Visual marketing can do great things for a company, but nailing down infographic best practices can provide a tool that’s unstoppable. These graphics combine aesthetics and information, and when it comes to shareability, it’s difficult to imagine two more important factors. By utilizing these tips to perfect their infographic game, marketers will see huge results over time.
1. Don’t Get Complicated
Infographics are often used to present complex information. The reason everyone loves this form of content, though, is because everything is simplified. Consumers who want to pore over data and research in-depth can do so on their own. Most people who enjoy infographics want information in an easily digestible manner.
There’s more to the overall goal than eliciting likes and shares. Getting people to visit your website is the main objective. Infographics accomplish this by increasing traffic by up to 12 percent, but this isn’t going to happen if the content presented is overly complex. Infographics are a marketer’s opportunity to show consumers they can simplify things like an expert.
2. Use Premade Icons and Graphics
Many marketers and entrepreneurs forego using infographics because they lack design abilities. This is one of the biggest mistakes that one could make. If the data and information exists, presenting it in a visual format doesn’t have to be difficult. There are plenty of design and visual marketing tools that can help in this endeavor. Some of the most important are premade icons and graphics.
Websites like Pexels and Pixabay offer royalty-free images and designs that can easily be utilized. In addition to being an infographic best practice due to the simplicity, these platforms also help avoid potential copyright issues. Why go through the trouble of reinventing the wheel when all the graphics a designer could ever need are already out there?
3. Don’t Be Afraid to Repurpose
Repurposing content is one of the most overlooked marketing strategies out there. This occurs when a piece of content – whether it’s a blog, video or white paper – is used to create alternative forms of content. A very informative blog, for instance, could be repurposed into an educational video shared on YouTube or email newsletters.
This is an effective technique that’s shown the ability to garner 75 percent of the engagement of each preceding post. If a blog that was shared does particularly well on social media, it doesn’t hurt to craft an infographic presenting the information in a more digestible, shareable and aesthetically pleasing way. All content has more than one life.
4. Make Like Missouri and “Show Me”
Of all the infographic best practices out there, focusing on data visualization is paramount. It’s not enough to simply present information on a GIF, JPEG or another image-based format. Not a single opportunity should be missed for presenting data in a visual manner – mostly because 65 percent of consumers are visual learners.
Instead of listing out the year’s top five movies based on revenue, for instance, simply create a bar graph with the appropriate subtext highlighting the topic. This allows people to quickly distinguish between movies without having to read or do math to determine relative earnings. Infographics obviously need text, but remember that the overall focus is visualization.
5. Remain Focused at All Costs
Maintaining infographic best practices means presenting data simply and in a visual manner, but it doesn’t mean that marketers should just throw all their data into the graphic. This form of content is essentially like telling a story, and stories must remain focused or risk losing their audience.
Marketers need to stay on topic when crafting an infographic. This shouldn’t be seen as an opportunity to disseminate all the data they’ve collected over the years. Focus on a single topic, and for those who have droves of additional data they want to present, there’s no harm in making multiple infographics.
6. Don’t Get Lazy in Promotion
All the hype surrounding infographics has made many marketers view these graphics as a sort of golden ticket. This metaphor isn’t inaccurate, but it doesn’t mean that no work is required for success. Infographics will not go viral automatically, so advertising and business professionals should promote them the same way they would everything else.
While posting infographics to social media and sending them to an email list gets the ball rolling, this form of visual content is also perfect for influencer marketing. Influencers in a given field love sharing new information and data with their followers. This form of marketing doubled between 2017 and 2018, and when influencer makes an infographic go viral, it’s easy to understand this increase.
7. Always Maintain Branding
Maintaining branding is more than just an infographic best practice. Failing to do so can quite literally be disastrous and result in significant loss of income. This is because studies have shown that maintaining consistent brand presentation is capable of increasing revenue by up to 23 percent. When creating an infographic, designers and marketers must include brand-specific visuals.
This is important because consumers will view a specific brand as experts in a given field if their infographic is informative. If there’s no branded content to identify a source, it’s nothing more than an educational graphic with no return on investment. By remaining brand-consistent, an infographic will always bring consumers back to the company regardless of where the graphic is shared.
8. Keep a Good Flow Going
One of the best infographic practices any marketer can use is envisioning a flow before beginning their task. Grab a pencil and paper to craft a general framework to follow, and create this draft in such a way that it maintains flow. The eyes of readers should naturally move from one segment of information to the next.
For individuals marketing to Western cultures, this typically means going left-to-right and then top-to-bottom. Break information up into different blocks, sections, and other visual elements. Viewing an infographic shouldn’t be a jarring experience, and having a narrative flow is how to accomplish this.
9. Come in Strong
Every piece of data, graphic and text on an infographic is important, but in a way, they pale in comparison to the headline. Just like with a blog post, excellent content can fall flat if a killer headline doesn’t initially appeal to the reader. A great headline will grab attention, describe what’s to come and be short enough (i.e., 70 characters) to fit comfortably.
As an infographic best practice, crafting a headline should avoid trying to present significant information. It should focus on being powerful enough to make consumers want to continue reading. There are plenty of headline writing tips that can be useful in this endeavor, but the most important may be to elicit a reaction.
10. Know When to Post Infographics
Formatting, graphics, scale and other aspects of an infographic are certainly important. If no one is around to see the creation, though, it’s going to seriously hinder the potential for virality. This is why marketers should focus on posting an infographic when their target audience is likely to be online. Even the best content will fail without having eyes on it.
Ideal posting times can vary by industry. Those who work in the media, for instance, get high engagement on Friday between 8 and 9 am. On the same day, consumer goods entrepreneurs should wait until 11 am to post. As a general rule, though, posting between 9 and 11 am is great for most platforms.
Put Infographic Best Practices to Use
Each of these tips has proven successful in marketing strategies time and again, and the viral nature of infographics alone should be enough to warrant their use. While it’s important to remember that consumers in every industry differ, there are basic tenets that hold true globally. These infographic best practices focus on those, so regardless of the field, following these guidelines equates to success.
