Why Visual Storytelling Should Be a Part of Your Content Marketing Strategy

Arun Pillai, September 2, 2022

Nothing beats a good, refreshing story. Stories have always been an effective way of capturing people’s attention; they are built to resonate with human emotions and experiences like no other. While B2B brands are actively focusing on storytelling to boost brand awareness, how they should tell stories needs to evolve – prioritizing interactive visual content over the written word. But why?

Well, research reveals that our brain processes visuals a whopping 60,000 times faster than text and that people are 22x more likely to retain stories than hard facts and figures. So, we see no reason why you shouldn’t include this powerful combination in your content marketing strategy.

In a time when brand communication needs to focus on customer engagement more than ever, visual storytelling is an interesting way to communicate your brand’s message, educate the customer about the brand, and encourage them to interact. Visuals attract people, are easier to consume, and help businesses forge a lasting emotional connection with the audience.

What is Visual Storytelling?

Visual storytelling is a content marketing strategy aimed at creating compelling narratives to engage the audience using visual aids. While this content strategy still focuses on educating or informing the customer, it also tries to persuade them to reach a specific conclusion in their buyer’s journey.

You can use several visual mediums to tell a captivating story to your audience-

• Videos
• Images
• GIFs
• Graphics
• Memes
• Illustrations

With these newer forms of content, visual storytelling can help your business-

• Get your audience’s attention
• Create content that resonates with them
• Connect with your target customers on a deeper level

Thus, if your brand focuses on good visual storytelling, you’re likelier to stay on top of your audience’s minds and get them to interact with your brand.

Here are some more reasons to include visual storytelling in your content marketing strategy-

1. Visuals Help Put Across your Message Clearly

They say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” So, why not let visuals speak for your brand?

Visuals help convey complex messages in the simplest way possible; you can create relevant content using only a few words – or none at all – and put your brand message across loud and clear. Plus, an attractive visual can also serve as a call to action, helping you encourage the customer to take the desired action. Whether you want them to go through more of your content, subscribe to your emails, or get on a sales call with you, let the visuals do the talking.

Besides offering you an easier route to convey your message, visual storytelling also lets you breach language and culture barriers. Visual storytelling will allow you to expand your business across geographies by giving you a universal language to communicate with prospective customers.

2. Stories Create an Emotional Connect

Today’s B2B customers prefer to have a personalized relationship with the businesses they engage with. They want to see brands as humans and connect with them personally.

This is where visual storytelling content comes in. It is an excellent way to build an emotional connection with your potential customers. You can create content that evokes the desired emotions in your audience – a short video with excellent storytelling is likely to perform better than a product-focused video. Why? Because humans tend to resonate with stories that trigger emotions.

If you manage to establish a connection with your prospects while helping them solve their pain points, you’ll be one step closer to converting them into paying customers.

3. Storytelling is a Powerful Way to Convey the Value of Your Product

One of the biggest challenges B2B marketers face while promoting their business is conveying the true value of the products and services. For potential customers, it is difficult to determine the usefulness of your product only through words. This is why visual storytelling is important – instead of convincing your customers with words what wonders your product can do, you can simply show them!

Combine a compelling story with visuals (video or animation) – keep your product the hero of your story and tell your customers how exactly it will fight off their pain points.

4. It Boosts Brand Awareness

Your brand is so much more than the products and services you sell. Hook your audience with an exciting story. It could be about the origin of your brand, your product/service, your employees, or how your customers feel about your business.

A fantastic example of visual storytelling is Microsoft Story Labs. Microsoft uses compelling storytelling videos as a brand-building tactic. The stories highlight their employees from different departments and do a pretty good job of “humanizing” the brand.

A well-crafted story, combined with videos, illustrations, or graphics across various communication channels, can help you become a memorable brand. Not to mention, if you nail your storytelling approach, you might just go viral – further boosting brand awareness.

5. Visual Storytelling Drives More Traffic

You can use visual storytelling to drive more traffic to your website and more shares on social media. Images and videos are interactive content forms. And if your stories leverage the visual aid in a way to develop an emotional connection, your website and social media visitors are more likely to share your content with others.

Videos, for instance, generate a greater desire to share. A survey suggests that users are 2x likely to share videos than any other content format. In addition to posting promotional content on your social media, you can use videos to share relatable content. The more traffic you drive, the greater your brand engagement will be.

Parting Thoughts

With the ever-increasing competition and even greater customer expectations, nailing your content marketing strategy can be a challenge – but visual storytelling can be your ally. It helps develop a personalized connection with your audience, drives higher engagement, and helps you stand out as a brand. Done well, you can have viral stories working wonders for your business!