Keeping up with Everyone’s Insatiable Appetite for Visual Content

The value of visual content cannot be understated. Our preference for all things visual is a bit of a no-brainer when you figure that our brains take less than a second to process them. Images paired with written information help boost recall by up to 65 percent, and a recent HubSpot survey revealed that 81 percent of respondents have been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video. We know too that companies that use videos in their marketing have 27 percent higher clickthrough rate and 34 percent higher conversion rates than those that don’t.

Think of the emotional capacity held within a single childhood family photo or brief video clip. And when shopping online is it the product description that sold you or the images that were attached to it?

Brands and marketers realize full well the power of visual media but continue to struggle with a sea of media-related challenges, including those relating to volume, consistency and personalization. How can marketers maximize and harness media’s potential to engage across all channels, especially mobile — a major area of focus for many marketers, that will only continue to increase as we move forward.

Also Read:8 Proven Strategies to Make Video Marketing Successful for Your Small Business

Optimizing All That Screen Time

In 2017, analytics firm Flurry released data revealing that US users spend approximately five hours per day on mobile devices. That’s a massive 20 percent increase from 2015. Moreover, these numbers suggest we’re spending about 75 days out of the year interacting with mobile devices. With all this screen time, it’s no wonder mobile advertising is predicted to represent 72 percent of US online ads by 2019.

The data punctuates what you probably already know: If you’re not providing visitors with enjoyable mobile experiences, they’ll find competitors that are.

So how do you deliver essential and media-rich content on mobile to ensure your target audience doesn’t wander elsewhere into the great Internet abyss?

Also Read: The Changing State of Mobile Video Advertising

The Need for Speed

Consumers on mobile demand the content they want, when they want, where they want it and as quickly as technologically possible. How fast? A page that takes only three seconds to load can experience a bounce rate just above 50 percent.

It’s not just mobile users that prefer web pages press the pedal to the metal. Google’s mobile-first indexing rewards content with increased rankings when pages load quickly.

Easier said than done. With thousands of varying mobile devices, networks, browsers, screen sizes and other factors, providing an optimal customer experience entail overcoming multiple unique challenges.

The Marriage of Marketing and Engineering

Similar to a weighing scale, the right balance between accelerating to market and providing the kinds of visual experiences that wow audiences must be in harmony. Here are three of the most significant challenges and ways to overcome them.

1. File size: Compared to text, images and videos take up far more space. Compressing file sizes can speed up page load times; however, implementing a strategy for optimizing these image and video files necessitates expert knowledge and the ability to analyze factors such as data types, resolution and quality settings.
2. Design: Dynamic pages are now a must-have, and images and videos must accommodate various viewports associated with different mobile devices to maximize responsiveness.
3. Asset management: Whose lasso is going to herd all your media-rich content – marketing, design, engineering – not to mention updating old assets or adding new images? Employ the right solutions to help you optimize workflows and processes essential to managing comprehensive and consistent digital content.

Also Read: 6 Steps To Creating A Video Marketing Strategy That Works

Collaboration to Bridge the Gaps

The importance of delivering optimized visual content to your customers, no matter where they are or what device they’re using, means bridging potential gaps between marketing and engineering. Marketing consistently needs to provide visually stunning, optimized and engaging content that positively influences SEO while simultaneously understanding the technical challenges facing engineering workflows.

One thing is for sure: Both sides must work hand in hand concurrently to provide customers with an enjoyable and fulfilling mobile experience.

If you don’t, your competitors will.

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