Why your marketing strategy needs infographics

Sylvia Schutte

High-quality infographics are far more likely to be read and shared than text-based content, giving them greater virality and making them a popular marketing tool. However, they need to be thoroughly researched, meticulously written and skilfully designed to be effective and boost brand visibility.

“We’re living in a digital era so we’re constantly flooded with information,” says Sylvia Schutte, Managing Director at integrated agency Stratitude. “This is why we strive to find unique and creative ways to help our clients successfully engage with, and grow, their online audience. One way we achieve this is through infographics that are carefully crafted in order to add
value.”

A well-designed infographic is a data-rich image that tells a story in a clear and effective way. It can simplify a complicated topic, make a boring subject interesting, make sense of an idea in a few visual steps and position you as an expert. While it educates and informs, it can also build brand awareness, drive engagement, grow website traffic and improve SEO rankings. When done well, infographics communicate processes, visually represent products and show your market how you meet their needs.

“Humans are visual but this doesn’t mean you can just throw together pictures and words. A lot more thought goes into creating an infographic and it starts with the content. The subject matter has to be relevant to your target audience and provide genuine value because ultimately you want it to be shared. Because there’s so little text, the content has to be high-quality, accurate and drive home the narrative. When it comes to the design it must be visually appealing, easy to digest, and above all – simply. Logical flow is critical in an infographic and vibrant visuals need to support concise text,” says Schutte.

Infographics can be a useful tool in a digital marketing strategy but they must be supported by website content that engages the reader. A good infographic can go viral, which is why it’s essential to have social media functionality to make it easy to share or embed. Not only can infographics provide branding opportunities and an improved user experience but they are a powerful way to attract backlinks and they can benefit an SEO campaign.

“People love a good infographic and if it’s relevant, interesting or useful, they’ll quickly share it on social media, helping to make your marketing campaign a hugely successful one. There are many different avenues for brand promotion and at Stratitude we show our clients how we can use an infographic to create a brand experience with anything from product brochures and internal communications, through to customer education and PR. We see huge value in creating quality infographics as they allows us to share a client’s message, product or service in a cohesive, simple and effective way,” says Schutte.