Use a picture. It’s worth a thousand words.

I love the image below.  It’s from Pexels and while it has nothing to do with Content Marketing per se, it’s a powerful image.  There’s so much you can infer from it.  The fact that it’s black and white adds another level of emotion and the fact that you can’t see the woman’s face allows you to read what you want into it.  It’s so simple, and yet it speaks a thousand words.

 

There’s a lot of marketing content out there and as a concept, it’s been around far longer than you probably thought. Go ahead and click, it’s fascinating.

When writing an article for publication on The Digital Transformation People, it’s hard enough to write engaging, well researched and credited articles without additionally having to trawl through hundreds of stock footage sites looking for the perfect image. It’s not always easy to find one that sums up “Causal Analytics”, “Digital Transformation or “Social Engineering”. “Bi-Modal IT” is also a toughie to encapsulate with stock footage! Whatever you select needs to make your article or video stand out from the crowd. On social media especially, that’s a tall order. But, it’s important. Hubspot did some research on the visual side of things and the results make for interesting reading:

DID YOU KNOW?

• Researchers found that visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%
• When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later.
• 46% of marketers say photography is critical to their current marketing and storytelling strategies.

Image Credit: CMO Council

The Stats Keep Coming:

• 34% of marketers selected visual assets as their most important content, behind blogging (45%) and before videos (19%)
• 65% of senior marketing executives believe that visual assets (photos, video, illustrations and infographics) are core to how their brand story is communicated.

And this one is just astounding:

• Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images.

That’s 94%. Can you afford to ignore your images now?

• Only 27% of marketers have a process in place to aggregate, organise, and manage the visual assets being used across their marketing teams.
• 39% of marketers believe that more of their budget should be allocated to the acquisition or creation of compelling visual assets.
• 73% of content creators plan to prioritise creating more engaging content in 2016, and 55% plan to prioritise creating visual content.

Of course not all prolific writers have the budget to download hundreds of stock images per year, but there are loads of really good free image sites too.

Everyone Loves A Freebie!

Here are 5 of my favourite sites:

Gratisography

 

New Old Stock

 

Pexels

 

Pixabay

 

Unsplash

If you have a content marketing budget at your disposal then the following sites have a wider range. Things can get expensive, but subscription plans shared by the whole company can keep costs down:

iStock / Getty

Subscription

· £65/month for 10 images anywhere from the website
· £25/month for 10 images from their “Essentials” collection.

If buying 10 images per month is too many, you can buy individual images anywhere from the website using credits. Prices vary according to size and resolution of the individual image. You can buy bundles of credits:

· 1 credit = £7
· 3 credits = £20
· 6 credits = £36
· 12 credits = £69

Shutterstock

Basic = 5 images for £32 or 25 images for £139
Professional = 750 images for £165/month or 350 images for £129/month

These prices decrease if you take a year’s subscription.

Team = 750 images per month for a year.
For 2 users £179/month; 3 users £239/month; 4 users or more £299/month

Alamy

Prices vary according to size, whether they are RF (Royalty Free) or RM (Royalty Managed), and the circumstances in which they’re used.

Personal use – £9.99
Presentation – £9.99
Website – £29.99 (for 5 years)
Magazines/Newsletters/Books – £39.99
Marketing Package for Small Businesses (up to 10 people) – £39.99
Marketing Package for Large Businesses (more than 10 people) – £149.99

123RF

No Daily Limit Standard Images, Editorial Images, EVO, Vectors, TIFF, Footage, Audio

SUBSCRIPTION PLAN – Standard Images, Editorial Images, Vectors

5 JPEG/EPS files per day
£39 per month for 12 months
£49 per month for 3 months
£59 for 1 month

OR

780 JPEG/EPS files per month

£109 per month for 12 months
£139 per month for 3 months
£149 for 1 month

And lastly, Graphic Stock

They are actually offering a great deal at the moment – $99 per year for unlimited downloads. Can’t get better than that.

 

Thea Hutchings is Group Content Editor for The Digital Transformation People. She probably consumes more content marketing than is actually healthy, but with a background in television, marketing and photography is best placed to advise you on the perfect image to include in your blog.

 

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