We are in the midst of tornado season. Years ago, I helped my daughter win the fourth grade science fair with a study of tornados, and she had a great looking tornado made from cotton balls and glue in an aquarium. It was the visual that communicated with the judges and she took home the blue ribbon.

Real tornados are not made of cotton balls in an aquarium. They are made of wind and flying debris. They do extensive damage every year. When a tornado warning is sounded, it is an alert we should all heed. But you may have heard that a recent tornado warning that was issued in Dayton, Ohio was met with derision by viewers of the TV show, The Bachelorette. On Monday, May 27, multiple tornados were tearing apart the Dayton area when weatherman Jamie Simpson broke into the show to warn people to take cover. What over 1,600 people did was take to Facebook to post comments about the interruption to the reality dating show. Simpson responded on air as he was making the report. "Viewers are complaining already, ‘Just go back to the show.’ No. We’re not going back to the show folks. This is a dangerous situation, okay? Think about if it was your neighborhood. I’m sick and tired of people complaining about this. Our job here is to keep people safe and that’s what we’re going to do.” You can see the full broadcast here.

If you live in a place where summer storms are common, you know tornados are part of the package. And when you hear about the possibility of tornados often, you tend to ignore the warnings. Even though we know they are deadly, we tend to think of them as little, troublesome interruptions in our regular routine. Thus the response from fans of the Bachelorette. Does that happen with your marketing communications as well? Are the most important aspects of your marketing message lost because your audience has heard it so many times that they no longer see it as having any impact on them? How do you combat that type of thinking? Take a lesson from tornado reporting. Do you know what gets the attention of viewers in the path of a tornado? Visuals. When the TV weather forecasters show the damage a tornado has done, such as a live news feed, people take notice. Why is this? Because most people are visual learners. According to the Social Science Research Network, 65 percent of us learn best when we have a visual. Hearing a tornado warning doesn’t move us. Videos of overturned cars and collapsed buildings will move us to action quickly. The same is true for your marketing. Are you telling your story with good photos, infographic illustrations, and video? If not, you are not connecting in a way that may compel your target audience to take action with you. If they don’t engage with your marketing, you will never sell them.

We pour a lot of money and effort into saying the right things in marketing. Words matter. But the visuals may matter more when it comes to connecting with your customers. Make sure your marketing is telling the story with less words and more pictures.

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Why Infographics Rule by TJ McCue, Forbes.com, Jan 8, 2013

How to Spot Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic-Learning Executives by Molly St Louis, Inc.com, August 1, 2017