3 reasons why visual content matters in the built environment
Did you know that articles with images on your website pages receive 94% more views than those without?
How about the fact that social media posts with visuals deliver 180% greater engagement? And that video is 53 times more likely to generate a first page Google ranking?
These and many more statistics linked to the growing importance of visual content across digital are listed by Search Engine Journal, a leading marketing & SEO news platform.
These statistics emphasise how visual content forms a key part of your brand marketing mix. In the built environment, visual content helps showcase your project or property in the best possible light.
As mentioned in our insights blog on Content Marketing Tips, research by Hubspot has stated that videos keep its audience engaged longer than any other kind of content.
As well as being used on digital platforms, visual content can be repurposed for your marketing collateral too, such as marketing brochures. According to Archiboo, visual storytelling is “a great way to communicate how architects work but as a resource it is massively underexploited by practices.”
Are you exploiting visual content for your brand?
Here are our 3 reasons why you should and how you can best utilise visual content for your built environment brand.
Visual content raises brand awareness
The built environment ranges in scale from properties to cities and beyond. The use of visual content takes advantage of this by illustrating this scale and can help drive awareness for your brand if used consistently when telling your brand story, such as on your social media pages or website project pages.
An example of this is our work for LDN Collective’s #ParkPower social media campaign , utilising the high-quality branded visuals produced by the team for their Park Power report. These striking graphics and illustrations were widely shared across social media and created a compelling narrative around the awareness campaign .
Tip: Use high quality photography. Check your company website pages. Are they too wordy? Make your content memorable by punctuating text with compelling photos and videos.
Image : London Collective
2. Visual content engages audiences through storytelling
With the shortening of our attention spans, the use of powerful visuals to tell a story helps your content grab attention as this engaging medium can often be more memorable than words. We created animated explainer videos for Cosy Homes Oxfordshire to successfully convey important and topical environmental messages. Watch the video on ‘Moving away from oil and gas to heat your home.’
Tip: Use videos or film, to document your property, project or practice. U+I is a great example of how to visually tell a story on your website, they use videos to incite curiosity.
Image : Cosy Homes Oxfordshire
3. Visual content gets your message across faster
Dynamic visuals captivate audiences, especially if used on the homepage like this website we created for the London Collective. Once you’ve hooked your audience with a great visual, they are more likely to have a look at the written content for secondary information. Add visuals to valuable and useful content and together these are more likely to resonate with your audience.
Tip: Consider short-form video content on your social media channels or infographics on your website project pages. Infographics are great for presenting any complex statistical data in a more understandable and compelling way. The Peninsualist’s instagram page contains plenty of examples of great visual content in action.
Image : London Collective
So, which tip will you implement in your content marketing strategy?
Whether through photography, videography or the use of infographics, visual content can very well be the difference between having your brand voice heard or not.
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