Infographics are the visual presentation of data and are one of the marketers’ favorite tools for attracting and engaging new leads and clients. But infographics are an equally great marketing tool for retention and keeping the interest of current clients, as well. If you are still unsure of whether or not it is worth making an infographic campaign, well this article may help you make up your mind. We’ll cover why it is important to incorporate infographics in your business and marketing strategies and how to generate success with your newly created infographic. Let’s begin!
Do you want to learn more about the types of data visualization? You can learn more about it in our complete guide.
1. Why invest time in making an infographic campaign?
2. Is it worth the effort?
3. How to create your own infographic to boost your business?
4. How to Distribute your infographic?
1. Why invest time in making an infographic campaign?
Let’s be honest, infographics rarely lead to direct sales and revenues. So the question is, why should you invest time and resources in creating an infographic campaign in the first place? From a business perspective, infographics may not be an investment that yields immediate results but they are proven to help convert potential clients to actual clients in the long term and this is why marketing specialists love them. Let’s see how they work.
1.1. Infographics increase traffic
Infographics are visual creations that catch the eye and the interest of readers. As such, they have the potential to generate a lot of traffic to your site, especially to the sections where the infographics are published.
Of course, it’s your job to optimize these specific pages, so the new visitors are prompted to look around your site, sign up for your updates, or simply form a first good impression of your brand.
Example by Nike
1.2. They help you gain more brand awareness
Whether the readers are viewing your infographic from your website, social media, or an independent infographic directory, every time they encounter an infographic from you, they will build stronger and stronger brand recognition. To make this happen, though, you have to make sure your infographics are well branded in the first place. In all your infographics, put your logo and name at a prominent place, use brand colors, your own specific style, etc. Everything that makes you unique!
1.3. They give you more authority
Sharing valuable (the keyword is valuable) information puts you in a role of authority that people respect. Your potential clients not only see you as a brand that sells goods and services but as a specialist who knows the ins and out of their niche and as a professional they can trust.
To achieve this effect, however, you really need to work hard into crafting insightful and useful infographics.
Example by P&G
1.4. They generate links to your business site
Speaking of increased traffic, here is how infographics do it – they simply generate links. Some of these links, you will probably have built yourself – in order to get the wheels turning. At some point, however, a good infographic goes viral, and starts to naturally build links to your site.
The infographics themselves are also images and as such, they are often visual anchors that send people right to your site. Think Pinterest, Google images, sites that host infographics, etc. All of these visual sites send the viewers directly to the original source (your site, in this case) with a single click on the image (your infographic).
You may also be interested in The Best Free Infographic Templates in 2022 for Every Software.
2. Is it worth the effort?
Even after pointing out so many benefits that you can gain from creating and publishing quality infographics, many of you may still ask yourselves: it is really worth all the effort? Because let’s not lie, the creation of quality infographics can be a huge time consumer and use up time and resources that you could be tempted to invest elsewhere. However, investing in infographics definitely pays off, although perhaps not instantly. They can increase your sales in the long term but only so long as you know how to leverage their power.
3. How to create your own infographic to boost your business?
So, let’s get down to the practicalities. If you have decided to give infographics a go and create one yourself, congratulations! You have taken your first step of an exciting (and perhaps long) journey. But don’t worry – with time, you will figure out what works for you and what doesn’t, what appeals to your own specific audience and what is completely irrelevant to them, and so on. Before you roll up your sleeves, let’s review the basic components of each infographic.
3.1. Target audience
The first and probably the most important task ahead of you is to determine who your infographic is aimed at – i.e. define your target audience. Each specific group of people has its own characteristics and is influenced and impressed by different things. Factors for you to consider when defining your target audience are age, gender, profession, occupation, interests, relationship status, etc.
Example by HubSpot
3.2. Subject
The second most important thing is to define what your infographic will be about. The effort and work will lead to all those great long-term effects but only if the infographic brings value. Do not simply copy someone else’s information. Your content should be original, useful, and for sure, interesting to your specific audience. Have this in mind when defining the subject of your infographic.
3.3. Research
Probably the most time-consuming work of all is the research phase. When it comes to presenting valuable information, it is great if you can speak from experience. But more often than not, you will need to gather additional information, as well – be it data, statistics, or even theory. Sometimes, you will need to look up other people’s experiences, in order to come up with a comparison or simply a different point of view.
3.4. Structure
To a large extent, the structure of your infographic is defined by the content itself.
