The current level of online technology people have right now is nothing but spectacular. Just imagine how much information is generated on a daily, which according to research materials can reach up to 1.5 billion individual instances or units of content. Throw in more than 140 million tweets generated each day and top it all off with 2 million uploaded videos. If you’re a business owner or a digital marketer, it is very easy for your content to get lost in the jungle – which makes it doubly hard for targeted customers to find you.
What you need is something that can really grab your targeted audiences’ attention and you can do so by presenting Infographics. This highly graphical visualization tool is an innovative way of displaying content that can attract the attention of your targeted audiences and be easily understood and digested by them. Instead of telling them your story using scrolls of words, you present your message using visual tools combined with innovative design elements that will truly give your audience an awesome visual experience.
If you’re struggling with your content marketing efforts and are generating little or no relevant traffic that will convert into paying customers, then you need to greatly consider using Infographics as part of your digital marketing arsenal. There is just one simple rule to remember, and that is to give your targeted audiences a great sense of value, and the following will tell you that Infographics should indeed be part of your content marketing campaigns.
1) Infographics Can Easily Catch Your Targeted Audiences’ Attention
Humans are visual creatures and because of this people are easily attracted to visual elements that attract their attention. People need the “optic nerve” activated in order to process the more than 90% of information that comes into one’s mind, and all these are visual information. If words fail to capture the attention and imagination of your audiences, then perhaps visual elements like Infographics can do the job better.
A research conducted by Brooke Barnett and Barbara Miller which was published in the Newspaper Research Journal Winter 2010 article presents the importance of graphical or visual elements quite well:
“On their own, text and graphics are both useful yet imperfect methods for communication. Written language allows an almost infinite number of word combinations that allow deep analysis of concepts but relies heavily on the reader’s ability to process that information. Graphics may be easier for the reader to understand but are less effective in communication of abstract and complicated concepts. … combining text and graphics allows communicators to take advantage of each medium’s strengths and diminish each medium’s weaknesses.”
If combined with well-written text, Infographics can be a very powerful tool to help your content cut through the information jungle and into your targeted audiences’ brains. Humans naturally love facts, figures, stats and other graphical elements and if compelling enough, the information in your Infographics can really capture their attention.
2) Infographics Can Increase Your Brand Awareness
Infographics are designed to include relevant information about the creators which usually include the logo, website address, email or even contact information. This is truly a very effective way to increase your brand awareness and if used properly can easily increase your traffic by at least 12%, as what some publishers have experienced in their campaigns. Infographics goes beyond merely “telling” people about what your brand, products or services are – it “shows” them with visual content which is far more effective than mere paragraphs of text.
3) Infographics Can Make Your Content Really Go Viral
Information compiled by MDG Advertising highlighted that for content marketing, materials with visual elements like compelling images or graphics can generate 94% more views than simple text or content that does not contain any images. The same report also highlighted that press releases can generate up to 14% increase in page views if the article published contains a photograph. If the press release can include both photos and videos, an even greater 48% increase in viewership can be expected.
The main characteristic of Infographics is compelling visual content that are really attractive to many people so much, that most would want to share the same through their own networks and circles of influences. The result would be visual content that can really go viral as more people like and likewise share the Infographic through their social media channels.
4) Infographics Can Increase Your Search Marketing Results
As Infographics go viral, the highly beneficial impact such occurrences can bring to a particular business is better search marketing results. Infographics not only are designed with your contact information, sharing or embedding the material in social media or other online channels can generate important backlinks to you. This is true if your Infographic gets syndicated and used by other websites for their content, which they can do so as long as they link back to the source – you!
The results are an abundance of inbound links that can really boost your search rankings. You can make this better even more by adding highly targeted keywords as part of the title, description and meta information of your Infographic. This can give your Infographic higher chances of appearing as a relevant image or resource in search results. This can go really well for your business as up to 60% of consumers will have the most probability of contacting your business if they see your images, in this case an Infographic, as a relevant source for their needs.
