How to Use Visual Marketing to Drive Ecommerce Sales [10+ Brand Examples!]

In this post, we’re discussing the correlation between visual marketing and ecommerce sales.

More specifically, we’re going to talk about infographics and user-generated content, as well as data visualization.

Additionally, we’ll cover what the role of influencers might be in increasing revenue for ecommerce as well as how using the right graphic design tool can help you save time and money.

Let’s get started.

How to Use Visual Marketing to Drive Ecommerce Sales

• Tip #1: Use Infographics to Spark Interest
• Tip #2: Use User-Generated Content to Boost Social Proof
• Tip #3: Use Data Visualization That Will Get You Social Shares & Links
• Tip #4: Host Influencers for Brand Takeovers - So You Get Their Audience Too
• Tip #5: Improve Your Product Images to Generate More Sales
• Tip #6: Use Graphic Design Tools With Templates & Assets to Save You Time & Money
• Wrapping Up

Tip #1: Use Infographics to Spark Interest

Our first tip is to use infographics to spark interest in your content and make it more popular.

Infographics are very effective in giving visual representations of data and information.

As we can see on the Google Trends graph below, the term has always been relevant and of interest to many people worldwide.

Image Source: Google Trends

Although there is fluctuation in the graph, it is undoubted that the term has been gaining in popularity during 2020.

In the following blog post on content marketing tips by PR outreach software Respona, infographics are mentioned as one of the most interesting content types that can be used to boost content marketing strategies.

Image Source: Respona

In addition to this, the infographic below provides some useful information on the power of visual content and its importance when it comes to transmitting information and knowledge online.

Image Source: Demand Gen Report

As we can see, a big number of people – up to 40% – are more likely to respond to visual info than text.

What’s also important to mention is that infographics can help improve web traffic by 12%, a significant percentage given how competitive the online world is today.

In a few words, infographics can help companies spark interest in their content as well as elevate their social media visual content and make it more shareable.

What companies shouldn’t forget, though, is the importance of making and sharing high quality infographics and any kind of visual content.

What I mean by that is that the same way you’re not going to post a piece of textual content that makes no sense to your audience, you shouldn’t post visual content that’s irrelevant to what your company does or if it’s messy.

Put another way, try to make your visual content as comprehensive and straightforward as possible.

Because some people might find it difficult to create visual content that’s compelling and successfully transmits a message, we’ve created some super easy-to-use infographic templates that can be the basis of your visual content creation, hassle-free.

By looking at only some of those templates, you can see that the world of infographics is one of no limits – you can create whatever you want in relation to endless topics and making any kind of design as well as color combinations you want.

The reason I’m showing you these is to demonstrate all the eye-catching and interesting possibilities well-made visual content can give you in terms of raising awareness and sparking your audience’s interest.

To cut a long story short, your company’s visual content marketing strategy will be benefited by interesting visual content since this content is more likely to drive ecommerce sales.

Before we move on to the second tip, let’s look at some examples of successful companies using compelling visual content, like infographics, to share information and  raise awareness of their work.

Below are three consecutive Yahoo Finance Instagram posts.

Image Source: Instagram

As we can see, the company is giving their audience the opportunity to engage with its content in a playful and direct, visual way.

It totally works in terms of audience engagement and reactions to the post.

Image Source: Instagram

Another great example that highlights the importance of posting interesting visual content online comes from a blog post on eLearning trends by LearnWorlds.

Image Source: LearnWorlds

What the screenshot above teaches us is that an infographic can help you generate traffic, draw attention, and get social shares.

This piece has 110 shares on social media, has links from 18 referring domains, and ranks for more than 81 keywords, according to Ahrefs.

In general, we can see that infographics are great when it comes to generating links, social shares, and, quite often, buzz around your brand.

This applies to all types of businesses, from ecommerce to SaaS (Software as a Service), and even service businesses like agencies.

Let’s now talk about one more thing you could do to boost your visual marketing strategy.

Tip #2: Use User-Generated Content to Boost Social Proof

The second tip for using visual marketing to drive ecommerce sales is to use user-generated content since this will help you boost social proof, thus boosting your content.

To make sure that your content gets noticed among the crazy amount of content that gets posted every second, it needs to be different.

Being different on social media sometimes means creating content that’s original and reflects brand personality.

A great way to do so is to use content that your audience generates.

This will make your followers genuinely interested in your content; they’ll be more likely to trust your content and relate to it.

Simply put, posting content that someone from your audience has created will boost your credibility to your entire audience, or at least to a big part of it!

I think some examples of user-generated content will make this a bit more clear.

The first example comes from the ecommerce brand ASOS, that pretty often relies on user-generated content to boost social proof and increase their reach.

Like they did with the post below, which comes from the Instagram account of one of their followers.

