How to increase your Web traffic and maximize your marketing potential with infographics
The inbound marketing world is always looking for great ways to share information simply and in interesting ways. Charts and graphs serve a purpose, but lack the impact of being appealing to a majority of people. This is where infographics come in.
Infographics are visual representations of complex data. The aim of infographics is to convey data through visuals in such a way that it results in a better understanding and retention of information. Simple!
Most anyone today who uses the Internet and social media to find information is probably familiar with the infographic as a modern phenomenon. A lesser known fact, however, is that infographics are not new. Charles Minard, a French civil engineer who lived in the 19th century, created what is now known as the first and greatest infographic ever describing Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812.
Despite their age, infographics are as relevant as ever today and here’s how you can incorporate them into your own inbound marketing strategy.
Visuals Matter
Audiences like visuals, plain and simple. But the reasons we gravitate towards visuals over written text are more than simple aesthetic preference. Our brains actually process images much more efficiently and effectively than chunks of written words.
Appropriately, according to an infographic by design agency Neomam Studios, visual information makes up 90 percent of what gets transmitted to the brain. What’s more, complex images can be processed all at once while conveying the same information through text would require a huge amount of description.
When our brains automatically filter out the majority of information they receive, turning to visuals to make your impact last is an informed marketing strategy.
A Better Way to Target Your Audience
Infographics are like a heat-seeking missile. They have a tendency to find their target quite easily. This is largely because, as long as they are fun and engaging, infographics are highly sharable. Even using a shotgun approach can prove successful.
This means sharing your infographic widely to a non-specific audience and letting the audience do the targeting work for you, sharing the infographic and forwarding it to others who may be more directly interested in the information, product, service or brand.
However, developing a more sophisticated inbound marketing plan can help launch your infographic off the ground.
Creating buyer personas will help you reach a greater understanding of what your target audience wants. From there, create unique infographics inspired by a topic your audience may find to be of interest. Keep in mind that your infographics don’t necessarily have to directly promote your company. By simply appealing to a common interest, you frame yourself as the market expert and build your credibility as a source.
Increase Web Traffic on Your Main Site
And now, for the moment every inbound marketing plan is waiting for: increased Web traffic. Once you have infographics ready for publishing, there are several ways you can use them to promote your website.
One way to do this is by writing companion articles that complement the information on your visual. Rather than simply regurgitating what is displayed, use the infographic as an opportunity to generate more relevant Web content by breaking it down into subsections and writing blogs for each. When you share the blogs, link to the infographic and vice versa. Be sure to provide handy embed codes so that users can easily share your content as well.
You can also promote your infographic on sites that love visual content, such as Visual.ly and Digital Information World. Many social media sites have promotion options or can serve as platforms from which you can reach out to others who run infographic boards.
Finally, by Googling your infographic’s [keyword] + infographic, you can find bloggers that have shared infographics similar to your own. You can then pitch your own infographic to these bloggers. Remember that for every blogger or social media user who shares your visual, your Web traffic increases.
Break into New Types of Media
Lastly, infographics provide you with the perfect set of tools to embark into new types of media. Since you’ve already created a written work order to give to the designer who made your infographic, you can simply tweak and adjust to transform it into a work order for a short animated video.
You can also make a presentation and upload it to SlideShare or other similar sharing sites. Finally, after all the work you’ve done, developing an e-book is a logical next step. Simply compile your information, expand data points into explanatory text and throw in a few visuals from your infographic. E-books make excellent incentives to build your e-mail newsletter or blog subscriptions.
In the end, infographics are excellent tools to incorporate into your inbound marketing strategy. By supplementing your written content with informative visuals, you can keep your content fresh, interesting and original. Engage your audience by developing and promoting unique and sharable visuals, increasing Web traffic and inbound marketing success.
