Infographics: Use Infographic Marketing To Generate Leads!

To say that the color of the bathroom tiles and the pictures on your walls have a profound effect upon your life may sound strange. But they do. We’re living in a visual age, where the aesthetics of things around us influence us.

We rely more and more on visual media (images and videos) to convey information, rather than the printed or spoken word. This perhaps is the reason we instantly recognize even people we’ve met just once, while the name is on the “tip of the tongue.”

It’s this tendency that’s being exploited to the fullest by both online marketers as well as the brick-and-mortar businesses. They attract people to their products and services through visual representation of data – Infographics.

What Is An Infographic?

Infographics are graphical visual representations of information. Data, which otherwise would be difficult to explain in words; either verbal or written; becomes clear and self-explanatory through an infographic.

Look at this image to experience the beautiful infographic created by BlueGlass. It shows all the reasons why one should be using Google Plus. If this information had to be presented in words, it would take pages of text that’s not going to be as engaging as this infographic is.

Infographics as a content medium gained momentum sometime in 2009. They were initially found on social sharing sites, and today their popularity knows no bounds with the Internet audience lapping up information and data with excitement.

From Text To Visual Medium

Undeniably, the World Wide Web has transformed a million times from its early years. The 20th century saw the domination of written literacy shaking, and it was then that the visual medium raised it head stronger than ever before. But visual medium was used for longer than we think.

Consider these ads where visual medium was used:

#1. The first newspaper advertisement in the Boston News-Letter on June 14, 1704.

#2. From 1939, is one of the propaganda photos to persuade men to fight for their country.

#3. An Apple ad from its 2003 series of pure image ads!

The shift is clearly visible – from text to complete lack of it. This reflects the changing tastes of the audience and the power of the visual medium in today’s world.

If you think modern infographics are the domain of the modern world, thing again!

The following is a combination bar and pie chart prepared by Florence Nightingale in 1857. Can you associate that with infographics you see around the Web today?

While today’s infographics are analogous to the posters we used to hang on the walls, they have now become one of the main weapons in a marketer’s arsenal.

How Can Infographics Help With Your Marketing?

Research shows that the use of infographics has increased by a whooping 800 percent over the last two years. They have been hugely successful in reaching a much wider audience than ever before.

With the whole world on the virtual platform, online marketing is all about reaching the maximum number of people possible. When online users are enjoying and paying more attention to infographics, then that’s what you should be giving them.

#1 They Are Irresistible

If you have a landing page filled with text, and an infographic at one corner of your web page, that’s the first thing your visitors will look at. An image has the capacity to draw attention. Infographics help present the most boring text in a fascinating way.

You can try having a small thumbnail infographic on your web page and ask people to click on the thumbnail to see the entire image. Use analytics to see the number of clicks and you’ll be surprised at the amazing results. A strong CTA (call-to-action) helps.

#2 They Have The Potential To Go Viral

The importance of having your content go viral is known to all online marketers. Marketers give away free eBooks and reports, in an attempt to reach a wider audience through sharing. Well-designed infographics have the potential to go viral easily, through sharing and distribution not only on the social network sites but everywhere else. They can also be embedded on websites, just as you do videos.

#3 They Help With Branding

As a marketer, you would obviously include your company name and/or logo on the infographic. If your creation is interesting, the image of your company name remains with people, as it’s a known fact that images are retained far more than text. This retention helps immensely with branding.

#4 They Cater To The Short Attention Span

Online audience today is different and their attention span is far less than in the past. They have no patience to wade through blocks of text and a visual representation can work amazingly well. You can communicate important ideas to your readers in a very short time. You’re gaining a new segment of audience, who wouldn’t have otherwise taken the time to read the entire text.

#4 They Are Sharable

Even content is sharable but people enjoy sharing all sorts of graphics online. You must have seen how funny or controversial images (pictures or text) go viral on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The page views of graphics are said to be 30 times more than plain text. All your social engagement is taken care of. You can even send links of your infographics to your email leads, asking them to share with their friends.

#5 They Are Great For SEO

Whether you like it or not, we marketers have to please the search engines to stay on top. If your infographic is shared by people, it’ll be used in blogs and websites, leading to backlinks to your website. You may end up seeing your website on the first page of Google in no time.

Infographics Can Fail

Don’t get me wrong, infographics work and work well, but only when you get it right. Most of them are so bad that it is possible people will soon lose their interest in them.

If you want to have a solid link building strategy in your hands, answer the following questions.

Q1: Is your data authentic? Many marketers just come up with some data from god-knows-where and turn it into a graphic. This attitude backfires with 100% certainty.

Q2: Is the data from Wikipedia?: That’s where the majority of data for the “failed” infographics is pulled from. You can use Wikipedia too, but refrain from using one single source.

Q3. Is it relevant today and now? The data cannot be from last year. This amounts to giving completely outdated information, leaving the audience in despair.

Q4: Are people interested? If it’s a topic people are not interested in, why would you want to take the trouble?

Q5. Is the design good? Not using one is preferable to using a horribly designed, unprofessional infographic. Get it done with a professional or perfect the art before you actually present it to your audience.

Q6. Can you promote it? You spend the time, effort and money into the creation of a beautiful infographic and it just stays there on your website. If you want to generate leads from it, take it in front of people. Put into action all the lead-generation strategies you have learned.

Q7: Do you actually need an infographic? This is where it all begins. You have to first ask yourself if there’s actually a need for an infographic. You can’t just have every single piece of date you’ve ever collected in picture form. That makes no sense. Infographics are meant to convey a story. Find a story or create one.

Be An Early Adopter

While infographics have been used for ages and you see many marketers promoting their well-designed infographics; there’s still a lot of scope to get in and reap the benefits. Make it a part of your lead-generation efforts and use analytics extensively to see how it’s working.

The possibilities of this medium are many – as long as you don’t let yourself be misled by the over-inflated talk about infographics changing your business overnight. Like every other promotional medium, it takes knowledge and effort.

Infographics Take Away..

Always remember, the quality of your content matters the most, irrespective of the medium. Get the message right on your infographic and it could lead to your marketing success, whether it’s leads you’re trying to generate or products you’re trying to sell.

Have you ever used an infographic? If you have, what was your infographics marketing strategy?