Visual marketing has become essential for eCommerce websites to encourage customers to purchase.
After all, customers need to see products before they buy them, and commercial ventures have leveraged this aspect for years by using visuals to reach their target audience.
But for e-commerce websites using visual marketing, there are some important points to remember. By optimizing the visuals across your website, as well as by incorporating other design cues, you can boost purchase rates.
Visual Marketing in eCommerce: Innovative Tips and Techniques You Must Try
Here are a few tips that will help you design better pages and make more of an impact on your site’s visitors.
Data Visualization
The great thing about visuals is that a single graphic, or image, can say more than 1000 words, as the saying goes.
Additionally, people on the internet are becoming less attentive—your information and product pitch need to reach them fast if you want to make an impression.
However, making attractive visuals can’t be the only aim of this project. The visuals you include on your eCommerce website need to hold some value for your customers.
This is where data visualization comes in. Data visualization breaks down statistics, processes, and complex data into easily digestible visual elements.
Incorporate charts, diagrams, or combine them into an infographic that is easy to read and attractive, like the example below.
Source: Venngage
Heat map analysis on eCommerce websites has shown that people remain on a page longer when encountering an infographic.
Using data visualization methods, you can decrease bounce rates on your website and give customers more incentive to visit your product pages.
Colors
Are your customers leaving your website before completing checkout? You may need to examine the use of color on your eCommerce website.
Colors are associated with emotions, and the right combination can convince customers to remain on your site for longer and even lead them toward the checkout page.
Conversely, choosing the wrong colors can lead them away from your site entirely.
What colors should you be using, and how will they impact visitors to your website? Here is a simple guide about color palettes that should help you decide on the colors you can use.
You don’t have to use the above palette guide solely to pick solid colors—these palettes can inspire color gradients, which have come back in style due to Instagram’s recent trends.
But when choosing colors, it is important to keep your brand in mind (we will talk about branding briefly). If your brand leans towards blue hues, yellows, and reds may not work.
Customers who see such unrelated colors on your website could become confused and, as a result, leave your site.
Choose colors according to the feeling you want to evoke in your audience, eventually encouraging them to purchase.
Branding
We touched on the importance of branding in our section on colors, but digital branding techniques go well beyond color.
Branding has long been associated with memorable logo designs, and consumers are now beginning to associate colors with brands.
But branding is also about more than aesthetics—an identity and a lifestyle. This is particularly true for e-commerce sites.
With the visuals you use on your e-commerce website, you must showcase your brand’s value to customers.
What is your brand tagline? How can you find or create visuals that share that tagline without adding text?
By incorporating your brand values across your website, you can connect your brand with the customer, boosting your engagement rates and brand recall.
Products in Use
As an e-commerce site, you will include photographs of your products on your website—not only on product pages but also on landing pages, blog posts, and more informative pages like the About page.
But a photo of your product isn’t enough to encourage visitors to purchase. How is this product going to add value to their lives? What do other people feel about using the product?
It would be best if you answered these questions through the visuals you incorporate on your website.
Don’t include photographs of your products alone—add human elements. Show your products in use. Ask existing customers for testimonials alongside an image of themselves.
You could also conduct a user-generated content (UGC) campaign on social media where people share photos of themselves using your products and services and incorporate those on your website.
Not only will this humanize your products, but people will also feel more comfortable purchasing because they’ve seen others enjoying them.
Directional Cues
Your website pages will include calls-to-action (CTA) to make a purchase, read more, or subscribe to your newsletter.
Make it easier for your visitors to find the CTA and eventually make a purchase by adding directional cues to your pages.
While you can include arrows on your web pages, that is too obvious and may be off-putting for visitors.
Instead, include visual cues that draw their attention, but be more subtle with your execution, like in the below example.
Source: Venngage
Include a graphic that simulates the look and feel of arrows—like a cartoon character or a car on the road moving in a particular direction.
Using graphic visual cues will point your audience to the places where you want them to go without being too obvious about it.
Include Videos
Video marketing is taking the digital world by storm, and e-commerce websites must join the trend to increase purchase rates.
Include videos of your products in use, how-to guides, testimonials from your happy customers, and behind-the-scenes of how your products are created or your services delivered on your website and your social media.
But when adding your videos to your site, ensure they don’t autoplay with sound on. For social media videos, include subtitles so they are easy to engage with, even without sound.
Conclusion
Leveraging visual design to improve your purchase rates shouldn’t be impossible. Incorporate data visualization, like infographics, to increase how long visitors stay on your site.
Be creative with your colors, but don’t ignore your brand identity. Don’t limit your branding to aesthetics; showcase your brand value and identity.
Show how your products can be used and add value to your customers’ lives. Include visual cues to direct your users to your call to action without being obvious.
And finally, incorporate videos across your website and marketing methods to reach and engage with new audiences.
Incorporating these tips will help you market your brand and products better to your customers.
Ronita Mohan
Ronita Mohan is a content marketer at Venngage, the online infographic and design platform. She has various interests, including marketing, productivity, pop culture, diversity, and management, which she enjoys writing about.
