Images are a vital part of a successful international content marketing strategy, but in order to harness their full potential, you need to be smart about their use. Not giving your images the attention they deserve can have a damaging effect on your overall marketing efforts. After all, your images are often the first thing users see when they come across your content. Images provide you with the opportunity to make a positive first impression, introduce your brand, entice people to consume your content, and even convince them to buy your products and services. In this guide, we will look at how images can contribute to a successful marketing strategy, what makes a good image and how to get great images every time.
Table of contents
- Introduction
- What images can do for your content
- What makes a good image
- Contextual relevance and interestingness
- Size, colour and contrast
- The right file format
- Stand out from the crowd
- Cultural relevance
- How to get a good image
- How to use images to complement your international content marketing strategy
- Conclusion
Introduction
We live in an era in love with images. You do not have to look far before you see people snapping away at absolutely everything: landscapes, food, home renovations, pets, selfies, business conferences – the list is endless. The availability of ever more affordable and sophisticated smartphones means that nowadays almost everybody can take pictures and see the results instantly.
Just look at the popularity of Instagram and Pinterest. Worldwide, these two image-centric social networks boast a staggering 2.5 billion monthly active users combined and show no signs of slowing down.
But what does this have to do with your business’ marketing strategy? Everything. When people come across your brand’s content online, probably the first thing they will notice will be your images. In just a few seconds, your images will dictate whether the user stays and consumes your content, or keeps scrolling and clicks away. This guide will explain how to harness the power of images to ensure they are effectively bolstering your content marketing efforts. Let’s dive straight in!
What images can do for your content
1. They increase engagement
Including images in your content to complement the text increases the likelihood of people reading and engaging with your content. This is because people are naturally attracted to and intrigued by images. Do not be tempted to just stick any old image at the top of your content, however – the quality of the image is of huge importance.
Using shoddy images can make your organisation look lazy and amateur, and can be an immediate turn-off for a potential customer who will probably not even bother to read your actual content, however well-written it may be.
On the other hand, a good image can make your whole page look more appealing. Using relevant, high-quality images will give a better, more professional impression of your organisation and can implicitly foster trust, meaning that potential customers will be encouraged to read what you have to say.
2. They help with understanding and purchase decision-making
Some kinds of images, such as diagrams and graphs, can help readers to visualise more easily the points you are making in the body of your text, so these should definitely be considered if your subject matter is difficult to grasp or technical in nature. Failing to do so may result in some readers becoming confused and simply giving up on your content.
If your company operates in the e-commerce industry, then the use of good images becomes even more important, and you also need to think practically. Customers want to see exactly what it is you are selling, to see if it matches with what they want to buy. For this reason, it is strongly advised that you have multiple images (from different angles) of each product so that your potential customers can best visualise it in 3D and make an informed decision.
3. They go viral
And finally, whatever your industry, one massive benefit of images is their ability to go viral. Images are easy to share on social platforms, whether on image-centric websites like Instagram and Pinterest, or other social networks like Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter) which also allow for image sharing. Posting a relevant and interesting image on social networks and including a link to your main content is a trick you should definitely use to promote your content more widely.
What makes a good image
1. Contextual relevance and interestingness
A good image should reflect and support the text content. A completely unrelated image is at best pointless and at worst confusing and distracting, which can seriously put off a reader. You should not compromise interestingness for relevance though. Try to avoid boring and generic imagery, such as a businessperson posing with a laptop, as this can make your content look extremely dull. Images should be unique and stand out (as well as being relevant) as this will help to capture the reader’s attention and pique their interest, encouraging them to read on.
2. Size, colour and contrast
On a technical level, images should be crisp and clear. To avoid blurring, you should refrain from manually enlarging small images – these attractive little images suddenly turn rather ugly when blown up beyond their intended proportions. If you must enlarge an image because there is no alternative, there are AI tools such as BetterImage that can enlarge your image without losing quality.
You should also ensure that your images are appropriate based on their actual size on the webpage. Try to avoid having images that are too big or too small, as both gigantic images that go off the edge of the screen and minuscule images that require the reader to squint are difficult to see.
Your images should have good colour contrast and good tonal contrast as this will make them easier for the reader to see and understand. It will also make your images look interesting, more attractive and help features stand out.
3. The right file format
Working with images can be complicated as there are multiple file formats to choose from. Image file formats can be split into two main categories: raster files and vector files, with the main differences being their resize capability and quality. Raster files (used for pictures, photos and hand-drawn illustrations) are based on pixels, which means they have lower resizing capabilities. Vector files (used for logotypes, shapes, vector illustrations and text) can be scaled up infinitely without losing their quality. Here are some of the most common image file formats:
- .jpeg stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, which is a type of raster file. This is the most common file format for storing and transmitting photos online. JPEGs apply lossy compression to images, which can make file sizes significantly smaller.
- .png stands for Portable Network Graphics, which is a type of raster file. This file format is preferred for websites and other online elements. It is good for images that contain logos, shapes or text because due to its low compression it will not create artifacts (visible imperfections or distortions) on solid colours and lines, which can be a problem with other file formats.
- .gif stands for Graphics Interchange Format, which is a type of raster file. This file format is very common for animations, but due to its reduced colour palette, we recommend using mp4 videos if needed. Use GIFs only for short and small animation items.