Image Source: Instagram

The same goes for the post below:

Image Source: Instagram

Yet another ASOS user-generated post with a high level of comments and likes.

The same applies to Apple.

The company very frequently posts content that has been initially posted by their followers and people that use their products.

A beautiful example is the following:

Image Source: Instagram

The company very successfully features a user’s work that directly promotes its products and enhances social proof.

Another successful brand that heavily relies on content created by their followers is H&M.

Image Source: Instagram

The same applies to their H&M Man Instagram account.

In boosting social proof on your social media accounts you should - as always - keep in mind the importance of the quality of your content.

In doing so, try to use design tools that will help you elevate your content.

Similar to the infographic templates I presented to you earlier, you might want to consider Instagram templates or Facebook post templates – these can be your best friends in the process of creating well curated content on social media.

Note: You might also find it useful to use channel specific tools, like Instagram tools to successfully manage your content.

Tip #3: Use Data Visualization That Will Get You Social Shares & Links

This tip is about using data visualization that will help you get social shares and links.

To quote Neil Patel on the importance of social shares:

Image Source: Neil Patel

To express it differently, social shares and backlinks can drive traffic to your site and boost your popularity as well as sales.

Before we look at a few examples of companies that are doing this with big success, I first need to tell you that data visualization does get you links and social shares.

Why?

Because data content is visually interesting, thus making it easier for users to want to share and promote it.

Additionally, data visualization is popular because it helps companies and bloggers to establish their points and so it’s widely used by those who want to make sure that their content will be shared and have some positive impact on the company’s sales and traffic.

See an example of this below:

Image Source: Tidio

The graphs shown above are included in a guide on lead generation strategy by live chat software Tidio.

They undoubtedly make the post more engaging and more shareable.

The screenshot below comes from a Backlinko blog post on content marketing that includes a large number of data visualizations.

I’ve highlighted the high number of social shares to show you the high level of engagement on this blog post.

Image Source: Backlinko

Without a doubt, the level of engagement would be significantly smaller if the post was focusing on presenting textual rather than visual information.

Having said that, it doesn’t mean that the textual components are not good enough.

It simply means that the visual part, meaning all the data visualizations that are used to back up the writer’s arguments, are successful in creating a piece of content that’s shareable.

Moreover, it becomes obvious that the readers think that they should be sharing this in order to further distribute all the valuable content that’s in the post.

Similarly, have a look at the screenshot below, that comes from Ahrefs, and notice the number of shares on a blog post that’s great in terms of visual content and data visualization.

Image Source: Ahrefs

Just to mention here that Ahrefs very frequently creates visually appealing charts and graphs as part of their studies.

As a result of the uniqueness of their content, they attract a lot of links and shares, as we can see.

Here are some more impressive article stats proving that data visualization can indeed make your content more popular and bring traffic, and consequently sales, to your business.

Image Source: Ahrefs

I think it’s become pretty clear that data visualizations are gaining popularity as they can help content pieces perform better.

Keep that in mind when creating content on your blog or social media accounts.

Tip #4: Host Influencers for Brand Takeovers So You Get Their Audience Too

Another good tip that will help you drive ecommerce sales is to collaborate with influencers for brand takeovers.

This is a smart move as it will indirectly give you access to the influencer’s audience too.

Put another way, it’ll help you raise brand awareness and expand your audience.

Influencers are people with a large following online and they can be very persuasive in promoting companies and products.

People like to listen to people they trust talking them into things.

It makes them feel safer with their choices as they know that these have been previously tested by the influencer.

Moreover, people trust the influencers’ recommendations more than recommendations that might come from an impersonal corporate online post.

Image Source: Google Trends

The graph above shows us that there has been an upward trend of interest in the term influencer in the past 5 years.

I think that the following lines will give you a very clear idea of why influencer marketing can be so beneficial for a business:

Image Source: Ahrefs

Long story short, when you collaborate with influencers, you have the chance to gain popularity and some of the followers of the influencer will start following your brand too.

When it comes to influencer marketing and its technicalities though, I find the following tip by Moosend on Instagram marketing very useful:

Image Source: Moosend

That’s self-explanatory.

If your relationship with the influencer is good and honest before you start collaborating, and you’re as familiar with their work and aesthetics as they are with yours, then there might be a great chance for your brand to get promoted by them on a regular basis.

Let’s sum this tip up with an example.

Mexican born, California-based fashion blogger and influencer, Julie Sariñana is a nice example of an influencer campaign that led to further promotion of the brand from the influencer.

Image Source: Instagram

Julie has a huge audience following her and engaging with her posts.

Her audience trusts her and will potentially buy something that’s suggested or endorsed by her.

After all, people like to buy from people they like and trust.

In that context, takeovers and giveaways, where you can give swag packs or even loyalty cards of your own brand, run by influencers can be a great way for brands to establish an emotional and personal connection with their audience.

