Visual content is more than just an attention-grabber; it’s a powerful tool for conveying your brand’s story and forging a deep connection with your audience. 

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, captivating visuals are essential for making an immediate impact. They’re more engaging than text alone, capture attention quicker, and can hold it longer. This is especially important since attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. 

Big digital advertising agencies understand the importance and power of ad creatives and invest tons of time and money into creating them. 

Before we delve into some effective visual storytelling strategies that can up your creative marketing game, let’s talk about the core principles of visual content and how it can elevate your brand’s narrative.

The Power of Visual Content and the Science Behind It

Visual content — like images, videos, UGC, and graphics — plays an important role in storytelling and emotional engagement. Our brains process visuals at astonishing speeds, with research indicating that images can be understood in as little as 13 milliseconds.

Here’s why visual content is indispensable:

• Memory Retention: Visuals enhance memory retention. After three days, people remember about 65% of visual content compared to just 10% of text.
• Emotional Resonance: Visuals evoke emotions more effectively than words, creating a lasting impact.
• Increased Shareability: Visual content is more likely to be shared on social media, increasing a brand’s reach and visibility.
• Boosts Conversion Rates: Visual content can influence purchasing decisions. High-quality images and videos of products or services can enhance their appeal, leading to higher conversion rates. The same goes for authentic UGC.
• Instant Storytelling: A single image can tell a complex story instantly, without lengthy explanations. We all know the saying that an image says more than a thousand words.
• Attention-grabbing: Visuals naturally draw attention, making them the first thing people notice online.
• Humanizes the Brand: Visuals, especially user-generated content that shows behind-the-scenes content or customer stories, can humanize a brand. This helps in building trust and a more personal connection with the audience.

Understanding these psychological principles is crucial for creating compelling visual content.

Visual Creative Marketing Strategies to Captivate Your Audience

Exploring various forms of visual content can uncover innovative ways to engage your audience. Here are some tips that can help you boost your performance. 

1. Focus on the story, not just the visuals.

Visual storytelling goes beyond mere images. Visuals should weave a clear and consistent narrative for your brand. Even if each visual asset doesn’t convey an obvious story on its own, your audience should be able to follow the overall narrative.

Our advice? Think like a storyteller. What is the message you want to convey? Then plan your visual media to represent and relate this message across all your platforms.

We love how the mindfulness app Calm executes this. 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9xYZeyORMh/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

2. Capture Authentic Moments with Photos.

Photos serve as windows into the past, connecting your audience with the emotions and experiences captured in each frame. Whether it’s a candid team shot or a stunning product photo, images build authenticity and trust.

Dove’s #TurnYourBack campaign used simple yet powerful photos to raise awareness about the negative effects of social media filters. These images helped drive deeper connections while championing a cause.

https://www.instagram.com/dove/p/CpgUo0fvJdh/?img_index=1

3. Align Your Visual Storytelling with Your Marketing Content Strategy.

Simply posting a photo or video online and waiting for results to flood in is not a strategy. Nor is relying on the hope that your visual content will go viral — it most likely will not. Like any content marketing format, visual storytelling requires an effective strategy to convert views into conversions. 

Before your creative team starts brainstorming, ensure they address these crucial questions:

• What are we trying to accomplish with our visual content?
• Who is our target audience? What types of content experiences engage them?
• What problems does our brand solve?
• What is our vision of what makes our brand unique? How can we communicate these messages compellingly and consistently?
• What metrics will we use to measure success? For which search terms should this image appear in search engine results?

^{Photo Via: Tinder}

4. Simplify Complexity With Graphics

Graphics, such as charts and data visualizations, transform complex data into engaging visual stories. They make information more accessible and understandable, cutting through the noise with clarity.

We’re big fans of Spotify’s Wrapped campaign, which offers customers a personalized recap of their music journey. Using vibrant colors and striking graphics, Spotify transforms each user’s listening history into a fun and highly shareable data story.

^{Photo Via: Cosmopolitan}

5. Dynamic Storytelling with Video Formats

Videos combine moving images and sound to create a multisensory storytelling experience. Whether you create short clips like Memes that are humorous and highly shareable and can spread your message quickly or you hire a UGC creator to create authentic videos that gain trust — videos are versatile and impactful. They should play a major role in your overall marketing strategy. 

Embracing Visual Storytelling

Mastering visual storytelling enables you to capture attention, evoke emotions, build trust, and inspire action. It’s a highly powerful medium to convey your message and leave a lasting impression on your audience in an ever-evolving digital world when done correctly. Building a high-level visual storytelling marketing strategy takes experience and expertise, which is where digital advertising agencies and creative marketing agencies can step in. 

