals that effectively communicate your message and to determine what type of content will resonate with your audience.
How visual content and lead generation work hand-in-hand
Lead generation is the act of identifying and processing users which salespeople then turn into customers. This can be done in many ways, but most commonly involves advertising on websites, social media sites, email lists, etc. In fact, while 66% of marketers say that they use social media for lead generation, 50% of them say that email marketing is more effective when it comes to lead generation.
Lead generation is all about creating an effective relationship between your business and potential customers. However, this isn’t where the hard work ends. Once a lead has been generated they need to be scored according to their conversion potential so that your business can focus on the leads which are the most important (and most profitable).
Lead Generation Strategies are marketing activities that generate leads for your business, these include:
- Email marketing
- Direct mail
- Telemarketing
- Search engine optimization
- Social media marketing
- Word of mouth.
Each one has different pros and cons, depending on the industry and business model. Visual content fits into email marketing, search engine optimization and social media marketing.
Visual content has become one of the most effective ways to generate leads for businesses. It includes pictures, diagrams, charts, infographics, online videos, screenshots, memes and slide decks and so on.
Visual content can be used for lead generation because it helps you create a better relationship with your customers.
How so? Visual content improves your visual customer engagement and relays information faster, shows more detail, and provides a more entertaining view.
The best way to do this is through video, which allows you to show your product or service in action. This makes it easier for potential customers to understand how your product works and gives them allows them to relate to the problem the product solves.
Benefits of using visual content for lead generation:
- It grabs customer attention therefore improving your engagement levels
- It is easy to share, which makes it a great way to engage with potential customers.
- A great way to communicate complex ideas to a wide range of audiences.
16 tips on optimizing visual content for lead generation
Optimizing visual content means using the right tools and techniques to make sure your visuals look good and to make sure they are recognized by people and search engines alike. There are a lot of things to consider when optimizing visual content for lead generation. Here are some tips to get started:
1. Keep your audience in mind
Keeping your target audience in mind is essential when creating visuals. You don’t want to alienate anyone by making your visuals too complicated or difficult to follow. If you’re writing a copy for your visuals, keep it simple and clear.
If your audience does not relate or resonate with your visual content, they will be less likely to convert into a lead. So how do you keep your audience in mind when designing your visuals?
Do customer research so that you know exactly who your target audience is and then make sure that any visuals you create relates to them in terms of simplicity and relevance, and you should mirror your audience in the terms of the traits they possess.
80% of consumers would rather buy from a brand that aligns with who they are. Keeping your audience in mind is the first step to personalization (more on this later).
2. Your content needs to be eye-catching
Yes, eye-catching content is important. You need to make sure that your visuals are appealing enough to draw people’s attention. However, you also need to be on trend with your designs.
Monitoring and using the latest design trends is another way to ensure that your visuals are visually pleasing and to give your content an edge over your competition.
Using design trends helps to set yourself apart from other businesses that may be doing the same thing and helps your content stand out from the crowd.
3. Offer a promotion
Offering a promotion with your visual content will help increase conversions. Promotions help to drive traffic to your site. They also encourage visitors to take action, such as scheduling a sales call or downloading your app.
A commonly used promotion is a discount code being offered to a lead if they sign up for the companies’ newsletter. People are much more likely to hand over their information and contact details if they feel they are getting something in return.
4. Use alt text & tags
Alt text is the description of an image that appears next to the image itself. When someone hovers over an image, the alt text becomes visible. It also appears whenever an image fails to load. Alt tags are similar to alt texts but they appear at the bottom of the page instead.
You can add keywords into the alt text of your visuals so that they are better picked up by search engines.
But do not keyword stuff! Another advantage of alt tags is that it improves accessibility. Alt text is often read allowed to those who are visually impaired.
When using alt text make sure to keep it under 125 characters and within those characters, you need to be as specific, descriptive, and contextual as possible in terms of your visual. Also, do not waste your time adding Alt text to visual content that is purely there to look pretty.
Here’s an example:
5. Make it short & sweet
Keep your visual content short and sweet. Longer pieces tend to bore people, especially if they aren’t relevant to your business. Also, shorter content tends to perform better than longer content on social media sites like Instagram and Twitter.
This is particularly important when your visual content and marketing strategy incorporates videos. Make sure you edit your video content and visual content to only include what’s necessary.
6. Mobile-friendliness is key
Make sure that your visuals are mobile-friendly. Mobile users spend more time on social media sites than desktop users. This means that your visuals need to load fast and work well on smaller screens.
If your content isn’t properly optimized potential leads will just end up getting annoyed and will exit your website before they get a chance to to see the value uou offer.
7. Personalize your content
Personalized content is more likely to generate valuable leads. Include relevant references to your customers’ demographics and interests within your visuals. This will make the viewers feel as though the content is directed at them.
