Business Bullets - Marketing

The consumer is more demanding today than ever before. New methods of absorbing and accessing information are vital. With over 60% of the population being visual learners, surely graphics are a better way to deliver the message, but can graphics deliver the facts? Is it possible to combine facts with graphics and make them interesting? Yes, the answer is Infographics.

Infographics meet the need of the modern marketing age. They give you the ability to communicate your brand or information to consumers in the immediate and at-a-glance way which many audiences are demanding.

The overall concept of an Infographic is to take the audience on a quick journey by presenting your story from beginning to end.

What is an Infographic?

• A tool to educate and inform without heavy reading
• A data-rich visualization ("data-viz") of a story or thesis which helps audiences quickly grasp complex ideas
• A way to build brand awareness at half the cost of an online marketing campaign
• Their main goal is to be shared and embedded by others to drive back-links and new traffic to your website
• Can be used to build brands, disseminate information to the masses, educate audiences and optimise search engine ranking through link building

What makes a good Infographic?

• The visualisation should not be left open to interpretation but instead provides a universal conclusion for all viewers
• Show, don't tell. Turning information into a visually stimulating, cohesive design that tells a story and that doesn't miss a single opportunity to visualize data – don't always write it.
• Should be able to be skim read

Designing an effective Infographic generally requires an expert approach as so many elements need to be considered.

• Defining the clear objective, what do you want the reader to retain?
• How will the story flow, how to illustrate the facts without words?
• How to make the facts and the illustration connect?
• How to make it interesting enough to be shared?
• How to design the story so it flows?
• Is it interesting enough to be shared?

Infographic Design

At this point we have only been thinking about the content; we then have to turn our thoughts to the design:

• What colours work well in social media marketing?
• How will the design fit in with your brand?
• Is there a limit to the file size of the Infographic?
• Can it be accessed on all devices? Download Speed?

The best of both

Infographics combine the facts with impactful graphics and whilst they can be considered complex to design well, the results and opportunities are vast.

As marketing platforms evolve there is no doubt that Content Marketing is more than a buzz phrase for 2014. Infographics can be an important element of the Content Marketing Strategy for any business, and are especially effective in the B2B sector, as it allows businesses to communicate facts and information in a more positive and engaging method.