If you want to share information with someone, tell it to them.
If you want that person to retain that information, tell a visual story with an infographic.
Infographics are an aesthetically pleasing way to summarize data and share information in a more compelling, engaging way with content consumers.
They can tell a story that captivates readers in a way words alone fail to accomplish.
And, for those concerned with infographics being a thing of the past, infographics have had the biggest increase in usage among B2B marketers in the last four years and was at 67% in 2020.
Marketers, too, agree with the power of visuals.
In fact, 49% of marketers rate visual marketing as “very important” to their marketing strategy; 22% consider it “important”, and 19% say that their strategy is nothing without visual content.
Looking to elevate your content strategy past your standard text and graphic elements?
While there is a wide range of benefits of using infographics, we’ve narrowed down our top 10 reasons to incorporate them in your content strategy.
1. Infographics Can Improve Decision-Making
Visuals speed up the rate at which information is processed.
The quicker you process information, the faster you can make decisions.
This can be beneficial when presenting complex ideas, such as breaking down academic research in an easily digestible manner.
The mind processes information in pictures much faster than it does in words and humans tend to be visual creatures inherently.
If you are trying to understand something complicated, infographics help your brain work through it quicker.
This, in turn, helps your business communicate its end goal quickly and more effectively.
2. They Increase Your Content’s Exposure
Compiling research is a timely endeavor that can take plenty of resources.
Additionally, once this research is completed, you must invest time in analyzing the data and determining key statistics.
From there, designing an infographic based on this data is yet another step in the process of creating a compelling visual.
While not every infographic requires original ideas, the effort you put into creating your infographics is sometimes not duplicated but rather shared by others.
Your organization can be best promoted when your content and visuals include useful and meaningful information for viewers. Increase your potential reach by publishing infographics that are:
- Relevant to your audience.
- Visually appealing.
- Adhere to your brand guidelines.
- Convey complex information in a simple format.
- Tell a compelling story worthy of sharing.
3. Enhances Content Shareability
Infographics should not only be easy to consume, but easy for readers to share.
To improve your infographic’s sharability, your business should:
- Enable highly visible social sharing buttons.
- Add an embed code button.
- Submit to infographic sites (here are 20 to help you get started).
- Send it in your monthly newsletter.
- Include infographic snapshots or share specific sections to include on social media, in blog posts, and in press releases.
- Share with related influencers and social media accounts.
- Get more mileage out of your infographic (don’t be afraid to share your infographic more than once).
4. Infographics Can Build Brand Credibility
Creating interesting and informative graphics can help people learn more about you or your business and be seen as a voice of authority.
By positioning yourself as an expert in your industry, you not only become a thought leader but also build credibility for your brand.
Become a trustworthy source by crafting an original infographic, power-packed with useful resources and relevant images.
To build credible infographics, leverage the following tips:
- Create a well-designed infographic that’s talk-worthy.
- Establish a strategy for executing a compelling infographic and staying consistent.
- Publish your infographics on relevant sites with high domain authority.
- Draft content that an average user can consume; don’t overcomplicate things.
- Share your infographics with trusted influencers in your industry.
- Keep your infographics professional by using skilled graphic designers to create them.
5. They Complement Your Branding Strategy
In order for your content marketing strategy to be successful, it needs to align with your brand’s message and identity.
If someone sees an infographic on your site or on third-party sites or social platforms, they should be able to tell that it came from your company because of its unique design.
When done right, your target audience will be able to discern your brand’s infographics from others.
Customize every aspect of your infographic, from colors to fonts to text placement to align with your branding.
By doing so, you’ll build brand awareness and raise your credibility among your audience.
6. Infographics Can Build High-Quality Backlinks
Link building enables your business to rank higher in Google’s organic search results.
However, links must come from relevant, quality websites with authority in their own right to propel your business forward in search.
Even sites that may not be accepting guest post contributions might be interested in publishing an infographic as an alternative.