It could be a story where you have the typical introduction-body-conclusion model. It could be a comparison between two subjects or the pros and cons of a single subject, in both, your content can be visually divided into two columns. It could be a timeline where you have specific guideline and key milestones. It could be made of different equally important paragraphs, also known as numeral, alphabetical or block structure. there are loads and loads of options, and it’s well worth searching the web for infographics to inspire you and help you structure your ideas.
Example by DiabetesTeam
3.5. Design
As you can see, the design itself is not the first factor to consider when creating an infographic. But it could be the most important factor in nailing the attention or at least, the factor that holds the attention. Design is what makes the infographic more attractive than plain text. No matter if you decide to follow the latest graphic design trends or you decide to stick with your brand colors and style, you should remember that the design is always a secondary element. Its job is to support and increase the effectiveness of the primary element – the content.
Just follow the simple rule: infographic = info comes first, graphic comes second.
3.6. Title and description
From an SEO point of view, the title and description of your infographic are the most important factors. Since infographics are static images, search engines cannot “read” the content inside. However, they can clearly “read” the title and description you set for this particular static image. Make sure to create a clear and concise title that is straight to the point but also provokes curiosity. The description should be filled with relevant keywords but not in a spammy way, but rather in a “logical, meaningful text” way.
3.7. Mention your sources
Always! When you are using external sources, it’s professional good practice to first ask permission to use the information provided by them.
And secondly, cite them both in the footer of the infographic image, and its description – in case your viewers want to click to seek further information on the topic. Plus, your sources deserve it!
Example by Walmart
Do you want to learn How to Make an Engaging Infographic: The Full Guide
4. How to Distribute your infographic?
Spreading the word about your infographic is not such an easy job, either. In fact, there are millions of infographics out there. So how are you going to get yours noticed? Here, we’ve gathered several ideas that you can try to make your infographic popular before (fingers crossed) it goes viral all by itself.
4.1. Sites that host infographics
There are many sites that are specifically created for hosting infographics. Such sites give you an instant link back to the original site (yours) and help make your infographic more popular. Often, bloggers and publishers use infographic directories to search for relevant visual content to add to their posts and publications, so you have two powerful reasons to publish your new creations on sites that host infographics.
4.2. Social media posts
The power of social media is well known, especially if you have a large audience of followers and quality visual content that can easily go viral.
Share your infographic on all popular social media sites where you have a presence and don’t forget to design community sites like Behance, Dribbble, Pinterest, etc.
Example by Justforex
4.3. Encourage your followers, friends, and fans to share your infographic
Don’t passively wait for your audience to help you spread the word. Actively encourage your followers, friends, and fans to share your infographic with their circle of digital contacts. Most of them probably won’t but some of them will. A few simple reshares will significantly increase your reach rate, and may even get you a new wave of followers.
4.4. Publish it on your blog
If you maintain a blog, this is a great channel through which you can gain additional outreach. One option is to publish your newly created infographic in an existing relevant article on your blog (Google loves updates!). Another option is to publish your infographic as a separate post, along with the text and even more information – this will make the content trackable by search engines, as well.
4.5. Email campaign
If you have an audience of email subscribers, you should most definitely create an email campaign announcing your new infographic. By subscribing to news from you in the first place, the audience has already stated their interest in your content, so you can expect high open rates, high click-through rates, and why not even more shares. Don’t forget to place social media buttons for easy sharing in the email itself.
4.6. Distribute as a physical brochure
Depending on the nature of the infographic itself, you can distribute it in a physical format, as well – such as a leaflet, a flyer, or a brochure. This is especially helpful if you have a physical office or shop that is visited by clients and partners. Leave out a few brochures with your new infographic and hand out to each client visiting your shop. This will help you increase your brand awareness even if they don’t buy anything from you.
4.7. Make it as a poster
During events in your niche, such as festivals, conferences, markets, and trade fairs, where you present your services and products to a huge audience of visitors, you can print your infographic in a poster format to grab the attention of more people. Of course, your infographic should be impeccable in terms of value and look, so people are interested in checking out your products, as well.
16 Free infographic templates to start your marketing campaign
A collection of 16 free infographic templates on different themes, designed in different modern styles. Perfect free bundle to start your marketing campaign. Provided by GraphicMama(without attribution).
Go to FREE DOWNLOAD
Final words
All in all, investing in a good infographic campaign is worth the effort but only if you manage to create a good-looking infographic with valuable information. We hope this guide helps you decide whether or not an infographic campaign will help you grow or develop your own business. We hope we’ve given you the ideas and insight you needed. If you have any comments you want to add, please feel welcome.
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