Visual Content Marketing Statistics to Prepare You For 2017

We all know that the use of visual content in marketing is not going anywhere anytime soon.

In the last couple of months, I’ve been getting tons of emails from eager marketers looking for insights into possible marketing trends for 2017.

When I get requests like this, I rarely know what to say, because my response is always that more people will increase their production of visual content.

It sounds obvious, I know, but it’s true.

No one is thinking:

“What if I stop creating visuals altogether!”

Instead of putting together yet another post to tell you that visual content is the future, I decided to survey over 300 online marketers and find out exactly how visuals influenced their marketing strategies in 2016, and what their plans are for 2017.

Here’s what they said…

Visual Content Marketing Statistics to Know for 2017:

1) What percentage of content published contained visuals?

When asked, 77% of marketers stated that 71% to 100% of the content they published in 2015 contained visuals. Of that 77%, 40.5% of marketers stated that 91% to 100% of the content they published in 2015 contained visuals.

But when asked about their use of visuals in their content strategy during the year 2016, 83.5% of marketers stated that 71% to 100% of their content contained visuals, and 53% of marketers said that 91% to 100% of their content contained visuals.

In 2016, less than 10% of marketers surveyed used visuals under 50% of the time.

From 2015 to 2016, the use of visual content in articles published by marketers increased by an incredible 130%.

2) What kind of visuals were most frequently produced?

When asked what types of visuals were most frequently produced during the year 2016, 35% of marketers stated that they used stock photos the most, while 30.4% of marketers stated that they used original graphics, such as infographics and illustrations, most frequently.

The other forms of visual content that were most frequently produced were videos and Presentations (such as SlideShare presentations), which were used 15.2% of the time, charts and data visualizations, which were used 14% of the time, and GIFs and memes, which were used only 5.4% of the time.

3) Which visuals performed best?

Marketers were also asked to share which kinds of visuals performed best in 2016. Shockingly, just 7.6% of marketers stated that stock photos had the most impact, despite being the most frequently used type of visual. Meanwhile, 41.5% of marketers said that original graphics, such as infographics and illustrations, performed best.

Other high performing kinds of visuals were charts and data visualisations, which 25.7% of marketers claimed lead to the highest engagement. In addition, 20.2% also mentioned that videos and presentations performed best, and only 5% of marketers said that GIFs and memes performed best.

4) How much time was spent a week on making visuals?

When asked to share how much time was spent a week producing visual content, 71.1% of marketers claimed that they spent less than five hours a week making visuals.

Contrary to that, 11.4% of marketers claimed that they worked more than 15 hours a week on producing engaging visuals for their content strategy, and 17.5% stated that they worked between five and 15 hours a week on visuals.

5) What methods were used for creating visuals?

When asked how marketers created their visual content, 32%–the vast majority–claimed to use an online graphic design tool. Following that number, 30.4% said they used an in-house designer.

Marketers who used a freelance designer made up 24.1%, and 14.5% stated that they used other means for creating and curating visuals such as Instagram, Flickr and Photoshop.

6) What was the biggest struggle when creating engaging visuals?

Next, marketers were asked to share their biggest struggle when it came to creating engaging visuals in 2016. The leading statistic was that 36.7% of marketers struggled with being able to produce visuals on a consistent basis. In second place, 29.1% of marketers struggled with producing well-designed visuals, and 24.1% said they struggled to reach a wider audience with their visuals.

Only 10.1% of marketers said their struggled to source reliable and interesting data.

7) How integral is visual content to marketing strategies in 2017?

Marketers were asked to express how integral the use of visual content would be to their marketing strategies in 2017.

Most marketers, 60.8%, stated that the use of visual content was absolutely necessary to their marketing strategy. Following that, 31.7% said that visual content was very important for their marketing strategies in 2017, while 5% said it was just important, and 1.3% claimed that visual content was only somewhat important. Only 1.3% claimed that visual content was not important at all to their marketing strategy.

8) What percentage of marketing budgets were spent on visual content in 2016?

When asked what percentage of their budget was used on visual content in 2016, 31.6% of marketers surveyed said that 0% to 10% of their budget was spent on visual content, and 25.3% of marketers said that 11% to 20% of their budget was spent on visual content.

Only 1.3% of marketers claimed that they spent 91% to 100% of their budget on producing visuals for their marketing strategy.

9) How much do marketers project to spend on visual content in 2017?

Finally, when asked what they projected to spend on visual content in 2017, 21.5% of marketers stated they planned to spend 0% to 10% of their budget. Another 21.5% planned to spend 11-20% of their budget on visual content, yet another 21.5% of marketers surveyed predicted spending 21-30% of their budget on visual content.

The remaining 35.5% of marketers predicted they would spend over 31% of their marketing budgets on visual content.

Final thoughts:

Based on the results of this survey, it’s obvious that the majority of marketers understand the incredible value of using visuals in their 2017 marketing strategies In particular, they understand the value of using infographics, charts and data visualizations. The truth is that when there is so much text-based content produced on a daily basis, and even on an hourly basis, you need to test out other forms of content to captivate your audience.

Make 2017 the year that people remember your brand and get a head start on creating awesome visuals that people will love.

This article was originally published by Venngage Infographics.