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Look around your business, store, or office. What catches your eye? Your gaze probably passes some less-enticing visual cues and lands on a bright sign, vibrant green plant, or unique piece of merchandise.

Humans are inherently visual people, and we are constantly looking to gather more information from the world around us. It’s essential to the success of your business that you tap into these visual desires and create graphics and other cues that appeal to the eye.

Check out these five reasons why visuals in marketing are important in your business and how they can affect the customer experience.

1. The Vast Majority of Information Gets Processed Visually

When you consider what our brain’s process, the vast majority of information is visual. Roughly 83% of what we learn about the world comes from our sense of sight. While some of this information is conscious learning (like actively reading this text), that vast majority is subconscious.

Right now, during the reading process, your subconscious brain is already making decisions about the content and its credibility by considering the font, design of the website, and presentation of the text. Your brain is also telling you that it is safe to focus on something like this article, because it doesn’t sense any danger in your peripheral vision.

Investing in visuals in marketing is a no-brainer because it allows you to connect with your customers in the best way possible. Their brains are already craving visual cues. You’re simply directing their eyes to take in the information they so desperately crave.

2. People Are Better at Remembering When They Receive Visual Cues

Studies have found that people don’t remember as much when they hear information as opposed to when they see and touch the information for themselves.

Researchers at the University of Iowa divided 100 students into three groups, and then presented information visually, tactically, and orally. The students who were able to recall the least number of items were students who were asked to remember the sounds they heard.

The students who were asked to remember sounds recalled less than their counterparts who saw or touched items when there was a time delay between receiving the information and recalling it.

The researchers compare this to hearing a phone number and dialing it. If you don’t dial right away, you’re more likely to forget the numbers.

What does this mean for your business? If you’re only communicating through what you say to your customers, they may not remember what you’re telling them. They may find the information valuable, but forget an important detail like your website or call-to-action.

You’re better of presenting a graphic along with your in-store marketing messages, or adding some tactical reminder that your customers can recall later.

3. Visuals Are An Important Part of Brand Reinforcement

Whether you realize it or not, every visual cue in your store or business tells a story with your brand. Is your merchandise cluttered and hard to sort through? Does your bathroom use organic soap that smells like lavender? Your customers pick up on these things and either raise or lower your brand in their esteem.

This includes your digital signage. In fact, 68% of customers believe signage reflects the quality of the business and the product.

Consider the digital signage around your store and how it reflects your brand. Do you have printed signs that are worn and faded? If so, it may be time to upgrade your printed materials or even go digital. A digital screen shows your customers that you care how information is presented to them and want to invest in a high-quality experience when they engage with your brand.

4. Visuals Make Your Customers Spend More

The power of visuals in marketing is palpable if you’re just willing to give them a try. Studies have found that average sales increase by 4.75% with the addition of just one more sign in your location. Five percent might not seem like much, but if each customer spends more over time, you’re sure to see a significant increase in sales.

There are multiple reasons this statistic holds true. Signage can increase a customer’s knowledge of a product or service. While they might have been on the fence before, they are ready to give your products a try now.

Signage also conveys information about new products, services, or deals that they should try, giving you the chance to boost sales of a new product that you are testing out.

You can’t expect your customers to be experts on your brand. By creating signage, you can impact customer decision making to benefit your brand and making it easier for them to choose what they want.

5. Visuals Quickly Grab Attention

If there’s one more takeaway for why visual marketing matters. Consider this:

You have just one second to grab your customer’s attention.

This data comes from point-of-sale (POS) research that studies how people approach displays and visual information in a store. The vast majority of people make up their minds for what catches their eye and what they want more information on in just one second. This means important information (and important products that you’re trying to sell) can get lost if you don’t have a clear, clean display that everyone can see.

Use your digital signage to connect with customers and share the most important information possible with them. You can’t expect your customers to reach the right conclusions on their own. If you only had one second to communicate something about your brand, what would you show? Your sales could depend on it.

Learn How to Better Use Visuals in Marketing

Now that you understand the importance of developing visual cues in your marketing materials, you can take steps to improve your signage and connect with customers.

Check out Spectrio’s resource center for guides related to your industry, the customer experience, and signage development. Soon, you can start to see better brand recognition and increased sales as a result of your efforts.