Effective dissemination of information, such as through infographics, is vital for every business. This ensures that your potential customers know exactly what you are offering. On the other hand, most people do not want to search too hard for content about your brand or business. Moreover, making it easy for your customers and clients to understand what you wish to communicate works to your advantage.
Infographics (information graphics) has become a very popular and effective online communication tool. It mainly refers to the visual or graphical representation of data or information. Rather than presenting or explaining something in written form only, you can incorporate graphics and graphs in order to have greater influence over the decisions and beliefs of your potential customers. Therefore, its use mainly entails presentation of information and data in visual graphics images for better understanding and effective retention.
The benefits of the immense popularity of infographics are the following:
Easy representation of facts and statistical data
Most people love reading information that is structured in an organized and appealing way with statistics, numbers, and facts. Since infographics have proven to be more visually appealing than plain text, the use of infographics increases interest thus giving you or your website more drawing power.
Enhance engagement
Graphics and pictures are easier to notice than lengthy text. Therefore, using infographics increases the appeal of your content and hence visitor engagement simply because information is clearly presented without necessarily spending any time on reading lengthy texts. Moreover, it encourages people to share such interesting content and provide links back to your website. Such websites get more traffic and better ranking, besides increasing your backlinks credit.
Simplifying the subject matter
Besides being visually appealing, infographics are easier to understand compared to text. Additionally, the human brain processes and remembers visual information better than lengthy texts which can be quite complex and unattractive. Infographics are easy to read and understand. People usually present the subject matter in a more simplified and orderly way.
Social media
Infographics have gained immense popularity in social media making it quite easy to combine the strong forces of social media and infographics.
Easy representation of facts and statistical data.
Build your brand and reputation
Infographics are a great tool to add to your marketing arsenal because it can help you build a very strong reputation as a website or person who offers easily understandable and attractive data and information. Besides having loyal visitors, your website will get more traffic as the word spreads. Recording and sharing of information that is provided in a digestible way is quite easy. With the high chances of going viral, your business has no boundaries.
Reach your target market
Depending on your target market and the kind of information you want to provide, you can use infographics to zero in on such information. This helps you to capture the attention of your target market and increase sales and income.
Where can I get infographics?
Although it appears that infographics are graphically complicated, you can easily make infographics yourself. You end up taking the strain off your advertising and marketing budget. Infogr.am is a great website where you can easily design and also produce your infographics for free. On the other hand, infographicsarchive.com provides various free tools for designing effective infographics.
Visual.ly has a vibrant community of designers and a marketplace where infographic commissioners such as agencies, companies, and brands are matched with designers. This enables the clients to have direct access to the work progress on their projects by interacting and communicating with the designers in the project center. Other features such as the project timeline enable commissioners to keep track of their projects and ensure that they are on time and within the budget.
Tips on how to use infographics to increase retention of information
Keep it simple
The idea behind using graphs and graphics is to make scanning and understanding easier. Therefore, using too many colors or complicated graphics hampers their effectiveness because it makes them look complex.
Choose the appropriate form
Infographics include various forms such as graphs, flow charts, maps, and diagrams. You should choose the graphical form depending on the type of information, or the topic that you are presenting.
Visual appeal
Your pictures and graphs should be simple yet visually appealing in order to capture the attention of your target audience.
People can use infographics at any time to make presentations and content more noticeable and engaging. You have to keep in mind some factors, though. You must present information in a sophisticated and attractive way.
Visual.ly has a vibrant community of designers and a market place where infographic commissioners such as agencies, companies and brands are matched with designers.
