The human face is the most important image we are programmed to be attracted to from birth. It’s genetically engrained in us to look for other people’s faces, especially their eyes when we are viewing the environment around us daily. Humans are born with a visual preference for faces, over other images, that begins less than an hour after birth.
Human faces elicit emotional responses and in website design, adding an image with a human face means creating an emotional experience for your user which can boost your engagement. When building your site or designing an online graphic, human faces can influence user reactions or behavior, establish relationships, and earn trust among potential customers.
Viewing a Human Face Establishes Trust
When you are considering a purchase decision online, the main challenge is getting the consumer’s trust without interacting with them yourself. How do you know if a particular website is trustworthy? Look at the current television advertising and digital marketing principles of today, businesses running eCommerce websites associate photos of people with products that engenders trust.
Human Faces on a Website Increases Sales Conversion Rates
Human photos may increase the conversion rate of online sales. Having a human face in photos can impact your sales conversions in the following ways:
Human photos on your website have a positive impact on your visitors’ first impression of trustworthiness
Human photos with a focus on the face, especially eyes, have a much more significant emotional impact with a stronger emotional connection
Whether the photos are pictures of your clients or stock images doesn’t reduce the emotional component of connecting
Humans are Attracted to the Eyes on a Photo
When recognizing if a face is alive and active, the eyes are the most crucial body part – more than any other facial feature. Therefore, placing a focus on the eyes is critical when designing with faces. One of the most compelling types of images you can use in your digital marketing is a face looking directly back at the user because their eyes are focused directly on your consumer.
Your website users will almost unanimously gravitate to images of faces first and text second. Eye-tracking studies confirm this fact. In addition, you will most likely return to those faces multiple times while reading the content on the web page. While consuming the information on the webpage you are reading, a face will give users their first impression of a website and continue to influence users’ experience perusing through their online experience. When designing digital marketing graphics, faces can be a robust tool that, when used correctly, can powerfully enhance an experience.
Using Face to Influence Consumer Behavior
Not only can faces attract people to your content, but images with faces can also do far more than direct website consumers’ eyes. Research in the realm of the neuroscience of digital marketing has shown that a special part of the brain called the fusiform face area, FFA, has the primary responsibility of identifying faces. This same FFA is located close to the emotional center of your brain. This is why, when you see a face, you experience an emotional connection. Designing your digital marketing photography and design can utilize these elements to influence viewers’ behavior.
You can use group images to influence people towards a particular action. For example, a group photo of several people doing the same activity can multiply the effect of the viewer. For example, imagine a picture of a large group smiling, or watching a movie, or at a restaurant. In digital marketing, this is known as a “sphere,” which is a great way to draw users in and make them want to be part of the group experience.
Using Specific Facial Expressions to Increase Engagement
When you are looking to engage viewers to purchase items or that are used daily, facial expressions can take the place of words. An expression, look, or feeling one receives from a person’s photo using your product can significantly affect if the product is bought by the consumer. Hence, why influencer marketing can be an effective tool in your marketing toolkit.
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