5) Infographics can Help You Increase Your Subscribers and Followers
The power of visual content can really be witnessed just by making a quick glance at your Facebook newsfeeds and walls. Notice that interesting pictures, and this includes really well-created Infographics, generate more likes, comments and shares than any ordinary text updates. This can be a very effective way of generating more subscribers and followers to your social media pages, reaching an even broader audience reach each time your Infographic gets shared.
This can open the doors to better interaction or engagement with your targeted audiences, which can make people more aware of your brand, products or services – and eventually convert them into paying customers. Research from Heidi Cohen and Dan Zarrela from HubSpot confirms this trend, highlighting that up to 37% increase in targeted customer engagement can happen is the post includes visual elements like photos, graphics and of course Infographs.
6) Infographics are Portable and Easily Embeddable
One of the greatest characteristics of an Infographic as a visual element is its portability and inherent design to be easily embeddable. By including an embed code with your posted or uploaded Infographic, people can then easily integrate that embed code right into their blogs or websites. The embedded Infographic is automatically linked to your site, aside from the attribution and other backlinks they would include for using your material.
On top of that, Infographics are designed to include short, easily understandable text just to emphasize an important piece of information. This simplicity makes Infographics more palatable to non-English global users, making them understand your point through pictures instead of texts.
7) Infographics Can Make Your Content More Understandable
As explained in the previous section, what makes Infographics powerful as a visual tool is that its ability to convey relevant information through easily understandable bits of information. Studies have shown that clear and detailed images are more important to at least 67% of consumers and will most likely get their attention and interest even more than other important elements like product description, customer ratings, and other text-based content.
With the amount of information flowing through the internet each day, your targeted customers will prefer small but relevant bits of visual information that they can easily understand, appreciate and take action for. Long lines and paragraphs of text may not be appealing to many people as much as visual elements do, and will most likely be interested more in an Infographic than getting the same information in text format.
8) Infographics Can Expand Beyond Digital Marketing
The popularity of the visual format found in Infographics can make it go beyond online marketing and be applied to print materials, brochures, and other offline tools that business owners still use as part of their overall marketing campaign. Many have done so and have reaped amazing results, just like what Demandbase established when they integrated Infographics into their offline marketing campaigns like slide presentations. After applying this in their marketing campaign, the project generated 1,700 valuable leads, 125 participants to their webinars, and increase in views from Slideshare, and the best thing here is – generating at least one million dollars in new business.
9) Infographics Positions You as an Expert
To present content in an easily to understand manner, Infographics make use of tables, graphs, charts and other relevant information. This signifies the amount of research the creator poured in to produce the content they need. This will highlight how knowledgeable the publisher is in this particular subject matter – and establishes the creator as an expert in this field. This will increase your online credibility and reputation as a business owner who has a key grasps of the concepts and relevant information in a particular niche.
10) Infographics are Easy to Track With Analytics
Lastly, as a graphic in itself, Infographics can easily be tracked using analytics, which can even be made easier if tracking is included in the embed code. Every time your Infographic is clicked, viewed, shared, and other relevant information like how long the online user viewed a particular Infographic can be tracked and measured using analytics. This will present you with a greater insight and understanding of what makes your targeted customers behave and think – so you can adjust accordingly and make even more interesting and relevant Infographics.
In this highly competitive and information-flooded global marketplace and environment, the key to online success is to get your targeted customers attention and interest. Using Infographics is an effective way of working towards this end using visual elements that are not only relevant, interesting and educational, but is also visually appealing and enjoyable to look at. This makes Infographics a very vital and effective tool that business owners and digital marketers should incorporate to keep all customer focus glued to what is most relevant of all – your content.
Jomer B. Gregorio is a well-rounded expert when it comes digital marketing. Jomer is also known as a semantic SEO evangelist and practitioner. Check out our Digital Marketing Services today and let us help you in achieving positive and profitable results for your business.