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5 Benefits to Using Visual Content in PDF Marketing Materials

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Creating PDF marketing materials that reliably turns readers into sales is more important now than ever.

One way to supercharge your marketing material is by adding strategically chosen images.

Adding the right images to your PDF marketing assets is proven to grow more sales.

Scientists have discovered that humans remember images better than words. They believe it’s an evolutionary survival feature to be able to vividly recall what was seen.

Research has also shown that images are a powerful tool for communicating your marketing message and increasing sales.

It may sound startling, but images are processed in the brain remarkably fast and the memory of those images are retained at a far higher rate and for a longer period of time than words.

Why Adding Images to PDFs Is Useful

There are five reasons that are proven to help increase the conversion rate of your marketing materials.

1. Images Are Emotionally Engaging

Images are a great way to engage readers with a positive emotional impact.

Research has shown that images can influence a reader’s mood.

What’s important about this is that this emotional influence can actually help your marketing message get through.

Another benefit of engaging a client on an emotional level is that it helps to hold the readers attention, keeps them engaged with the marketing material.

According to a research paper titled, Impact of Images in Print Media.

“…pictures have an unquestioned capacity to arouse emotions, and adds that such emotion may influence attitudes directly or indirectly by impacting message processing.

Strivers (1994) believed visual images appeal to human beings on an emotions level and posited the more vibrant, excited, or convincing an image is, the more likely it will affect an individual. In the marketing context, similar outcomes are noteworthy.

Since images can create a sense of drama, they hold a viewer’s attention and create emotional involvement resulting in personal identification between the subjects of the story and the viewer.”

For some context, it’s a good idea to show images that show a person experiencing or expressing success while using the product or service that is the subject of the marketing material.

It allows the person viewing the marketing material to see themselves into the image, as the research says, it creates “personal identification between the subjects of the viewer.”

Always sell the benefit that the product provides.

An image that communicates the benefit stays embedded with the consumer for a long time.

2. Images Reduce Reading Fatigue

A page of text can look intimidating.

And even though a potential client is motivated to read the marketing material to understand if your services or products are a good fit, a page of words still feels like a chore.

Images can break up the textual passages while also communicating your marketing message.

Thus they serve as islands of visual rest between the words but also continue the process of positive messaging, influencing the sale.

3. Images Are Easier to Remember

Scientific research has discovered that the mind has a remarkable ability to recall images. Images that humans see stick with them.

That makes images a remarkably effective way to convey an emotion or a message.

It has been known for decades from multiple experiments that humans can remember over 2,000 images seen over testing across several days with 90% accuracy.

This held true even with images that were seen for only brief amounts of time.

In a research study called, Neural Correlates of the Episodic Encoding of Pictures and Words, researchers used neuroimaging on the brain with test subjects reading text and viewing images.

The goal was to see how the brain processed words and images and to find an explanation of why images can be recalled so well.

It was determined that the regions of the brain involved in processing images are directly related to memory.

This is how it works:

“…(The) medial temporal cortex has long been known from lesion experiments to be important for episodic memory and may be particularly important for encoding new information.

The greater activity in medial temporal cortex during encoding of pictures compared with words suggests that pictures more directly or effectively engage these memory-related regions in the brain, thereby resulting in superior recollection of these items.”

They also discovered that the regions of the brain associated with reading words are not associated with memory tasks.

“Words, on the other hand, activate left hemisphere regions previously shown to be involved in language tasks, including left frontal, temporal, and parietal regions. This result implies that encoding of words primarily invokes a distributed system of regions involved in linguistic processing that is less able to support later retrieval from episodic memory.”

The study recalled a theory that proposes that a reason why images work so well is because they are associated in the mind with previous experiences.

It states:

“One theory of the mechanism underlying superior picture memory is that pictures automatically engage multiple representations and associations with other knowledge about the world, thus encouraging a more elaborate encoding than occurs with words. This theory implies that there are qualitative differences between the ways words and pictures are processed during memory.”

4. Graphs Communicate Visually

As noted above, visual representations of ideas can be processed and remembered better than just words.

But another fascinating quality of images is that they are processed at remarkable speeds.

What takes 20 seconds to communicate by reading can be communicated in milliseconds with an image.

The process of viewing is tied to identifying concepts.

By using a graph or other similar visualization of success, a marketer is effectively communicating the concept itself via the mechanism of visual stimulation.

An MIT news article, MIT Neuroscientists Find the Brain Can Identify Images Seen for as Little as 13 Milliseconds, explains the details.

The news report states:

“…a team of neuroscientists from MIT has found that the human brain can process entire images that the eye sees for as little as 13 milliseconds – the first evidence of such rapid processing speed.

