(Bonus Guide Inside)

Infographics can be one of the most powerful tools in your content marketing funnel toolbox. They’re sharable, colorful, and are a great way to tell a story using data. Studies show that using an infographic can improve reading comprehension of a given topic by 50%. 

Infographics are created to share information in a visually appealing structure and (in theory) make it easier to understand. 

Here are five ways that you can create content marketing infographics that will help your brand’s visibility online. 

1. Do your research

When creating an infographic, it’s critical to have clear, accurate data. Make sure your information and data is from relevant sources. 

Your own primary data is best, but if you don’t have primary data, make sure the data you’re using comes from a reputable source. Here’s a great resource to help you determine whether a site or data source is reputable. If in doubt, leave it out. 

2. Tell a great story

Keep your end goal in mind when crafting the story you want to tell with your infographic. Do you want someone to read your infographic and feel more informed about a topic? Or do you want to create a piece of content that’s sharable and drives more engagement about your product? Knowing how you want your reader to react will help you tell the right story. 

Think about how you’ll visualize the stats you’re sharing. If you want to emphasize how many or few something is compared to the total, consider showing 10 or 100 of an icon, with the number colored in. For example, here’s an infographic about Alpacas that visually demonstrates the types of Alpaca population. Who even knew they cared about Alpaca populations? But now, after reading this infographic, we do :)

Be sure to use an attention-grabbing title that helps a reader understand what they’re about to read and draws them in. Generally, from an SEO perspective, titles should be about 70 characters or less. 

3. Always brand your infographics

You want your audience to recognize your content; that's why it is essential to keep your brand (or your clients’ brand) in mind when creating infographics. At the very least, your charts and graphics should use your brand’s colors and fonts. If the content is made to be shareable, be sure to add your brand’s logo so that your branding travels with the content as it’s shared and your brand gets the credit for the content. 

4. Create multiple formats and sizes

Create infographics in different sizes and formats so you can optimize viewability on various media platforms. For example, the long form infographic style is great for a website - but if you break it up into smaller pieces, you can easily share those as individual posts on social media. 

If your infographic is going to live on a website, consider adding some animation or interactivity to keep your reader engaged and entertained. 

When you create your infographic with multiple sizes and formats in mind, you can get more mileage out of your data - and more opportunities for engagement.  

Bonus: Here’s a guide to common infographic sizes! 

We get the question so often, we decided to make a handy dandy guide to common infographic sizes. And, keeping on theme, we created the guide in…infographic style of course!

5. Beautiful design catches the eye

A well-designed infographic starts with a clean, well-structured design. Use plenty of white space so that the eye gets a break and doesn’t skip over information because of clutter. This will make your infographic easier to follow. 

Use color (as discussed above, branded colors) to draw attention to key points, and branded fonts in varying weights and sizes to further emphasize those points. 

Remember, infographics are meant to be succinct, so resist the temptation to include lots of text that will interfere with visual appeal. 

Have some fun with your infographics! 

Infographics inform and educate your audience - don’t hesitate to try using them in your content marketing arsenal. And don’t be afraid to experiment with them - often, the more creative or off the wall they are, the more readers engage with (and share) them.