How can GeistM help?

At GeistM, we excel in enhancing visual storytelling strategies to maximize conversions through innovative and engaging content. Our expertise in user-generated content (UGC) videos allows us to create authentic and trustworthy visuals that resonate deeply with your audience, and combined with our unique content strategy they can help you to maximize results. 

Additionally, our comprehensive approach includes utilizing memes, infographics, animations, and other dynamic video content to ensure your brand’s story is compellingly told across all platforms, ultimately leading to higher engagement and increased conversion rates.If you’re ready to take your storytelling to the next level, contact us today.

Written By: Julia Steiner

In the twenty-first century, the avenues for digital marketing are endless, with methods like email, social media, SEO, OTT, and countless others emerging regularly. These techniques allow businesses to reach and engage with their target audiences in more personalized and innovative ways than ever before.

But which form of marketing remains as crucial today as it has for centuries? Word-of-mouth, commonly referred to as Third-Party Endorsements or Third-Party Validation today.

“Third-party endorsement is defined as solicited or unsolicited recommendation from an entity or individual who is neither manufacturer nor seller of the product/service.”

– MBA Skool

4 Reasons why Third-Party Endorsements are Important for your Brand

1. Establishing Trust 

In the era of information overload, earning trust has become increasingly challenging for brands, with consumers growing increasingly skeptical. This is where third-party endorsements come into play, serving as credibility in a sea of promotional noise. When consumers see endorsements from reputable sources, whether it’s industry experts, influencers, or established publications, they are more inclined to believe in the endorsed brand.

2. Increasing Brand Authority 

Where brands are constantly competing for consumers attention, third-party endorsements help to amplify brand visibility and establish authority within your industry. When your brand is featured on reputable platforms, it gains instant credibility and recognition, elevating its status in the eyes of consumers.

“When an unaffiliated or third-party expert talks positively about your brand, it can be an instant credibility booster that takes out of the equation you simply boasting about your own product.” –  Entrepreneur

3. Building Brand Loyalty

Nowadays, consumers seek meaningful connections with the brands they choose to support. When consumers see their favorite influencers or trusted publications endorsing your brand, they feel a sense of affiliation, strengthening their loyalty over time.

4. Creating Social Proof

Third-party endorsements serve as social proof, reassuring consumers that they are making informed choices supported by the experiences and opinions of others. Whether through customer testimonials, influencer collaborations, or media features, these endorsements help overcome consumer skepticism.

“Third-party validation that provides ‘social proof’ that we are not only relevant but also experts in what we claim to do for our target markets. Bottom line: Establishing and continually increasing credibility is essential for nearly every professional and business owner today.”

– Forbes

Read Our Blog On The Power Of Brand Awareness 

How to Leverage Third-Party Validation for Your Brand with GeistM

GeistM employs a multifaceted strategy to develop third-party endorsements for your brand. By owning a variety of publisher sites, including subdomains and related profiles  across social media. We leverage our extensive in-house network to create compelling campaigns with content crafted by our team. This ensures that your brand is showcased across a variety of platforms with high-quality, engaging content. 

Additionally, GeistM collaborates with a wide network of external publishers and UGC creators, allowing our clients the opportunity to widen the reach of these endorsements further. Our expertise in the Native Network space is also incredibly useful to expand the impact of the non-branded, third-party content we create.

This comprehensive approach allows GeistM to provide an unparalleled level of exposure and credibility, helping your brand connect with a broader audience through trusted third-party perspectives.

GeistM: A Testament to the Power of Third-Party Validation

By leveraging our extensive network of publishers and industry experts, GeistM facilitates third-party endorsements that resonate with diverse audiences, increasing brand credibility and driving conversions. 

Whether coming from an industry expert or a peer, GeistM’s team of editors and creatives meticulously craft non-branded, third-party content to endorse your brand in the most impactful way. 

In conclusion, third-party endorsements are an indispensable asset to modern marketers, offering a means of building trust, amplifying authority, fostering emotional connections, and overcoming skepticism. 

Want to know how we can help your business with third-party validation? Contact us today to learn more.

Written by Emma McHugh

In today’s fast-paced marketing landscape, utilizing a complex network of strategies and tools is necessary to foster the loyalty of a diverse array of audiences. 

Marketers must continuously innovate and adapt to stay relevant in this ever-changing scene, employing creativity and analytical precision. As a result, marketing strategies are becoming more personalized, aiming to meet each audience segment’s unique demands and preferences.

