If you’ve ever been tasked with conveying important information to an audience, you’ll know that getting the message across clearly and concisely often proves to be a challenge.
When dealing with numbers, metrics or other types of data, marketers and content creators can’t just rely on the written word anymore. Rather, they must come up with other ways to engage their leads and clients in an appealing and eye-catching way.
The infographic might just be the perfect fit for such a dilemma.
The internet is full of stimulating imagery. As visual creatures, powerful images and captivating videos just do it for us. Us humans will eat it up and keep craving for more.
It is no surprise then that when complex information is presented in a visual and digestible format, people are more willing to engage with it.
Infographics give us a chance to tell a story about our business or organisation, as well as guarantee more visibility and outreach.
What are Infographics?
Infographics are pieces of compelling visual data that mix graphic design, data and content.
Their function is to break down important information into clear and presentable formats. They can include graphs, charts, tables, brief descriptions and illustrations.
Infographics are usually targeted toward a specific audience, and are effective in catching people’s attention. They allow users to consume and understand data in just mere seconds.
They are also easy to share and link and greatly improve SEOs (more on that below), serving as important tools in the marketing world.
To better appreciate just how impactful infographics can be, here are two beautiful examples:
Column Five and Good Magazine teamed up to design this striking infographic, detailing the distribution of income by religious belief. Although the piece displays muted colours, its arrangement draws the viewer closer, and the gradation from light to dark green effectively illustrates income brackets.
Another beautiful, yet entirely different infographic was made by Poppyfield.org to illustrate soldier casualties in different wars. They cleverly use the remembrance poppy to commemorate soldiers that have fallen at war. The size and colour of the poppies represent different metrics. This infographic is both extremely eye-catching and symbolic, and demonstrates the creative lengths you can take with infographics.
The Advantages of Infographics
They demonstrate your expertise
If you choose to incorporate infographics into your content, you show your audience that you conduct your own research, and that the educational content you publish is backed by real knowledge.
Establishing yourself as an organisation or business that is well-researched will cultivate a sense of trust amongst your customer base and future prospects.
Further, transforming your data into an easily digestible format demonstrates a level of dedication to your audience. At the end of the day, you can conduct all the research you want, but making it accessible and understandable is key.
They complement your branding strategy
Good infographics are designed in alignment to your brand logo and presentation. Take that extra step to create an infographic that draws people in and makes them more curious to learn about your company.
Even if your audience sees your infographic on a third-party website, they will seek you out as long as your brand is clearly visible.
Pay special attention to text placement and familiar images related to your brand. Finally, link the infographic to your website.
They improve your SEO
Infographics are ideal for acquiring backlinks, referring domains and sharing via social media or email.
They are also easily embeddable. By embedding an infographic in a longer blog post for example, a user can easily click on the image and be directed straight to a company’s website or social media channels.
Infographics also increase your SEO, driving more user traffic. They also increase dwell time and decrease bounce rate, two important metrics to take into account.
This ultimately boosts your ROI and leads to more conversions.
They increase audience engagement
This shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Infographics are highly engaging compared to just plain text. Not only do they enable your audience to digest your content more easily, they are creative pieces that might just make your content go viral.
Tastefully made infographics have the power to tell a compelling story and inspire people to dig deeper, engage further with your brand and spread the word.
They function as learning tools
Infographics are extremely versatile. They can be used for educational purposes both in public-facing marketing campaigns, but also for employee training purposes, for example.
For B2Bs and NFPs, producing educational content is key in informing your clients and prospects about your services, the research you conduct, and how you can reach your customers’ needs.
Doing it in an accessible and visually pleasing way will earn you points and keep your customer-base informed.
Final Thoughts
Incorporating infographics into your content creation brings with it endless possibilities and strong advantages.
Not only are they a strong educational tool, they also greatly help with your SEO and boost your rankings.
What’s more, infographics are not that hard to create. Still, you should give them the attention they deserve and pay close attention to detail when it comes to their design and placement.
Infographics are a vital accompaniment to a strong branding strategy, and can make your business or organisation stand out amongst your competitors. Whatever you do, don’t pass up the opportunity to use infographics to your benefit.
They’ll make a whole world of difference.