We all know a picture tells a thousand words, but infographics are even more efficient. The right infographic can turn facts and data into arguments, turn potential leads into sure sales, and can reduce complex data points into actionable information in multiple different contexts, from product info to political activism.
But infographics are still a relatively delicate art. A poorly drafted infographic can boil down to a pretty picture without a point, and it’s easy to overburden the reader with too much information and lose them. Like an article or a professional photograph, infographics need flow, they need a central point that viewers are drawn to, and they need to be intuitive.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that infographics are best left to political campaign marketers or environmental agencies. You can use them in your own niche or industry to illustrate how your product or service differentiates itself from the rest, or to create a compelling argument for why you’re the reader’s right choice. Let’s take a look at a few reasons why infographics need to play a role in your marketing strategy.
The Value in Infographics
Infographic use has risen strongly in the last few years, with a staggering 67 percent of marketers making use of them in a B2B context alone. One in five surveyed marketers say that their strategy is “nothing without visual content”, and half admit that it’s very important.
The main ways in which an infographic immediately brings value to a brand or product is by:
- Improving shareability
- Creating better backlinks for you
- Building up traffic and search ranking
- Increasing brand credibility
- Providing an easy measurement for brand and product engagement
- Allowing the reuse of old material
- Turning complicated material into highly readable content
When used well, infographics help you produce shareable content that customers can easily understand and help drive better traffic to your pages, build backlinks for your long-term SEO, and bring in an amazing ROI in terms of both leads and sales.
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Infographics can help increase the reach of your content and the visibility of your brand.
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Provided you’re doing infographics justice by utilizing them the right way. Let’s see what that might look like.
The Dos and Don’ts of Infographic Use
A good picture gets people to stop and think, a mediocre picture is immemorable, but a bad picture can even inspire disgust. The quality of your infographic says a lot about the care you put into your marketing materials, which is why you need to pay equal parts of attention to the contents of the material, as well as its style.
Poor sourcing, lack of facts, and outdated statistics are just as egregious as mismatched fonts, a bad layout, and visual clutter. Thankfully, the dos and don’ts for good infographic use are simple.
Use Infographics for Supplementary Content
One of the easiest ways to implement infographics into your marketing material is to use them to drive home the point of a larger blog post, status message, or article. An infographic can be used to summarize the points or facts outlined in your blog post and explain why your product or service is important in your given niche.
Take an example from pool companies utilizing infographics to represent the amount of money lost and subsequently saved between neglecting and refurbishing a swimming pool multiple times per year, versus weekly and monthly maintenance, or a pool supplies company weighing the pros and cons between different pool detergents, such as chlorine and bromine.
These posts are often filled with chemical facts about maintaining an equilibrium between mineral contents, alkalinity, and chlorine levels – representing this information visually helps readers better understand the main points of comparison and can help them make a better decision based on their location, pump type, or pool lining material.
Don’t Overcomplicate
Infographics should always strive to ultimately present whatever point the article or post is making in a simplified and concrete manner. In other words, it should be clear at first glance what’s going on in the visuals of an infographic.
However, we can sometimes get caught up with what we’re making and forget to see things from the perspective of some fresh eyes. Always make sure to test your graphic on a few different people in the office before publishing it, to make sure your point gets across. If you want a layperson’s insight, forward it to a friend or family member, too.
Visualize the Numbers
Infographics usually represent a lot of information in the form of numbers and fractions. It helps to visualize those numbers rather than leave them whole. Not only does that help readers quickly skim the facts and still get the point, but visual representation will often have a much greater impact than a flat number.
Don’t Post Huge Infographics on Limited Spaces
If you’re planning to create an infographic for Instagram, remember the limitations of the average Instagram post, and more specifically, the limitations of the average mobile phone. Similarly, if you plan to create an infographic to reuse across multiple different platforms, always double check to see what it might look like on those platforms.
Do Create Multiple Versions
You can take a single infographic idea and create at least three different successful versions as part of your content marketing strategy – one of the on-site content it’s paired with, one for your weekly newsletter or email, and one for an Instagram carousel post.
It is a little bit of extra work, but you do end up with thrice the amount of reward for the same level of research and basic drafting. Change the layout, keep the colors and theming, cut down on the data to present only the basic facts, and voila.
In Summary
At the end of the day, good infographics can inspire audiences much more than any form of written content – whether that’s an inspiration to donate to a cause, spread a message, or consider an important purchase for themselves or their company. Mastery of visual content in your marketing plan can turn the tide and put you ahead of the competition. Including different types of content within your content strategy can yield higher results than exclusively text-based content.
It doesn’t hurt to get help in that regard. Let us work with you to develop an eye-catching and interesting marketing campaign that helps viewers better understand your product or service.
