By Giselle Aguiar

verywhere you look you see visual marketing—pictures, photos, graphics, animations, and/or videos. What are today’s visual marketing trends, platforms, and tools?

If you want your marketing messages to stand out, you must get visual. Let’s break down your visual marketing options.

For video marketing to be effective, you should be creating at least two videos a month. That takes some planning. And I bet you’re thinking it’s going to be expensive. If you have the budget, investing in professionally created videos on your website is recommended for branding. Still, with today’s smartphones and tablets, you can easily record videos on your own. It’s OK that they look casual and impromptu. The important thing is that you get your marketing message across and have a clear call to action (CTA) at the end so the viewer will do what you want them to do.

Here are some video marketing ideas.

Native Video
This is when you prerecord a video and upload it directly to Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. This is instead of sharing a link to the video from YouTube or Vimeo. The networks give more visibility to native videos. On LinkedIn, you can even start recording directly from the mobile app. Facebook now has “Watch” for users to watch videos. On both Facebook and LinkedIn, you can upload videos to your individual profile, as well as your business page.

Live Broadcasting
Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Instagram Live, and X’s Spaces allow you to broadcast yourself from a mobile device or a laptop as long as you have a good, strong WiFi or cell signal. On X, live feeds get top visibility. If you have several devices like a laptop, smartphone, and tablet, you can broadcast simultaneously onto more than one network. Do this for a while to see where you get the most response. This also takes some work, so it helps to have another person with you. After you’re done broadcasting on most sites, you can save the videos and share them with your followers, even embed them on your website as a blog post. Note: Live broadcasting depletes batteries fast. It’s best to have the charger plugged in.

Stories
These are short slideshows or vertical videos on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube Shorts. You’re telling a visual story of your product or business in a few seconds. Don’t forget to add a sticker link to your Instagram story to your landing page!

Presentations With A Voice-Over
This may be the simplest way for most people, especially B2B businesses, to produce videos. Write up your script in the presentation presenter notes and rehearse it before recording.

Here are eight video marketing tips:

• Invest in a tripod with a clamp for your phone or tablet.
• Plan what you’re going to say and do.
• Use the free video editing software programs. If you are on a Mac, you have iMovie, and on a PC, you can download Movie Maker for free from Microsoft. YouTube also has an editing platform. For mobile, there’s Splice, CapCut, and iMovie (for iPhones and iPads).
• Good lighting is key to all videos. Do not put the light behind you; you will look like a silhouette. Natural light is best, but you can invest in a ring light.
• Make the first 15 seconds compelling enough that the target audience is enticed to watch the whole thing.
• Always end with a clear CTA. Make it easy for people to do what you want them to do.
• Think vertical, especially for shorts, reels, and stories.
• Horizontal videos are good for longer, educational videos.

Pictures are key to selling your products and facility, especially on Pinterest and Instagram. But what if you don’t have visuals with a wow factor? That’s where infographics come in. Simply put, they are graphics with information—a way to take non-appealing data and make it visually appealing.

Tips for using pictures and graphics include:

• Make sure all pictures and graphics are of good quality.
• Don’t make the text too small.
• Always brand them with your logo and website. If you are not paying for advertising on Instagram, links do not work in posts, so it’s important to have your website on the graphic. (However, they do work in stories! Use them there.)
• Put a call to action (CTA) on the graphic. Tell people what you want them to do.
• Take colors into consideration. There is a psychology of color. (Watch for my next article.)
• Use the free graphics tool Canva.com to create graphics.

Videos should be an integral part of your email marketing automation. One of the purposes of your website is to convert visitors (people somewhat interested in what you have to offer) into leads—that’s called lead generation.

Unless it’s an impulse buyer or urgent need, more than likely, you’re not going to get a sale on the first visit. You need to capture that lead with an enticing CTA; give them something in return for them giving you their email address. Once you have that email address, you can send them marketing emails to nurture that lead into a sale. The best way to do that is to ask one or two questions (no more than three) on the landing page of the CTA offer that will segment your email list. That way, you can personalize subsequent emails with videos based on their responses.

If the message in the email is not relevant, you will lose the lead. They’ll unsubscribe with a click. It takes some planning, but once it’s set up, marketing automation works all by itself.

Personalized emails can also work well after a networking event or trade show.

There’s no better visual marketing tool than a customer testimonial. That’s when they upload a picture or video of them at your facility or using your product and tag your business. That’s what’s called user-generated content (UCG). Since Facebook changed its algorithm to give more visibility to users’ posts, the best thing you can do to get your business noticed is to have a user upload a picture of them at your facility and tag your business on it. That’s where hashtags come in. Make sure you get permission!

You can do a contest with a hashtag. Tell customers to post a selfie at your facility. Create a unique hashtag and spread the word. Make sure the rules of the contest are clear; specify that any pictures entered become your property and you have full license to use them in marketing.

The best time to get them is when they’re there at your facility and are happy.There’s no reason why you shouldn’t incorporate visual marketing into your marketing strategy.

Who represents your brand? You? Employees? Customers? Facility? Signage? Billboards? Cleanliness?

These are all things that you need to think about—everything from T-shirts and uniforms to your front door and parking lot. You only get one chance to make a first impression. The people (images) that you use in your marketing should reflect your target audience. People feel comfortable seeing folks who look like them.

What does your online image say about you? Your online image is everything that’s on the internet that’s associated with your business. Does your online image say, “This is a company I want to do business with”? Or does it say, “Clueless?”

You might think social media is unimportant, but it is essential. In reality, the consumer will search for information, products, and/or services when they need or want them. What do they see when they stumble upon your Facebook business page and your profile pages on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, or Pinterest? What about your Google Business Profile page or YouTube channel? Do you have them set up correctly?

Take a step back and objectively look at all your branding, ads, posts, profiles (including employees) and listings. Look at it from your potential customer’s point of view. Would you buy from you?

Above all, be customer-centric and put people first. Don’t be focused on the competition.