They say “a picture paints a thousand words,” and they’re not wrong. Our brains are able to process images 60,000 times faster than text, and remember them for longer, a phenomenon known as ‘the picture superiority effect’.
This is just one of the reasons why infographics have become an invaluable tool for marketers. Infographics use colours, graphs, and illustrations to communicate complex data in a format that is both easy to understand and visually enticing. This enables marketers to capture an audience, retain interest, and deliver a message all through one piece of content.
Here’s why you should be using infographics in your content marketing:
Eye-catching, visually interesting
Researchers believe 90% of the data that exists on the internet today is less than three years old, providing a shocking insight into the rate at which online content is growing. The internet is saturated with content and unfortunately a lot of it is substandard, misinformed, or just darn spammy. But sorting the wheat from the chaff takes time, and time is a valuable commodity nowadays.
A well designed, eye-catching infographic will capture users’ attention whilst providing them with a wealth of facts, figures and useful data at a glance.
Digestible data
As much as 90% of the information we retain is visual so it’s crucial for marketers to tap into that “optic nerve”; creating an infographic is an effective way of etching your story into the memories of your audience.
Infographics are a great way of delivering heavy, denser information in a more approachable, uncomplicated way. Facts and statoids offer tangible information in bitesize chunks and graphs are able to succinctly explain trends and patterns, without the need for long paragraphs of text that require time and effort to read and digest.
Demonstrates authority in a subject
Albert Einstein once (allegedly) said:
“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, then you don’t understand it yourself.”
A similar logic applies to infographics. Being able to clearly deliver a concept, piece of research, or theory using graphics, illustrations, diagrams, and minimal text demonstrates a rich knowledge and understanding of the topic in hand, therefore positioning you as an expert in your niche.
The universal language
No, we’re not talking about love…
Using images and graphics to communicate data removes language barriers. While there are plenty of online translators available, users will be able to access the data in an infographic far quicker than a block of textual content, no matter where they are in the world.
Infographics are also universal in terms of format. They don’t have to remain a static, digital image, infographics can be interactive and also translate well into print, providing flexibility for use in wider campaigns.
Brand awareness
Infographics can easily contain your company logo and branding such as colours and fonts. In fact, it’s a missed opportunity if they don’t as this can help generate a greater awareness of your brand and its expertise. People will also start to associate your brand with useful content (assuming it is useful!).
Shareable content
An infographic that is visually interesting and that contains useful content is a highly shareable piece of content. If your infographic is powerful enough, others will naturally want to share your material with their own networks, such as through social media, blogs, or on their own site. This will help generate more potential traffic to your site and can also help increase your number of followers and subscribers.
What’s more, a well-designed, effective infographic takes time and effort to put together, just another reason why other sources will want to take advantage of such as rich piece of content minus the legwork.
Great for SEO
As more people share content that is linked to your website, you’ll reap the rewards in traffic and backlinks which, in turn, will increase the importance that search engines place on your site.
So, whether you have sufficient budget to hire a designer to help create your masterpiece, or you choose to do-it-yourself through one of the many tools and online platforms now available, infographics – when executed well – can be a powerful way of capturing the attention of your audience, raising brand awareness and boosting your search engine rankings organically.
