In today's business world, there are multiple tools available to help you capture the attention of your target audience through visual engagement that is effective and affordable.
Whether you decide to promote your latest products through a mobile application or are hoping to impress a potential partner with your company's services through an interactive PDF slide presentation, it's key to find the right balance and you must communicate your message clearly.
So if you're inexperienced in the latest creative art technologies, consider the following areas that members of Forbes Business Development Council have made the most progress in, to date.
getty
1. Social Media
Animation on social media is essential. Not only do animations get more exposure, but the engagement is also way higher than static images. Because animations can be 100% created, they are an excellent controlled way of getting a message across to your target audience. Multiple animations can be used to synchronize messaging across your brand. - Peter Schravemade, REACH ASEA
2. Crypto
Crypto products can be scary and hard to understand for new adopters. It is the job of crypto-native firms like ours to focus on content creation like blog posts that contain visual art and animations. Popular animations can be 30-second videos focused on solving a need, the process and the risks, if any. Transparency should be a top priority to grow the community. - Laura Vidiella del Blanco, LedgerPrime
3. Web Traffic
If you're not using video animation to attract new customers, you're missing out. It's one of the most effective ways to reach a wide audience and get them interested in your product or service. It can be used to create brand awareness, drive traffic to your website and even generate leads and sales. Best of all, it's relatively affordable and easy to produce. - David Raviv, findings
4. Webinar Invitations
Being creative is key. Taking a standard webinar invitation, social media post or another form of communication and adding visual animation can help draw attention to your product or service. We like to take the extra step by adding motion graphics to our social posts. - Stefan Petrella, Starkweather and Shepley Insurance
5. PDF Slides And Sales Presentations
Customers today expect the same experiences they get from companies like Netflix, Spotify and Amazon. They expect personalized, compelling experiences, and interactive sales content is one way to deliver. Customer-facing teams should leverage tools that easily transform static slides and boring PDFs into interactive and engaging content that captures the buyer's attention and stands out from the crowd. - Toby Carrington, Seismic
Forbes Business Development Council is an invitation-only community for sales and biz dev executives. Do I qualify?
6. Company Videos
People love animated videos. I've used them for years to augment blogs with summaries, create valuable traffic sources from a wide variety of video-sharing services and add the power of social signals to our SEO strategy. What's more, animated videos have high conversion rates and high audience capture rates that are cost-effective in today's world. - Brandon Batchelor, ReadyCloud Suite
7. Reader Engagement
It is essential to work around ways that will maximize open, response and click-through rates within emails and other available outbound channels. Utilizing animation and visual art to incentivize readers to engage with the copy is always something that will make your campaigns perform exceptionally well as it drives and captures the interest of the audience in a better way than average messaging. - Carlos Jimenez, Firstbase.io
8. Added-Value Incentives
It's tricky because visual arts are typically overdone and often come out blatantly incoherent. Animations are catchy, but hitting the balance is the key. So, the best way to use this tool is to ask ourselves what added value this animation is achieving for us. If the purpose is to present a complex representation in a simplified fashion, then that's great. Otherwise, it's always best to err on the side of finding the right balance. - Sudeep Sarkar, Revature LLC
9. Infographics
Visual art is a great way to humanize your marketing message and make it easier for your target audience to decide if you're a brand they want to work with. We use infographics, videos, cartoons and photos to attract new partners and customers. - Serrah Linares, Change Healthcare
10. Advertising And Marketing Message Delivery
A written word ad doesn't include the tone, pace, emphasis or specific emotions like a visual medium with a voiceover can. Your company identity can be relayed in not just what the message is, but in how it is delivered. So, pay careful attention and plan the delivery to decide if a serious, playful, loving, mischievous, scared, authoritative or some other style is needed. - Sundance Monty Brennan, Nada
11. Visual Roadmaps
Visual roadmaps, whether they are in video form or through a responsive website, have proven to be great tools for telling a variety of stories. This is attractive to new customers and investors alike. A properly laid-out roadmap, infographic or animation is as versatile at building a brand by telling the story of its inception as it can be towards attracting investors or stakeholders for a startup. - Jack Borie, Ubix
12. Complicated Business Information And Data
Using animation to explain how information flows through the business process provides a faster and more comprehensive understanding of your software solution. It also offers benefits for your customer's line of business representatives that are not experts in technology. - Gregory Lipich, InfoSec Global
13. Mobile Apps
There are so many great ways to visualize your product, including animation videos, mobile apps, video explainers and more. Anything that gives a visual presentation, to quickly entice a new prospect into learning more, is a win-win for all. These types of visual art forms don't have to be pricey and can be procured from many sources online by very talented individuals. - Richard Lindhorn, VivoAquatics Inc.
14. Calls To Action
A great way to use animations is by using something to captivate the audience and keep them watching until the slides are through. For example, creating a call to action is a great way to utilize this method by making the animation relevant by capitalizing on a trending meme, gif or recent public event. - Bill Baker, Surface Solutions Countertops Inc.