This way, you’ll be able to target the right kind of people and show them exactly what they want to see. You can also identify their pain points and address them in your content. People crave this attention and they love to feel special.
8. Encourage interaction and engagement
Interaction and engagement help to build trust between you and your potential customers. A great way to improve engagement around your brand is to share your visual content on social media.
If you ask questions and provide answers, then you’re showing that you care about your leads. If the lead trusts you, they’ll feel comfortable sharing personal details with you and will be more likely to convert.
➡️ Learn how to increase your Instagram Story engagement in our guide!
9. Use a call-to-action
Include a call-to-action (CTA) button at the bottom of your visuals. When someone clicks on the CTA button, they’ll be taken off your website and directed to another page where they can sign up for more information. CTAs make it obvious to the potential lead the action that they are supposed to take next.
CTAs include the likes of:
- “Sign up to our newsletter now”
- “Schedule a demo with one of our experts”
- “Read now”
It is in your best interest with CTAs to keep them focussed, to create a sense of urgency using them, to make them simple and stand out, and to match them to the goals of your business. There is no point asking leads to “Download our eBook” if what you are actually looking for is to build your email list by getting more people to subscribe to your newsletter.
Here’s an example from Headspace:
10. Use the available content creation tools
There are many content creation tools available online today, such as VistaCreate. These tools allow you to create high-quality videos, images, infographics, and blog posts all without having to hire a designer or developer.
VistaCreate is a free graphic design software that you can use to create eye-catching and effective visual content in a matter of minutes! How? By using one of their 100,000 fully customizable drag-and-drop templates.
Online graphic design tools like VistaCreate help you to create professional, high-quality visuals which have a better chance of standing out to your target audience.
Learn how to use VistaCreate in our articles:
➡️ How to use VistaCreate: A guide to creating designs in minutes
➡️ Everything you can do with the free version of VistaCreate
➡️ Why upgrade to VistaCreate Pro? All the features of a paid VistaCreate account
11. Incorporate social proof
Social proof is when you share text, pictures, or videos of happy customers who have already signed up for your product or service. People love to hear stories of success and will often choose to follow suit since other customers are a more trusted source of opinion than the company itself.
Here’s an example:
Including an endorsement from someone else who uses your product will give credibility to your offer and brand.
People love to hear stories from others so make sure that you have reviews or testimonials included in your visuals. As humans, it is our natural tendency to do what we see others doing in an attempt to not feel left out.
That is why social proof works so well. You are showing users that the choice they are about to make is a popular one.
A great way to get social proof is to start an affiliate program. Under this type of program, any affiliates will be incentivized to talk about your business or brand.
12. Ensure your visual content is shareable
Making your visual content shareable ensures that it gets seen by as many people as possible. Make sure that you add hashtags and keywords to your visuals so that other people can find them easily.
If your distribution channels for your content revolve around social media, then making your content go viral could be a good goal to keep in mind.
13. Repurpose existing visual content
Just because your content is old doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still have value. You can even repurpose existing visual content to help promote new offers and products.
Repurposing existing content saves time and money and can be a great way to get effective content out as quickly as possible to your audience.
➡️ Learn everything there is to know about content repurposing in our article.
14. Make it accessible
Content accessibility refers to how easy it is for everyone to use your content. If your content requires a lot of scrolling or clicking, then it’s not accessible. Make sure that your content is viewable on any device and that it loads quickly. Anyone with any disability also needs to be able to use, access, and understand your content.
In terms of text: It is important to make sure your chosen font is legible, your font colors are readable and your text is big enough.
In terms of visuals: your color palette needs to be color-blind sensitive (no contrasting orange and greens right next to each other), if your content is a video make use of clear audio and subtitles, and always ensure your alt text is descriptive.
15. Add keywords into your captions, file names & subtitles
Keywords help to increase your SEO rankings and ensure that your content shows up in search results. Adding keywords into your captions, file names, and subtitles increases the chances that people will see your content.
But first, you need to work out which keywords are relevant to your content.
In order to find out which keywords work best for you, you need to:
- Study your industry trends and target audience
- Make a list of topics based on your industry category
- Create a list of focus keywords
- Use a keyword research tool to refine your focus keywords
- Look for words that have:
- A high search intent
- A high volume
- Look for words that have:
- Note down the long-tail keywords
- Check out what keywords your competitors are ranking for
Conclusion
As you can see there are many strategies a person can take to optimize their visual content and improve their lead generation.
They can do this all in an effort to improve sales and conversion rates.
Since people respond better to visual content than they do any others, if you want to see sales results, then you need to invest in not only creating great quality visual content but in creating content that is properly optimized to help you reach your goals.
