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They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. This is even truer when it comes to websites!
Taking a look at numbers, marketers quickly realise that 90% of the information we receive is visual and a whopping 65% of the population would describe themselves as visual learners.
As if that wasn’t convincing enough, 93% of the most engaging posts on Facebook are images, and articles with images get 94% more total views.
With this in mind, it’s easy to understand that imagery as part of your content is an essential factor for solid strategy!
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As part of the visual storytelling journey
We constantly talk about the importance of storytelling in marketing. A good visual brings a story to life and can inform and entertain viewers in a way that words alone can’t do. This storytelling approach helps to also drive an emotive response (if you’ve chosen the right image to start with that is!).
Blog articles, for example, should include a wide range of images. Video, photos, illustrations, and infographics are core to how the story is communicated. Screenshots are also a helpful method for a tutorial or how-to-driven post. Cartoon and comics and meme are also ideal for communicating, a good laugh never hurts.
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Where to source high quality images
We’re talking about more than pixels and image resolution here. A great quality means that an image has to be relevant to your message, simple to understand and evoke the response that meets your objectives.
All to often, we’re asked how to get great images time after time. The truth is there is only going to be one of 3 choices:
- Take the photos yourself (preferably with a DSLR camera) or design the graphics yourself
- Purchase stock photography and graphics from a stock library
- Involve a photographer, graphic designer or agency to support with your design needs
If you opt to use stock photography, do remember to choose wisely. One of the caveats of using a staged photo is that is looks, well, staged! The last thing you want is to end up with visuals that are middle of the road and feel like something you’ve seen a thousand times.
That being said, there are a number of stock image sites that do deliver the goods – it’s about taking the time to find the images that pop and support your brand message.
Here some selected examples of sites we might use and find very useful for our design process:
The web is also full of great free stock image websites, many of these photographs are free from copyright restrictions or licensed under creative commons (please note some photos may require attribution, but why wouldn’t you want to credit the great work your using?). Some great examples are: