They say that the creation of visual content will remain as a top priority for marketers for the foreseeable future. But, yet that doesn’t take away from the challenges of being able to create engaging visual content marketing.
We have already covered the case for creating visual content and visual marketing as well as some of the visual content marketing strategies. However, it is also important to know the challenges that businesses and marketers face to be able to address them.
In a world where visual content marketing is required and competition for your audiences attention is tough, Digiday and Chute undertook a survey to discover the biggest challenges and opportunities that marketers face.
In this article, we will look at a few significant visual content marketing statistics that you should be aware of from the report as well as other sources.
Visual Content Marketing Statistics – Challenges and Tactics
1. How much more effective has visual content been over text content?
- 5.3% said less than 2x more effective
- 19.5% said 2x more effective
- 20.3% said 3x more effective
- 19.5% said 4x more effective
- 15% said 5x more effective
- 0.8% said 6x more effective
- 3% said 7x more effective
- 7.5% said 8x 6x more effective
- 0% said 9x 6x more effective
- 9% said 10x more effective
2. Which visual content types are used in channels?
There are no real surprises as to the types of content used in different channels.
- 60% use stock photography for paid channels
- 64% use user generated content (both images and videos) for earned channels
- 78% used original graphic designs or illustrations for owned channels.
3. Which visual content forms perform best on desktop and mobile?
- 59% say that professional photography is a visual asset that performs best on desktops while 55% say it performs well on mobile
- 48.3% say original graphics designs do well on desktops and 49.2% say it does well on mobile
- 38.3% say user-generated content consisting of images and video do well on desktop and 42.5% say it does well on mobile
- 30.8% say other videos do well on desktop and mobile
- Only 23.3% say stock photography does well on desktop and 22.5% say it does well on mobile.
4. Which forms of visual content are easiest to create and incorporate into marketing?
Stock photography is considered the easiest to create and use while original graphics and video are the hardest to create.
5. What are the biggest challenges in creating effective visual marketing?
- 65.4% says that a lack of time or staff resources are the biggest challenge to creating effective visual marketing
- 35.5% say that maintaining timeliness and relevance is their biggest challenge
- 32.7% say that difficult approvals and governance processes are their biggest challenge
- 25.2% poor measurement or attribution is their biggest challenge
- 24.3% say a lack of creative ideas or inspiration is their biggest challenge
- 21.5% say a limited scale of production is their biggest challenge
- 20.6% say a lack of original content to work from is their biggest challenge
- 18.7% say that their visual content is perceived as inauthentic to their audience.
6. How much time is spent on creating visual marketing content?
49% says they spend over a quarter of a day on their visual assets not so much on the creative aspects but the management, distribution and reporting components.
7. What automation would save the team the most time?
- 57.9% say that automating mining consumer insights or collecting data on content viewers would save their team the most time
- 48.6% says automating content creation would save time their team the most time
- 44.9% say automating the collecting and management of visual media would save their team the most time
- 44.9% also say that automating performance management would save their team the most time
- 33.6% say automating approvals and governance (i.e managing stakeholder sign-offs) would save their team the most time
- 30.8% say automating the discovery of influencers would save their team the most time
- 27.1% say automating the process of obtaining permission to use content from users and licensers would save their team the most time
- 12.1% say automating the process of scheduling of social posts would save their team the most time.
8. What type of consumer or market data is used to inform your visual marketing initiatives?
- 77.1% use demographics to inform their visual marketing initiatives
- 55.6% use audience segmentation schemes developed from previous research initiatives to inform their visual marketing objectives
- 54.2% use psychographics (ie; personality, potential earnings etc) to inform their visual marketing objectives
- 46.4% use social media profile data to inform their visual marketing objectives
- 45.1% use geography to inform their visual marketing objectives
- 41.8% use web browsing data (ie browser cookie) to inform their visual marketing objectives
- 38.6% use purchase data (ie; purchase history or intent to purchase) to inform their visual marketing objectives
9. What types of consumer or market data is essential to creating effective visual marketing?
- 69.2% say that demographics (ie; age, gender, socio-economic status) is most essential to creating effective visual marketing
- 54.5% say psychographics (ie; personality, political leanings etc) is most essential to creating effective visual marketing
- 46.8% audience segmentation schemes developed from previous research initiatives is most essential to creating effective visual marketing
- 37.2% purchase data (ie; purchase history or intent to purchase) is most essential to creating effective visual marketing
- 33.3% web browsing data (ie; browser cookie) is most essential to creating effective visual marketing
- 32.7% of social media profile data is most essential to creating effective visual marketing
- 23.1% geography is most essential to creating effective visual marketing
- 3.2% say that other factors are most essential to creating effective visual marketing
10. What prevents you from using user-generated visual content to uncover consumer and market data?
Respondents said that they didn’t use user-generated images and videos shared on social media to uncover consumer or market data for the following reasons:
- 31.7% said the process is manual and labor-intensive
- 26.8% said they lacked software or technology
- 24.4% said that there was too much noise on social media to uncover valuable insights
- 6.1% said social isn’t a good indicator of consumer insights and market data.
11. How big a priority is streamlining abilities and processes to consistently create effective visual content marketing?
About 58% say they are looking to consolidate platforms and processes to increase visual marketing output and effectiveness.
Venngage in their research found results that revealed more details around the investment in visual content marketing and production trends as you can see in the infographic below.
Infographics statistics
- Pinterest continues to grow and the vertical image layout and the ease at which you can scan the home page feed makes it an ideal platform to share infographics on.
- People still crave data and statistics to make informed decisions.
- Infographics are popular and effective because they are 3x easier to follow than just written directions.
- Infographics can increase web traffic by up to 12%.
- Infographics have had the biggest increase in usage among B2B marketers – now at 65%.
Video statistics
- According to an Aberdeen report, video marketers get 66% more qualified leads per year and a 54% increase in brand awareness.
- A survey by HubSpot indicates that 54% of consumers wanted to see more video content from a brand or business they support.
- Cisco projects that global internet traffic from videos will make up 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2021.
Renderforest sheds more light on video usage and statistics based on data collected via their survey in the infographic below.
Augmented Reality (AR) statistics
- The global AR market is expected to generate $70-$75 billion in revenue by 2023.
- 70-75% of people aged 16-44 are aware of AR.
- According to the Lowes home improvement store, how-to videos that were shown in virtual reality (VR) had a 36% higher recall by viewers compared to people who only viewed the YouTube video.
- According to this survey, 82% of respondents expect people to focus on developing augmented reality (AR) experiences for smartphones.
- Pokémon GO (an AR gaming app) has been downloaded over 1 billion times.
- According to Deloitte 88% of mid-sized companies are already using AR in some capacity.
- Thousands of AR mobile apps are currently available.
- Nearly half of Americans are using augmented reality without realizing it.
- 67% of media planners and buyers want AR/VR ads in digital marketing campaigns
Social media statistics
Check this article for over 61 social media facts and statistics to discover more about the role and impact of visual content has on different platforms and your audience.
Using visual content marketing statistics to inform your strategy
The statistics we have covered above will help inform your content strategy no matter what format it takes. What is clear is that without visual content you have little chance of succeeding in the online space.
Do you identify with some of these visual content marketing statistics? What are your biggest challenges in creating visual media assets that engage your audience?
Post updated on September 2019
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[…] but it does take time, resources, energy and persistence. In this article, we cover the latest visual content marketing statistics that can help inform your […]