 Every business needs a designer. Whether for website design, social media marketing, or any other form of online content, you'll be sure to need some visual content design work done. A business could hire an in-house designer if the workload calls for it. Or they could outsource the design job to a freelancer or an agency if it's only a short term arrangement. So, what are those 8 reasons why visual marketing is so important? 1. Because first impressions matter. Social content grabs interest much faster than text alone. You may also notice this when you're scrolling on social media. Any form of visuals can easily enhance your blog articles, press releases, and other written media. They will grab your potential reader's attention before they even get interested in reading your content. Think of your accompanying graphics as the tools to improve your written media's first impression to the public. 2. It caters to skimmers. Many readers click on your website to find the information they want. This means that you may need to show your most crucial information or data within graphics. These graphics can include infographics, fact sheets, videos, and more. If your readers are interested in the information you have presented in your visuals, they will continue reading. 3. Appeals to readers' emotions. Images can appeal to your readers' emotions better than text can. When you're presenting an article that needs to relay a feeling to your readers, having the right image showing the mood you want to portray can help. Visual marketing is a compelling way to tell a story to your readers. 4. Crucial for company branding. Your visuals are so important for your company image and branding. First, you must decide on the colors and tones that best reflect your business's character and personality. Once you've decided on the colors you want to use, you can then use these tones to create consistency. One prime example of using colors in images for company branding is Google. The company's branding is so strong that you often would easily recognize the brand just by the colors in its logo. 5. Gains more views. Embedding images and graphic design into your articles is a great way to improve your content marketing. So, if you have yet to start putting images onto your site, you can expect your site visitors to drop off and exit your site after one simple glance. 6. Improves site SEO. Did you know that you can include an alt attribute to the images you put on your website? An alt attribute is also known as image alt text or alternative text. Think of an image alt attribute as a brief description of what your image is about in case the image is not displayed. For example, an image of a basket of fruits could be something like a woven basket filled with apples, oranges, and other tropical fruits. In short, your visual marketing could boost your site's SEO, helping your website to rank higher in search queries. 7. Visualizes important data. It's much easier to understand data presented in a pie chart, a line graph, or any other form of visual representation than seeing it all squeezed up into a text paragraph. If you're writing an informative article containing various data points, consider adding an accompanying chart to make the data more understandable. 8. Increases social media reach. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter rely heavily on machine learning and artificial intelligence to show you suggested content. Various algorithms are running behind the scenes to suggest new content on your social media feed. Posts with visual content are much more likely to be shared than text-based content. As long as you use some form of visuals, you're already increasing the reach of your social media posts. Follow us and subscribe to our YouTube channel.