How to Use Images to Enhance Your Marketing Efforts
by Arron GeorgeNot long ago, I watched a webinar titled “Your Ideas to the Power of 10” hosted by Andrea Vahl. She was explaining how to use images to effectively market your business and demonstrated how to evaluate the REAL power of an image. No surprises – the takeaway from the webinar was:
Images are seriously powerful!
Images can create excitement, touch deep emotions, help us sympathize, cause us to take action, and much more. In fact, research shows we engage 30% of our brains when processing visual information compared to only 3% from hearing.
So why hasn’t everyone gotten the memo? Why aren’t we masters of using images?
Wouldn’t you agree that we want to do all those things when marketing our dental practices? If you answered “yes,” you’ve come to the right place. Today’s blog post will look at five simple ways to effectively use images in your marketing efforts.
5 ways to use images in your marketing
1. On your website
The hub of your marketing efforts is always going to be your website. So, try this: Look at your website. Is it visual? If I visited your home page, would I get what makes you unique from your images? If I looked solely at the images, what would I take away from your site?
Now think, how could I improve the images on my website? Perhaps you could include more personalized, unique images showing:
- Your team at work
- You with your community
- Happy patients
- The comfortable and beautiful office you’ve designed
- You and/or your team relaxing and chatting with patients
These types of images are marketing gold – they will put you strides ahead of the competition.
2. Blog posts
We all know images are to a blog post what peanut butter is to jelly – a perfect compliment! However, do you know how to best optimize your image so it stands out in your blog post?
Here are a few basic tips:
- Content with relevant images gets 94% more views, so avoid using random stock images. If you can use a custom image (a photo you have taken) – even better.
- Use horizontal images – they fit better into most blogs.
- Use FREE image-editing software such as Pixelied, Design Wizard, PicMonkey, or iPiccy to add a personal touch to images.
- Resize images to fit your blog – you can do this in WordPress or using image-editing software.
- Optimize your image for search engines – add a title and alt tag (description of the image).
- Set a featured image – this is the image that accompanies your blog if it is shared.
By implementing these top tips, you will ensure your images look good and will encourage people to read your blog.
3. Email campaigns
Many dental practices use email marketing to promote their blogs, treatments, or latest promotions. But with so many emails appearing in your audience’s inbox, what will make your emails stand out? Dynamic and attention-grabbing images!
No matter what you are providing in your email, make sure you use strong images that explain what your email is about and what action you want readers to take.
TOP TIP: Make sure to use branded images and your logo when sending emails.
4. Videos
Now you may be asking, “What are videos doing in a blog post about images?” It is a valid question. But, you (yes, you) can make videos by just using still images. How?
Try using a service like Animoto, which allows you to upload a series of photos and then create a moveable slideshow backed by the music of your choice.
You can use such videos to promote your practice, blog content, treatments, and more.
Check out this example:
5. Infographics
Infographics sound complicated, but they can be very simple and, most importantly, effective. An infographic is simply an image that provides information. You can easily make your own infographics using tools such as Piktochart.
You can post infographics on social media or even your blog. Recent studies show this type of visual content gets 3X more likes or shares than other any other type of content. Boom!
As you can see, using images in your marketing efforts can get your message into your patients’ brains and could motivate them to take action!
Try using at least two of these suggestions, and please let us know how it goes. Remember — make your images relevant, dynamic, engaging, and attractive!
How do you use images in your marketing efforts? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
This post was originally published in 2014 but was updated May 2018 with new resources, links, and stats.
