10 essential elements of a visual content marketing strategy

Wonder what all the brands doing awesome visual content marketing have in common? A clear, documented content strategy. They don’t just avoid skipping the first step, they take the first step right.

Here I take a step deeper into the realm of content marketing where we shift the bulk of our focus to visual storytelling. “Visual content is the new black for content marketers,” says Neil Patel. “Today you don’t stand a chance unless your content is packed with visuals.”

Considering that every brand is different in what it’s about as well as the resources it has at its disposal, there can’t be a one-size-fits-all template. But this guide will equip you with the basics to kick start your own brand’s visual storytelling by chalking out a solid strategy.

1. Objectives

You may swap the other steps but this one remains number one. Don’t waste time venturing into devising the other elements before sitting down with your team including key stakeholders to figure out quantifiable business objectives you want your visual content to achieve. Yes you’re going after lead generation, sales, engagement and followers among other objectives, but assigning target numbers and rates will make your goals specific and measurable.

2. Brand story

Your brand’s story is the “big idea” that feeds your visual content creation, according to co-authors of Content Rules, Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman. The people and ideas behind how your brand came into being, what it is today and what it wants to be feed your visual content. Case in point: a customer testimonial video.

3. Brand personality and voice

Depending on the industry you operate in and your target market, it would be wise to write down a few adjectives or phrases that describe the tone and voice of content that will best resonate with your customers. Are you sophisticated? Funny and witty? Quirky? Friendly yet knowledgeable? Brainstorm the precise way you would like to sound (or look, in the case of visual content) then stick to it to maintain consistency.

4. Buyer personas

As defined by Ardath Albee, CEO and B2B Marketing Strategist at Marketing Interactions Inc., a buyer persona is a composite sketch of a key segment of your audience. For content marketing purposes, you need personas to help you deliver visual content that will be most relevant and useful to your audience.

You can draft personas around geographic, demographic and psychographic factors. Personas help you avoid creating content around what we know best (your products and company) instead of around the information our audience is actively seeking.

5. Editorial calendar

Make use of tools like Hootsuite, Buffer and CoSchedule to save time and improve efficiency by scheduling your visual content to be published across different channels.

6. Platforms

Choose which platforms you intend to focus on for your visual content. Pinterest and Instagram are excellent choices provided your target audience is already using them. In addition to social media, decide how you will use visuals across your email marketing, blogs, landing pages and website as well.

7. Formats

Visual content can take many forms: pictures, videos including live streaming, slideshows, emojis, memes and infographics. Mix and match to give versatility to your visual content.

8. Tools

Here’s where you get your hands dirty actually creating visual content and you want the best tools to do so. There is Canva and Photoshop for image editing, Hypefolio to create interactive mobile-first messages, GoAnimate for videos and Venngage for infographics. There’s a boatload of tools out there to suit every requirement and budget.

9. KPIs and evaluation

This is where you evaluate the measurable objectives you set out to achieve in step one. Marketing and sales automation software platforms like Highrise, SugarCRM, Marketo, Salesforce and Eloqua make it easy for you to track progress, evaluate results and determine ROI of your visual content endeavors.

10. Defining team roles

Hopefully there’s more than one person on your content marketing team. The tasks of content creation, scheduling, publishing, performance reporting and approvals should be clearly assigned to each member to avoid friction. Time is precious and you don’t want a leaky content marketing pipeline.

Now depending on your business, detail every little thing under each element of this strategy. Refer to this document regularly. Better still, print it out and stick it where your entire team can see it. And finally, don’t hesitate to revise it all over again if required.