Digital marketing and performance marketing stand at the forefront of this revolution, each playing a crucial role in the narrative of modern advertising.

What Is Digital Marketing?

“Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use digital channels, such as social media marketing, content marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO). It’s a symphony of strategies, creativity, and technological prowess orchestrated to create a harmonious connection between brands and their target audience.” 

–Medium

What Is Performance Marketing?

“Performance marketing widely centers around lead generation and conversion. Banner (Display) ads, native advertising, content marketing, social media, and search engine marketing (SEM) are channels of Performance Marketing… To be more particular, it is ‘results-based’ marketing to achieve specific key performance indicators (KPIs) while maximizing return on investment (ROI) and propelling business growth.” 

–Medium 

Performance marketing works very closely with digital marketing. They are intertwined, and you need both to have a successful campaign. Performance marketing is excellent at driving conversions and sales, while digital marketing gets you more brand loyalty and customers that’ll stick with you. Ultimately, amalgamating both can help you succeed. 

It’s difficult for any company to achieve this balance independently, so we recommend partnering with an agency like GeistM to maximize your ROI. 

Who Are We?

GeistM is a leading performance marketing agency that specializes in in-house content and UGC creation for some of the world’s most notable brands.

Our full-service approach allows us to profitably acquire new customers for our clients by creating assets, managing campaigns, and leveraging content data to showcase your brand’s product offerings from a third-party perspective. 

What Makes Us Stand Out?

In-House Content And Creative Team

We couldn’t call ourselves a leading performance marketing team without having a dedicated, in-house content and creative team. Our content and creative team develops UGC-style content, from videos, static images, and articles, that can reach an audience your branded content generally wouldn’t. These teams work together to ensure that your customers know all the benefits of your product even before they reach the landing page. 

Read our UGC vs Influencers Blog to learn more about User Generated Content.

Third-Party Endorsements

At GeistM, we have a network of over 100 publishers  — including several owned and operated websites — that can host our content. This allows us to educate our users on our clients through a third-party perspective, adding an extra level of trust that your branded social handles and landing pages cannot achieve. 

Network Testing

Our team has vast experience testing a wide range of networks. We believe that adding more networks to your marketing mix will help you reach a wider audience. We have formed relationships with representatives from many different networks, so we always know what’s new and what can be tested. From social networks to native networks, we know how to exceed our clients’ goals, and the results from our campaigns speak for themselves.

Within the paid social realm, we test a variety of platforms, such as Meta, Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Nextdoor, and more. We conduct this approach strategically to set our clients up for success. 

We leverage our media spend and partner mix to unlock lower rates and offer testing opportunities you wouldn’t consider. At GeistM, we manage everything for our clients on these networks straight from kick-off, with daily reporting, constant communication, and detailed insights—you won’t have to worry about anything; leave everything to us. 

Read our Why More Networks Equal More Stability Blog to learn more about different networks.

Search Engine Marketing 

No marketing strategy is complete without search engine marketing. That’s why it’s one of GeistM’s core offerings. We take the time to understand your business, research your competitors, and analyze all the data necessary to ensure we help you achieve your goals. 

We use the SKAG strategy (Single Keyword Ad Group) to ensure that each of our keywords captures the highest relevance. Through constant testing, competitor research, and bid management, we are able to leverage high-quality scores to maintain an efficient CPA and acquire new customer growth. 

Read our Why You Should Be Leveraging Google Discovery Blog

A Few Of Our Success Stories

We can give you all the ideas, but we need to prove that our strategies work as well. So here are just a few of our successes. If you want to know more, visit our case studies page. 

Lowering CPA 

CPA, or Cost Per Acquisition, is one of the most common conversation rate matrices in marketing. And each company wants a lower CPA — as low as possible. 

One of our clients wanted to increase conversion volume quarter over quarter while maintaining CPA efficiency to ensure profitable growth. We successfully scaled conversion volume by 16x while maintaining multiple active networks, achieving a CPA 21% below the goal. 

Want to learn more? Read the full case study here 

Incrementality And Acquiring New Customers

Acquiring new customers is essential for any business, but it’s hard to know where to put your marketing spend. The best way to analyze your budgets and make sure you’re spending your money effectively is through incrementality.

We were asked to help a client determine where best to allocate spending. We tested the content funnel across different Facebook placements for three months and discovered Geist’s efforts alone drove an average incrementality rate of 93.6%. 