That can be explained by the fact that, as mentioned earlier, a customer/follower is way more likely to connect with and trust a person they know than to connect with the brand.

Tip #5: Improve Your Product Images to Generate More Sales

One more tip I’d like to give you is that to generate more sales you need to improve your product images first.

As I already mentioned, content that includes images or other visual content, like video content, tends to perform significantly better than posts that don’t.

For that reason, when it comes to visual content, top-quality should be the only option as this will boost company confidence and customers are more likely to trust your products.

Product images are very important in ecommerce sales as they provide the customer with all the necessary information about a product.

They also create a first impression, so they better be fabulous.

As it can be seen below,

Image Source: PointVisible

In other words, photography is a medium of storytelling and communication with our audience.

Companies should look after a number of parameters when taking and posting photos of their products online.

Some of the parameters might be: composition, brightness, clarity, and contrast.

They’re all almost equally important in terms of creating a successful photo that will highlight a product’s best attributes and more compelling points.

The list of companies that are posting amazing, high-quality product images is endless, but I ‘ll make an effort to present you some of them.

Starting with Starbucks, we see that the company is posting well-curated posts of their products.

Image Source: Instagram

All images are well lit and the product is beautifully placed as the protagonist of the photo.

Makes you want to grab one, right?

The second example comes from Lenovo.

Image Source: Instagram

The company’s Instagram posts capture the aesthetics of the brand and definitely manage to present their product in the best and most attractive way possible.

Look at the screenshot below that shows American brand Head & Shoulders’ Instagram posts.

Image Source: Instagram

Apple is another company that seems to take extra care of their product images, both on their social media and their website.

Have a look at the image below that comes from the Apple website.

Image Source: Apple

That’s a very unique, fresh, and eye-catching way of presenting a product.

What’s great about this Apple product image, but also about product images in general, is that they give the customer the opportunity to get to know your products and see what options are available in terms of colors, sizes, etc.

Also, look at some their Instagram posts below. Note the high level of engagement that I’ve highlighted:

Image Source: Instagram

Impressive, isn’t it?

Luxury professional care company Kerastase has a healthy following of 1.3m followers on Instagram.

The quality of their social media posts and product images is exceptional.

Images Source: Instagram

Their top-quality photography highlights the high quality of their luxury products.

Similarly, Dove makes sure that their product will be presented online in the best possible way.

Image Source: Instagram

South Korean multinational company Samsung is another great example of a brand that uses high quality product images to present their products and drive Ecommerce sales.

Their homepage looks like this:

Image Source: Samsung

I warned you that the list of companies giving their best self in terms of their visual content would be long!

I believe that you’re now convinced of the importance of top quality product images that capture the best aspects of your products.

Let’s go on to the last tip I’m going to give so you can make sure that you know how to use visual marketing to drive ecommerce sales.

Tip #6: Use Graphic Design Tools With Templates & Assets to Save You Time & Money

The last tip I have for you, and I believe will be very beneficial for your company, is to use a graphic design tool that provides you with templates and assets.

This will save you both time and money.

In other words, when choosing a graphic design tool, keep in mind that cost, time, and level of expertise that’s required in order for the user to be able to use the tool, are extremely important.

Let’s unpack this.

First things first, unless you’re a graphic designer who feels very comfortable using complex graphic design tools, you should go with a tool that’s made for non-designers, or one that’s easy enough to be used by non-designers.

You want one that will provide you with templates that can help you save time, as you won’t have to start creating a design from scratch.

What’s great about ready-to-use templates is that you can edit them so they match your style and/or topic.

In terms of saving time, most design tools today provide their users with the feature of design collaboration.

That’s fantastic for remote teams and can definitely help teams and project managers save time in relation to giving and receiving feedback, comments, etc.

When I say that graphic design tools can help you save money, I mean that in the context that they’re usually very easy to use; they give you the opportunity to do some design work yourself.

Put another way, when expertise is not needed, for example when you’re creating social media posts, graphs, and infographics, you can take advantage of the tools that are available out there and use them yourself.

In short, a design tool can help you improve your content.

Wrapping Up

In this post, we’ve presented how visual marketing can drive traffic to your site as well as bring ecommerce sales.

More specifically, we’ve talked about the power of infographics and user-generated content.

Also, we’ve looked at data visualization, influencer marketing, and the significance of using the best graphic design tool that will help you create and curate content for your business without wasting time or money.

When organizing your content marketing strategy, remember to take good care of your visual content, its looks, its target, and its attributes.

This can really make a difference and lead to your content to be more popular and shareable.

Payman Taei is UI/UX designer and the founder of Visme, an all-in-one visual communication platform empowering everyone to create and share beautiful interactive presentations, infographics, and other forms of engaging content with no design skills. He is also the co-founder of Respona, the all-in-one PR, and link building tool that combines personalization with productivity.