- .svg stands for Scalable Vector Graphics, which is a type of vector file. SVGs are often a key component in web applications because of their extremely low size, high quality and infinite scaling capabilities.
- .webp stands for Web Picture, which is a type of raster file. This file format was developed by Google to be a replacement for JPEGs, PNGs and GIFs. It supports both lossy and lossless compression, as well as alpha transparency and animation. It is the best format for websites and there are tools such as Imagify that can automatically convert all your existing website images to this optimised format.
4. Stand out from the crowd
Of course, finding interesting, relevant and high-quality images to complement your content is going to be more challenging in some industries than others – but there is always a way. If you are in a challenging industry, then it is even more important that you push the boundaries and use good imagery in order to really stand out from the crowd.
5. Cultural relevance
This is especially important for international websites or campaigns. Images should reflect the culture and demographic that you are targeting. Be aware of cultural differences and be respectful of these in your designs. For example, whilst it is perfectly acceptable to include photos of people drinking alcohol in designs in the West, it may be considered inappropriate in some conservative Muslim countries. In designs that include people, try to reflect the demographic make-up of the target market.
How to get a good image
There are two ways you can get an image: by finding one that already exists or by getting a creative designer to create an image for you.
1. Stock images
If you choose to try and find a suitable existing image from the millions that are available online, you are faced with a choice: free images or paid images? Despite the fact that paid images are almost always better than their free counterparts, many people will immediately go for the free option – settling for a substandard image in order to save money. The potential return-on-investment from sourcing high-quality images is so high, however, that the wiser marketer would be prepared to pay in order to get that superior image.
Popular stock image websites include Adobe Stock, Getty Images, Shutterstock, iStock, Bigstock and Freepik.
Image websites allow you to filter by price, and each image can be bought in a variety of sizes – with the larger images costing more. The “small” images are not actually that small though, and should be sufficient for most blog posts and website content.
When sourcing stock images, make sure to only get images from trustworthy photo banks. Never download images straight from Google, as that would almost guarantee problems with copyright infringement!
And finally, be aware that AI-generated stock images are becoming increasingly more common. These images are often cheap (if not free), visually appealing, but in most cases, easily identifiable. Be careful when using AI-generated images because they can affect your credibility as a company and, given its well-known copyright controversies, could lead to problems in the medium term.
2. Bespoke images
Of course, no matter how long you scour the web and how much money you spend on sourcing images, it will always be better to have a creative designer – such as a web designer, graphic designer, photographer, illustrator or artist – create a bespoke image specifically for your content. These images can be tailor-made to each individual piece of content and made to your desired size to display on your website perfectly. This degree of customisation is not something you can just hope to stumble upon by chance whilst trawling through stock image websites. A creative designer will be able to follow your specifications to the letter and provide appropriate, beautiful and perfectly-sized images every time. This is especially important if you are in an industry where visualisation is difficult or stock photos are sparse.
It is currently very popular for companies to have their own unique imagery, created for them by creative designers. However, in truth, only large companies are usually able to afford creative designers. For that reason, using too many stock images can have the unintended consequence of making the company look amateurish, small or even like a start-up. If you are able to afford it, unique images are therefore a very worthwhile investment. For what you spend on photos, images and illustrations, you should expect to get at least an equal amount of return-on-investment, be that in conversions, user experience, brand recognition and/or social viral spread.
Looking to the future, bespoke images may gain an even greater advantage over stock images with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI). Many search engines and social media platforms are now using AI to scan images to identify what they depict, for example objects, scenes and even people. As the AI gets better, original bespoke images will probably get more attention from AI systems than stock images, which exist over many websites.
How to use images to complement your international content marketing strategy
Incorporating images in your content marketing strategy can work wonders for your brand awareness, social following and search traffic. Some of the most-used types of images that companies use to market themselves are:
- logos
- icons
- photos
- infographics
- charts and graphs
- illustrations and drawings
If you have a social media marketing strategy on Instagram or Pinterest, for example, any of these will be of use to you at some point. To make the most of your images, consider the following:
- Meta data and alt tags: Ensure the image title contains the message you want people to see when they hover over it, and include in the “alt” attribute the information you want search engines to know about the photo. Always give a clear and relevant name to your images.
- Style consistency: Try to use the same style of images and photos, to ensure consistency.
- Subject variety: When it comes to the subjects of your images, however, diversity and variation attract wider audiences, so mix it up!
- Image size and quality: Optimise the size and quality of your website images. This can have a big impact on your SEO rankings and Google PageSpeed score. Try to use a WebP optimisation plugin or script.
- Promotion: The good thing about images is that they are much easier to promote than, for example, articles, and they often attract more attention, more quickly. Social media marketing is perfect for image promotion, and online influencers can be a great resource too.
Conclusion
As a way of backing up a solid content marketing strategy, images can take your efforts much further, provided that you invest time and creativity in producing and/or sourcing the best ones for your specific brand. In today’s visual world, incorporating imagery into your content marketing efforts is no longer something you can avoid. Images make your content more attractive, easier to understand and more likely to go viral online. There are a range of image sourcing websites that have millions of high-quality photos and graphics available for a good price. There is nothing better than having your images created for you by a creative designer though, as they can offer a degree of customisation to each piece of content that is simply impossible to find in stock imagery. Whichever option you ultimately choose, you will not regret investing in high-quality images when it comes to your marketing efforts: get creative, and expect great rewards!
To learn more about international content marketing, click here.