In 2011, Infographics as a format weren’t even cited in the CMI’s (Content Marketing Institute) content benchmark report. A year later, in 2013, already one-third of B2Bs and B2Cs were using them and Infographics were the fastest rising content type on the web.
However, the market is getting saturated pretty fast and many businesses are starting missing out on bottom line benefits of Infographic marketing to focus on their link building potential.
Infographics with impact
Every day, we are bombarded with such a flow of information that equals 174 newspapers of data or an estimated 29,500,000,000,000,000,000,000 pieces of data!!!
Obviously, to be successful, your message should stand out from this enormous amount of data. How? By creating something engaging and relevant that communicates with your audience. To find out what really interests or worries your audience you can use one or several following options:
Careful social listening
Industry monitoring
Customer surveys
Web marketing interaction analysis
Experts also report that even though many Infographics are a great way to capture data in a manageable way, stand out and communicate the right message, they are lacking emotions.
To achieve a better ROI from your Infographic marketing campaign, you should think about this “emotion” factor and plan an efficient and clear-communicated trigger – “call-to-action” option(s). What exactly do you want your audience to do after reading your Infographic? Learn about your brand and/or product? Come to your store? Buy something? etc. You should keep your goal in mind and clearly communicate this through your Infographic. It’s not that difficult if planned accordingly.
Furthermore, professional designers advise to “marry” your Infographic’s message and design. It means that different topics can be translated into designs with the right emotional (and ultimately, marketing) impact.
Extracting maximum ROI
First of all, to increase ROI from your Infographic, you need to decide what parameter(s) you will measure. It can be a traffic boost to a website or an increase in calls from interested customers.
Once you are decided, you should ensure that your Infographic is used and reused as much as possible. You may start using it as a part of your website or blog. Later on, if it is relevant and useful you can use it within your PR efforts to accompany an editorial on a related subject or as a part of your offline marketing campaign.
If it is enough engaging and marketed professionally, it has all the chances to become viral and get numerous shares and likes across the web, through social media, email and via online publications. So also think about improving its sharability as much as possible. Beyond simple social buttons on your own website, make the graphic well-branded, and ensure it will deliver the same message when it is removed from the context of your site. Mobile version of your Infographic will also come in handy.
So despite Infographics are a trendy tool in many marketing campaign, their potential still remains underused. And while consumers’ attention to traditional advertising continues to decrease, it is vital that communication methods continue to evolve. Well, Infographics continue to be an important part of that evolution, and savvy brands and marketers should take note of them.