Learn more: Reading the full case study here

Cultivating Life Time Value (LTV) Customers 

Content is always the basis of brand authenticity, and that’s what we do best here at GeistM. 

So, after noticing customers canceling after the first shipment, a health & wellness client asked for content specifically designed to help with LTV. Our in-house content team created two content pieces that helped educate and alleviate a lot of skepticism about the project. After 8 months, the same month one customers reordered with a 25% retention rate.

Interested to know more? Read our full case study here

Elevating ROAS

ROAS, or Return On Ad Spend, is one of the fundamental KPIs of marketing, and it’s one of the best ways to judge the success of your campaign. 

A US-based vacation rental client approached us looking to achieve profitable ROAS growth. They struggled to maintain CPAs (Cost Per Acquisition) below $120 on Meta. Using GeistM’s performance marketing strategies, we spent $922,894 and drove 9632 new customers for an average CPA of $95 and ROAS of 2.85, which decreased 20.83% over an 18-month period. 

Learn More: Read our full case study here 

GeistM: The Ultimate Solution To All Your Marketing Needs 

Marketing is about trying and testing different approaches to find the right one that works for your brand. It can be hard to figure out what to test and how to test it. This is where GeistM can help. We can maximize your ROI by testing and helping you reach audiences you can’t reach yourself. 

Don’t try to figure it all out yourself. Performance marketing can be a challenge, so contact us today!

Written by: Nitanti Alur

In today’s digital landscape, marketers are presented with a plethora of data that offers profound insights into campaign effectiveness. 

Data empowers us to fine-tune our strategies and drive our campaigns to new heights, so mastering the art of data interpretation is not just an advantage; it’s a necessity. 

There are several data points to consider within marketing campaigns, but ROAS is arguably one of the most important.  

According to Adjust, ROAS “shows the profit achieved for each advertising expense and can be measured both on a high level and on a more granular basis. 

Whether you want to measure ROAS for an entire marketing strategy or look at performance at the campaign, targeting, or ad level, it’s a key metric for measuring and determining strategic success.”

In this article, we explore how GeistM increased the ROAS for a long-term vacation rental client, and how we can help you achieve similar results. 

ROAS in Marketing Campaigns

Focussing on ROAS puts you in control and enables you to make informed decisions to optimize your campaigns for better results. 

The idea of a “good” ROAS can differ depending on the business, platform, and campaigns. However, according to the Influencer Marketing Hub, “most companies ideally want to achieve a 4:1 ratio, or generate $4 in revenue for every dollar spent on the campaign.”

GeistM Travel Client Case Study 

A US-based vacation rental client approached us looking for profitable ROAS growth. They had been struggling to maintain CPAs (Cost per acquisition) below $120 on Meta. 

As we already know, many factors can affect your business’s ROAS. At GeistM, we used many different marketing strategies to put this vacation rental client on the map. Our in-house content and creative team worked hand in hand to create engaging content that would encourage travelers to use this particular company. 

But our marketing strategy was more than just the basics; we did an in-depth analysis and tried various interest and geo-targeted audiences to find what worked best. 

Over an 18-month period, we spent $922,894 and drove 9632 new customers for an average CPA of $95 and ROAS of 2.85. This is a huge success compared to what the client had been achieving internally.

Why Choose GeistM?

GeistM excels at creating and maintaining a successful content marketing strategy. With the help of our growth, content, and creative experts, you’ll receive a full-funnel strategy designed to help your business achieve success. 

So, instead of wasting your budget trying to figure out why you aren’t reaching your ROAS goal, Contact GeistM today and find out how we can help.

Written by: Nitanti Alur

In today’s ever-changing tech world, artificial intelligence (AI) is a huge deal across many industries. People love the idea of quicker, more efficient processes and automated tasks, so businesses and marketers are jumping on the AI bandwagon.

However, as with any new and evolving technology, there are risks to consider. 

Although everyone‘s excited about AI, it’s important to consider the pros and cons of incorporating AI tools in your marketing. You don’t want to take an action that you might later regret.

In this post, we’ll discuss the seven biggest AI risks in digital marketing and how to avoid them. 

1. AI Can Have Legal and Ethical Concerns 

The integration of AI technology in digital marketing presents both legal and ethical concerns that mimic the growing pains of emerging technologies like digital advertising and social media. The problem is that it can take years for laws to catch up with the rapidly advancing tech world. 

So, the widespread use of AI in digital marketing might seem amazing now, but it may become tricky in the future. Such change in the status quo could potentially disrupt entire digital marketing firms. Just think about AI and its collection of sensitive information and the risk of unauthorized personal data dissemination.