…The fact that you can do that at these high speeds indicates to us that what vision does is find concepts. That’s what the brain is doing all day long – trying to understand what we’re looking at,” says Mary Potter, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences and senior author of the study.

…This rapid-fire processing may help direct the eyes, which shift their gaze three times per second, to their next target, Potter says. “The job of the eyes is not only to get the information into the brain, but to allow the brain to think about it rapidly enough to know what you should look at next. So in general we’re calibrating our eyes so they move around just as often as possible consistent with understanding what we’re seeing,” she says.”

5. Images Build Trust & Increase Profitability

eBay researched the sales statistics and features of hundreds of millions of sales.

The purpose of the research was to determine if images positively affected the conversion rate (the rate of how many people browsing turned to buyers), among other factors.

eBay discovered that images do in fact have a positive effect on holding a buyer’s attention, building trust in the seller, and increasing the conversion rate.

Here’s that research: Is a Picture Really Worth a Thousand Words? – On the Role of Images in E-commerce (PDF).

According to the research by eBay on hundreds of millions of auctions:

“Our results show positive evidence that images help increase buyer‘s attention, trust and conversion rate.

Among the three properties of images, our study shows that increasing number of images of the product – which is equivalent to providing a more complete visual representation of the product, is an effective way to improve sell-through.”

Part of the study looked at products that failed to sell and were subsequently re-listed for sale. They looked at more than 55,000 sales.

What they discovered was a strong correlation between adding more images and profitability.

According to the study:

“Strong correlation between increment in photo count and profit rate. … We found a clear trend that as photo count increases, the probability of making profit also increases.”

Particularly for marketing materials involving products, adding more images is associated with higher sales and profitability within the context of the auctions.

It may be useful to add more images of products or service results as this may help increase trust and sales.

Consider Adding Images to PDF Marketing Materials

It’s clear that adding images to PDF marketing materials is a winning strategy for increasing sales, stimulating a positive emotional response, and communicating your message efficiently.

Maybe it’s time to give your marketing material a second look.

Searchenginejournal.com

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NEWS

OpenAI Introduces Fine-Tuning for GPT-4 and Enabling Customized AI Models

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OpenAI Introduces Fine-Tuning for GPT-4 and Enabling Customized AI Models

OpenAI has today announced the release of fine-tuning capabilities for its flagship GPT-4 large language model, marking a significant milestone in the AI landscape. This new functionality empowers developers to create tailored versions of GPT-4 to suit specialized use cases, enhancing the model’s utility across various industries.

Fine-tuning has long been a desired feature for developers who require more control over AI behavior, and with this update, OpenAI delivers on that demand. The ability to fine-tune GPT-4 allows businesses and developers to refine the model’s responses to better align with specific requirements, whether for customer service, content generation, technical support, or other unique applications.

Why Fine-Tuning Matters

GPT-4 is a very flexible model that can handle many different tasks. However, some businesses and developers need more specialized AI that matches their specific language, style, and needs. Fine-tuning helps with this by letting them adjust GPT-4 using custom data. For example, companies can train a fine-tuned model to keep a consistent brand tone or focus on industry-specific language.

Fine-tuning also offers improvements in areas like response accuracy and context comprehension. For use cases where nuanced understanding or specialized knowledge is crucial, this can be a game-changer. Models can be taught to better grasp intricate details, improving their effectiveness in sectors such as legal analysis, medical advice, or technical writing.

Key Features of GPT-4 Fine-Tuning

The fine-tuning process leverages OpenAI’s established tools, but now it is optimized for GPT-4’s advanced architecture. Notable features include:

  • Enhanced Customization: Developers can precisely influence the model’s behavior and knowledge base.
  • Consistency in Output: Fine-tuned models can be made to maintain consistent formatting, tone, or responses, essential for professional applications.
  • Higher Efficiency: Compared to training models from scratch, fine-tuning GPT-4 allows organizations to deploy sophisticated AI with reduced time and computational cost.

Additionally, OpenAI has emphasized ease of use with this feature. The fine-tuning workflow is designed to be accessible even to teams with limited AI experience, reducing barriers to customization. For more advanced users, OpenAI provides granular control options to achieve highly specialized outputs.

Implications for the Future

The launch of fine-tuning capabilities for GPT-4 signals a broader shift toward more user-centric AI development. As businesses increasingly adopt AI, the demand for models that can cater to specific business needs, without compromising on performance, will continue to grow. OpenAI’s move positions GPT-4 as a flexible and adaptable tool that can be refined to deliver optimal value in any given scenario.

