iStockWe’ve got a secret for you:
The world’s best marketers all share an approach which has contributed massively to their success.
They use high quality stock marketing content to help grow their traffic.
Why? Because in a saturated and fiercely competitive world, marketers need an edge in posting out a large volume of content whilst not sacrificing quality.
And you’re probably wondering, what kind of content do they use?
Well, we’re going to reveal all to you in this article and give you a wide range of examples from iStock.
Social media engagement content
You’ve probably seen the Facebook and Twitter posts which include videos of people celebrating winning a prize or a family or group of friends all gathering around a laptop or tablet. Content is often relatable to the user, making them more likely to click, or in contrast, may be so abstract that they are inclined to click.
This type of content is super effective at engaging people because it gives them a taste of what they could experience if they clicked through and bought your product or service, which draws them in.
Celebration videos can communicate a much wider range of messages than you might think. For example, this video below of the man dancing is the type of celebration type marketing content that you might normally expect to see:
However, it has a green screen chroma background, which enables you to layer whatever marketing content you like in the background so you can totally change the context of the celebration.
You can also approach group celebration content in lots of different ways.
For example, this next video could be used to promote a competition or prize giveaway, but could also be used to promote educational courses (communicating joy at completing the course), or even someone winning a game:
You can also use grids made of up lots of people celebrating, which communicates that your service or product is used by a wide demographic, like in this example:
The same flexibility of approach applies to content featuring families gathering around desktops and mobile devices.
For example, this video below would be really effective for promoting an app, because it shows that it is intuitive for customers of all ages and generally communicates a warm and positive message, which can be applied to a wide variety of services and sectors.
But you can also display the total opposite message, like in this example where there is no obvious connection between the people but the abstractness of the astronaut will really stand out in Instagram, Facebook or Twitter’s newsfeeds:
Ultimately, iStock has the diversity of content which allows you to communicate virtually any social marketing message you like, whether you’re in B2B, B2C or a marketplace.
Landing page graphics
Getting consistent traffic to a landing page is hard work.
So the last thing you want is to apply all that hard work only for users to have a high bounce rate as they’re unimpressed with the presentation of what you’re offering.
People form instant judgements about your brand and product based purely on visual presentation, so think about how you can attract and engage people using stock content.
For example, a simple, beautiful graphic like this will give a really good first visual impression and also removes any clutter, making the call to action (and therefore your conversions) that much stronger.
The key with testing marketing strategies is minimising the time it takes from getting a test started to proving whether it gets results.
Stock content is really powerful for helping you launch MVPs or minimum viable products to help you massively speed up your testing tempo and ability to run multiple tests simultaneously.
Let’s take this login screen, for example, which will make it super quick and easy to get a simple portal together, if you need quickly give a client the means to access or provide sensitive information, or create a dashboard for clients or your colleagues to view marketing data:
Or if you have conducted a UK wide survey and want to present that data effectively, then you could take the map below, colour in the different geographic areas and overlay numbers to quickly put together a really nice asset which is likely to be widely shared to get you lots of potential traffic and backlinks:
You can browse through a whole range of illustrations, backgrounds, templates etc. here.
Assets for blog posts
No one likes to read a huge wall of text.
Images allow you to both break up the layout of your articles and can be helpful to highlight important words or sentences.
The problem is that a lot of new marketers all use the same images online and even plagiarise images, which can get you into serious trouble.
iStock have a huge range of content which will let you standout and avoid the worries of your blog being taken down for image right violations.
If you’ve got a business focused blog, then you don’t need to keep using photos of people working in an office or sitting in a boardroom – be imaginative!
Articles or posts which discuss scheduling meetings or brainstorming sessions can look really dull if you’re not careful. Images like this highlight the collaborative aspect but in a much more creative and stand out way.
Remember as well to not be afraid of colour! If you’re educating people on how to network then an image like the one below might feel uncomfortably bold, but you need to remember that it’s not you that you’re marketing, so never avoid testing content just because it’s not to your personal taste.
And if you’re wanting to talk about how growth strategies then the paper airplane and cotton wool clouds in this example add a lot of charm and quirkiness to the image, making it stand out from the sea of bar charts out there:
Visual metaphors can often be much more powerful than images which directly represent concepts, which can feel cheesy if not thought through.
But ultimately, none of this is rocket science.
You just need to be consistent in the frequency and quality of your posts and stock content is an important tool in helping you get there.
Want some more info on how you can make your clients’ social media content stand out? This is a must-read for getting more eyes on your client content.
These ideas seem great! But why should I use iStock?
iStock is trusted by thousands of leading marketers around the world because they have everything you need to implement a killer marketing content strategy. They have a tonne of exclusive content and if you’re unsure if you want to subscribe, you can get just 1 image for only £7/$12 or 1 video for £35/$60.
Start browsing here and let your creativity run wild!
For more tips on starting a blog, check out First Site Guide’s article on how to start a blog.
If you’ve got any questions please let us know in the comments below.
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