AI is not programmed to ask for permission before collecting data. It ignores most users’ privacy policies of most users — and that’s just one example. 

2. AI Can Negatively Impact SEO 

A major downside to AI is a lack of SEO. Many businesses think they can replace writers and let AI ChatGPT draft successful copy for their online sites. 

However, when it comes to rankings, Google — and other search engines — prioritize excellent content, written for humans, by humans. While AI-generated articles may appear high-quality at first glance, the SEO algorithms view it otherwise, which can lead to lower rankings over time. 

SEO requires a lot of time, effort, and expertise to implement, and you definitely can’t rely on AI tools like ChatGPT to optimize your article for you. 

3. AI Produces A Robotic Tone That Fails To Connect With Readers 

Using AI for content creation is more complex than simply requesting it to write an article on a specific topic. Businesses must put in additional effort to organize and structure the content effectively. AI-generated content may fail to connect with your audience. 

The main reason is that it sounds robotic and lacks a distinctive tone or personality. This impersonal nature makes it difficult for the content to resonate on an emotional level with readers. 

Effective content marketing requires understanding the audience’s emotions and tailoring the message accordingly, which AI currently can’t achieve.

To do that, you’ll need a human writer who has the expertise to write engaging content that resonates with the right audience.

4. AI-generated Content Is Often Inaccurate

Another significant danger of AI is that it’s only as reliable as the data it’s been trained on. Since algorithms ravenously scrub and analyze existing content available online, there’s a risk of producing inaccurate or outdated material. 

ChatGPT recently displayed signs of laziness due to the lack of learnings from those using the tool and degradation in the prompts used. This alone proves that you cannot rely on the results that artificial intelligence provides you.

In terms of “facts,” AI-generated content often lacks proper citations, which can undermine a company’s credibility. Despite efforts to ensure accuracy, AI requires greater human insight for this critical task. As marketers, it’s imperative that the information we put out there is accurate, whether it’s for clients, demographics, or the broader public.

5. AI Can Display Negative Stereotypes

Researchers at USC examined two large AI databases and discovered that more than 38% of the data contained biases. 

Bloomberg’s analysis of more than 5,000 images created with Stable Diffusion is just as shocking: 

“The analysis found that image sets generated for every high-paying job were dominated by subjects with lighter skin tones, while subjects with were more commonly generated by prompts like “fast-food worker” and “social worker.”*

The prevalence of bias in AI has significant implications for marketers. Targeting ads that use platforms that exclude substantial portions of the population certainly undermines efforts to reach the broadest possible audience.

Beyond performance issues, there are more significant consequences if ads unfairly target or exclude specific groups. For instance, a real estate ad that discriminates against protected minorities could result in legal repercussions under the Fair Housing Act and scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission. This is a big red flag to watch out for! 

6. AI Content Is Highly Repetitive

When exploring AI technologies like ChatGPT, you may find that the responses it generates can be quite remarkable. They can be diverse, captivate, and even exhibit a semblance of human thought and behavior.

However, you’ll notice that after a while the content grows repetitive and even tired. Essentially, the same content gets reiterated with a similar tone. 

This is a primary concern for digital marketers, so it’s a significant drawback to adopting AI tools. 

7. Editing AI Content Is A Challenge 

Editing requires time and significant attention to detail. It can take strong content and make it exceptional. But your content won’t get there if you rely solely on AI writing tools. ChatGPT requires revision and edits, preferably by content experts. For example, at GeistM, each draft goes through thorough editing by experienced writers to ensure it lands and resonates with its target audience.

High-quality content requires thorough planning, research, understanding of the topic, clarifying the key message, adapting the tone to suit the brand and audience, and multiple rounds of editing and proofreading.

Although AI can assist in planning and structuring content, human input remains essential in crafting meaningful and engaging content. If you’re not a seasoned editor or copywriter, hastily reviewing and publishing AI-generated content can actually do your business more harm than good. 

Final Thoughts 

AI tools are smart pieces of technology. They can grab an astonishing amount of information from various sources and provide lightning-quick answers within moments. But human creativity and strategic thinking remain key to crafting effective marketing campaigns, and that’s something AI just can’t provide — yet. 

So, rather than risking your website authority with Google or burning money on weak marketing copy, let our human writers bring out the best in your marketing campaigns! 

If you’re truly serious about growing your business, get in touch with GeistM today.

Written by: Julia Steiner

^{*Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-generative-ai-bias/}