By offering fine-tuning, OpenAI not only enhances GPT-4’s appeal but also reinforces the model’s role as a leading AI solution across diverse sectors. From startups seeking to automate niche tasks to large enterprises looking to scale intelligent systems, GPT-4’s fine-tuning capability provides a powerful resource for driving innovation.

OpenAI announced that fine-tuning GPT-4o will cost $25 for every million tokens used during training. After the model is set up, it will cost $3.75 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens. To help developers get started, OpenAI is offering 1 million free training tokens per day for GPT-4o and 2 million free tokens per day for GPT-4o mini until September 23. This makes it easier for developers to try out the fine-tuning service.

As AI continues to evolve, OpenAI’s focus on customization and adaptability with GPT-4 represents a critical step in making advanced AI accessible, scalable, and more aligned with real-world applications. This new capability is expected to accelerate the adoption of AI across industries, creating a new wave of AI-driven solutions tailored to specific challenges and opportunities.

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GOOGLE

This Week in Search News: Simple and Easy-to-Read Update

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This Week in Search News: Simple and Easy-to-Read Update

Here’s what happened in the world of Google and search engines this week:

1. Google’s June 2024 Spam Update

Google finished rolling out its June 2024 spam update over a period of seven days. This update aims to reduce spammy content in search results.

2. Changes to Google Search Interface

Google has removed the continuous scroll feature for search results. Instead, it’s back to the old system of pages.

3. New Features and Tests

  • Link Cards: Google is testing link cards at the top of AI-generated overviews.
  • Health Overviews: There are more AI-generated health overviews showing up in search results.
  • Local Panels: Google is testing AI overviews in local information panels.

4. Search Rankings and Quality

  • Improving Rankings: Google said it can improve its search ranking system but will only do so on a large scale.
  • Measuring Quality: Google’s Elizabeth Tucker shared how they measure search quality.

5. Advice for Content Creators

  • Brand Names in Reviews: Google advises not to avoid mentioning brand names in review content.
  • Fixing 404 Pages: Google explained when it’s important to fix 404 error pages.

6. New Search Features in Google Chrome

Google Chrome for mobile devices has added several new search features to enhance user experience.

7. New Tests and Features in Google Search

  • Credit Card Widget: Google is testing a new widget for credit card information in search results.
  • Sliding Search Results: When making a new search query, the results might slide to the right.

8. Bing’s New Feature

Bing is now using AI to write “People Also Ask” questions in search results.

9. Local Search Ranking Factors

Menu items and popular times might be factors that influence local search rankings on Google.

10. Google Ads Updates

  • Query Matching and Brand Controls: Google Ads updated its query matching and brand controls, and advertisers are happy with these changes.
  • Lead Credits: Google will automate lead credits for Local Service Ads. Google says this is a good change, but some advertisers are worried.
  • tROAS Insights Box: Google Ads is testing a new insights box for tROAS (Target Return on Ad Spend) in Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns.
  • WordPress Tag Code: There is a new conversion code for Google Ads on WordPress sites.

These updates highlight how Google and other search engines are continuously evolving to improve user experience and provide better advertising tools.

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FACEBOOK

Facebook Faces Yet Another Outage: Platform Encounters Technical Issues Again

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Facebook Problem Again

Uppdated: It seems that today’s issues with Facebook haven’t affected as many users as the last time. A smaller group of people appears to be impacted this time around, which is a relief compared to the larger incident before. Nevertheless, it’s still frustrating for those affected, and hopefully, the issues will be resolved soon by the Facebook team.

Facebook had another problem today (March 20, 2024). According to Downdetector, a website that shows when other websites are not working, many people had trouble using Facebook.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has had issues. Just a little while ago, there was another problem that stopped people from using the site. Today, when people tried to use Facebook, it didn’t work like it should. People couldn’t see their friends’ posts, and sometimes the website wouldn’t even load.

Downdetector, which watches out for problems on websites, showed that lots of people were having trouble with Facebook. People from all over the world said they couldn’t use the site, and they were not happy about it.

When websites like Facebook have problems, it affects a lot of people. It’s not just about not being able to see posts or chat with friends. It can also impact businesses that use Facebook to reach customers.

Since Facebook owns Messenger and Instagram, the problems with Facebook also meant that people had trouble using these apps. It made the situation even more frustrating for many users, who rely on these apps to stay connected with others.

During this recent problem, one thing is obvious: the internet is always changing, and even big websites like Facebook can have problems. While people wait for Facebook to fix the issue, it shows us how easily things online can go wrong. It’s a good reminder that we should have backup plans for staying connected online, just in case something like this happens again.

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