Visual storytelling, also referred to as a visual narrative, is a marketing strategy that uses visual elements to drive emotions and get an audience’s attention – it has been used for centuries. In history, hieroglyphs and Australian rock art paintings are early renditions of visual storytelling.
Visual storytelling techniques involve videos, pictures, and other visual content to deliver a message and drive traffic. The idea behind it is to “show” and not excessively “tell.” Visual storytelling communicates a narrative without the need to deliver extensive lines.
You can say that visual stories elicit a better response. Harvard psychologist, Jerome Bruner, hypothesized that the human brain is more likely to remember a fact when it is wrapped in a story. An excellent visual storytelling strategy is an effective means to reach your target audience, especially with the proliferation of social media channels and digital marketing.
Who Can Use Visual Storytelling?
Anyone who wants to convey a message effectively can use visual storytelling.
Graphic Artists
Graphic artists can use visual storytelling to create a compelling internal marketing campaign. Working hand in hand with communication experts, graphic artists can render graphics to deliver a more engaging message. The proper execution and delivery of a visual story through relevant images will catch the attention of your target audience. Graphic artists can apply visual storytelling in other forms, such as:
- Graphic novels
- Picture books
- Comic strips
- Caricatures
Animators
Animators can tell a good story even with minimal words or conversations. By using animation to create engaging content, animators have the power to motivate people, encourage brand loyalty, and develop a sense of connection to a brand. Animators put together powerful pictures and videos to deliver the core message to be effective at visual storytelling. A short video is an excellent example of using visual storytelling in animation. Music and other audio are then incorporated into this visual media to create a more powerful, highly stylized message to the audience.
Bloggers
Bloggers and social media influencers are some of today’s most influential digital marketers. Popular influencers have tens of thousands of followers on social media and can connect to a broader audience base. Statistics show that 79% of the internet traffic in Australia is attributed to video content. Through visual storytelling, bloggers can promote their content by creating a story told primarily to be emotionally appealing to viewers. Bloggers can leverage visual storytelling to engage with their followers on social media.
Marketers
Creating engaging visual content is essential for marketers to be effective at visual storytelling. In a survey done on various companies in Australia in 2021, companies perceived visual content marketing as very important in their marketing efforts. Marketers can use visual storytelling to relate to consumers at any point in their buyer’s journey. Effective marketing using visual storytelling can result in:
- Customer conversion
- Brand loyalty
- Brand recall
- Driving traffic
How Can Visual Storytelling Help You and Your Employees?
Visual storytelling can be more than a marketing campaign. It can also be used to foster better internal communication in companies. Visual storytelling is a compelling method to communicate change, give updates on significant projects, and touch base with your employees on pressing company concerns. It helps key decision-makers relay important messages better across all corporate levels. Using visual storytelling instead of lengthy emails will help elevate your message and make for a better communication tool. Think of visual storytelling as an internal marketing tool that allows you to communicate with your employees. Moreover, this form of communication develops engaging visual memories that allow your audience to remember the session and retain the information for a longer period of time.
Why is Visual Storytelling Important for Your Brand?
Using visual storytelling as a marketing strategy enables you to use the principle of emotional marketing in reaching out to your target audience. They say a picture is more powerful than a thousand words, and studies have shown that our brain can process images up to sixty thousand times faster than words. Eye-catching visual storytelling promotes better product recall and can send a more compelling message to audiences with different demographics.
How to Construct an Effective Brand Visual Story?
Building effective brand visual stories entail a lot of art mixed with the key ingredients.
Know Your Audience
Before creating a visual story, make sure that you know your target audience. Knowing your audience means that you can create compelling visual stories through emotional marketing. In the world of marketing, reaching out to a targeted audience can make all the difference.
Determine the Impact
What impact would you like your story to have? You can use visual storytelling to influence people to:
- Communicate strategy within a company
- Buy a product
- Take action
- Know the facts
- Connect with a brand
Determining the impact that you want your story to have on your audience will ensure that you use the appropriate visual materials to deliver the message.
Use Appropriate Visuals – Illustrations & Live Visual Storytelling
When using visual storytelling, make sure that you use the appropriate visuals. The appropriateness of visuals depends on demographics and the intended emotional impact. For example, targeting a young audience may be more effective in getting the message across with engaging, colourful visual media. In contrast, an older demographic can easily relate to emotional advertising and more sombre visual content. At The Visual Storytellers Group, we effectively use illustrations and live visual storytelling to enforce transformational change within companies. We attend conferences and articulate the things being discussed into a graphic piece – to help the audience retain information better when it is presented in an interactive and engaging way.
Tell Your Story
Visual storytelling has various applications. We may not know it, but we create visual stories in our daily interactions every day. Effectively using visual media as a marketing strategy is an art form that needs the careful interaction of visuals and sound to create a compelling story.
Visual storytelling, when done right, is a powerful tool that can drive better communication and promote brand loyalty.
If you need visual storytelling for your company, trust only the leading visual storytelling experts in Australia. Contact The Visual Storytellers Group today!