These sites may also be interested in including a link to your infographic in a piece that’s already published when relevant to the content.
This means you get to build high-quality backlinks and strengthen your domain authority on your end while driving user engagement on their end.
Infographics have proven to be one of the more effective backlink generation tactics for many brands and can be for your brand too.
7. They Help Improve Your SEO
Infographics are an effective tool for driving more traffic to your site, improving your ROI, and increasing conversion rates.
Consider the last few infographics you’ve seen, and where you saw these.
Infographic images are used extensively online for various purposes including email marketing, blog posts, social media ads, etc.
You’ve likely seen one while browsing on your phone or desktop today.
Additionally, infographics are one of the most versatile types of content for any business and can greatly improve visibility.
They’re easy to create, share, and use across multiple platforms. And when done right and with the right promotion, they can help increase engagement and conversions.
To boost your website’s visibility on popular search engines, add alt text, a title, and a description of the infographic.
There are several different ways to improve SEO, but one way to get started is by making sure your infographics are shareable.
If they’re shared often enough, then people may link to them from their own sites and pages, improving your chances of appearing higher in search.
8. Infographics Help You Tell A Story
Infographics can help people understand complex concepts by using visual aids such as charts, graphs, or diagrams.
They can use both images and text in a visual format to explain concepts.
They’re often used for marketing purposes but they can be useful when writing articles or sharing research too.
However, if an infographic doesn’t tell its viewers something new, they’ll quickly tune out.
Instead, the infographic should strike a balance by using text that tells a compelling story and relevant data to create an effective and attractive visual.
Consider how the average person reads a book from start to finish.
Intriguing stories have a clear structure, focus, and purpose. So, too, should your infographic.
9. It’s Easy To Track Results
As with any marketing effort, you’ll want to invest time and resources tracking how well your infographics perform.
While some of your marketing initiatives’ performance can be ambiguous and hard to measure ROI, this isn’t the case with infographics.
In a perfect world, every infographic you create will present plenty of key takeaways, in a clear and succinct format.
But, some may hit the mark more than others.
With the right tracking in place, it can be relatively easy to determine how your infographic marketing efforts are performing to improve and scale in the future.
To gain a better understanding of how your infographics are performing and how to improve, you must create a landing page for each infographic.
Use an analytics platform to determine traffic sources, the user’s site behavior, and page visits.
Perform a reverse image search to determine what sites are using your infographic.
You may want to consider contacting websites that have posted your content but haven’t linked back to you for permission if they’re not doing so already.
10. Infographics Enhance Readability
An infographic can help readers easily digest text-heavy content and makes the content easier to understand for visual learners.
As we become an increasingly visually focused society, as evidenced by the rise of social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok that rely heavily on visuals, if we cannot scan through the text quickly, then the content isn’t leaving as much of an impact.
A benefit of infographics is they convey a largely visual story and align with the greater majority’s learning preferences.
To improve your infographic’s readability:
- Use attractive colors that adhere to your branding.
- Test a variety of layout options to determine which resonates best with your audience.
- Develop a basic template to start, and expand once ample A/B testing is performed.
- Avoid crafting a lengthy blog post and focus on the most critical information instead.
- Ensure you’re creating an appealing infographic, rather than churning out many mediocre infographics for the sake of creating more content.
As evidenced above, there are many notable benefits of infographics and they continue to drive qualified traffic, help a brand be seen as an authority figure, improve SEO efforts, enhance knowledge retention, and more.
They’ve also proven to be a piece of content that inspires audiences more than text-based content alone.
Whether you’re just getting started with developing a simple infographic or you’re a seasoned pro, they are a type of content that belongs in any marketing strategy.
More resources:
- Best Practices for Creating Outstanding & Engaging Infographics
- 41 Best Stock Photo Sites to Find High-Quality Free Images
- Content Marketing: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to What Works
Featured Image: KatePilko/Shutterstock
