Infographic Marketing 101: How to Successfully Use Infographics in Your Marketing Strategy

You can find the original version of this post in the Visme Visual Learning Center. 

Infographic marketing is a term that keeps becoming more common in both content marketing and digital marketing circles. Because in a sea of visual content, yours needs to stand out. And infographic marketing is all that about that – standing out.

As you can probably guess, today we’ll be talking about infographics and how to leverage them in an infographic marketing strategy. 

To help get you started, here’s a video full of infographic inspirations. FYI, you should subscribe to our channel to get notifications when we put up a new video!

What is Infographic Marketing?

Infographics are visual representations of written content. In fact, infographics are often included in blog posts to help make reading the content much easier to grasp. 

What an infographic does is summarize the bulk of the blog content into bite-sized, snackable pieces. When an infographic is pleasantly designed and the content is well laid out, it also becomes easily shareable. 

In all content marketing strategies, infographics play a big part. That’s because visual strategies are extremely important when creating content that’s memorable and survives the test of time. 

To put it simply, infographic marketing is the use of infographics to improve lead generation and brand awareness in the online space. Not surprisingly, infographic marketing fits into every level of a digital marketing strategy. 

Look at it like this.

Digital Marketing: Marketing strategies that take place online. These can be social media, email, websites, ads, PPC and more. 

Content Marketing: This is the section of digital marketing that concentrates on content like blog posts, ebooks, white papers, courses, etc.

Social Media Marketing: This is the section of digital marketing that concentrates on social media, where content created based on the content marketing strategy is shared and promoted.

Infographic Marketing: The part of content marketing that is specifically about creating, publishing and sharing infographics.

Infographics are at this part of the ladder because they can be shared inside content, on social media and in all the other digital marketing outlets. They're that versatile! And that’s why they are so important.

As you can probably discern at this point, it seems easier to take on a full-fledged infographic marketing strategy once you’ve cemented a content marketing strategy. It's even better if you have a digital marketing strategy.

But we know that sometimes things are done at different points in time and not everyone can put together a digital marketing strategy just to get started with infographics. 

Thankfully, as I mentioned above, infographics are versatile. 

They can be created at any point of the user journey (yours and your customer's). It’ll just take different steps to come to a decision about what type of infographic will leverage results for your business.

What Does Infographic Marketing Look Like?

At the core of it all, infographic marketing is all about generating results for your brand, generating leads, creating a positive online presence and growing as a business. 

The fun part is that it has many different angles and possibilities. Let’s take a look at how infographic marketing fits into the different areas of a digital marketing space.

1. Infographic Marketing as Part of a Content Marketing Strategy

The most common way to use an infographic is to look at your content and fill the gaps with a well-designed infographic. 

Creating an infographic for infographic marketing isn’t the same as creating an infographic just for the sake of visualizing the content of a blog post. It’s so much more than that.

Infographic marketing as part of a content marketing strategy can greatly improve the success of your pillar pages and content clusters.

Infographics create backlinks, both internal and external. They provide value to any type of long content format, be it a blog post, email course, ebook, downloadable PDF or white paper. 

If you’ve started with a content marketing strategy, infographic marketing is the exact next step you need to take.

2. Infographic Marketing as Part of a Social Media Marketing Strategy

Does your social media strategy need a hike up in value? Add an infographic marketing angle to it! How? Here you go:

• Follow the steps in our how-to section below and create some infographics for your business. 
• Create a strategy that involves sharing your infographic on Pinterest and Tailwind tribes.
• Make snackable infographics that can be separated into parts and repurposed as Instagram or LinkedIn carousels, or Facebook and Twitter posts.
• Use infographics to supplement your affiliate marketing on social media by using comparison infographics of the products you promote.
• Promote events, webinars and summits with an infographic that showcases the speakers and sessions.
• If you’re a Visme affiliate, create some hype about HOW you made the infographic and share your process and thoughts.

If it fits your niche, join our Digital Marketing group board on Pinterest and start sharing your infographics!

3. Infographic Marketing as Part of an Outreach Link Building Strategy

Another way of incorporating infographic marketing into your marketing strategies is a technique called guestographics. This involves offering your infographic to be republished on other' sites in your niche.

For this, you’ll need an outreach strategy that looks a little bit like this:

• Search online for blog posts that are similar to what your infographic is about.
• Choose the ones you think that your infographic would up their value.
• Find the email for the writer or owner of the site.
• Send an email offering them the use of your infographic in return for a link back to your site.

5. Infographic Marketing as Part of an Infographic Designing Strategy

The last and lesser known strategy is to offer infographic creation and design to companies that need it. You can ask for a link back to your site in exchange. 

If you are a content creator, content marketer or social media marketer, infographic marketing can bring in more business. 

This is easy to do if you have a Visme account and can create infographics quickly. 

How to Create an Infographic Suitable for Infographic Marketing

Are you ready to get started with your infographic marketing? Now it’s time to create the infographic you’ll use as part of the strategy. 

To help you along the way, here’s an infographic we created a while back about how to plan an infographic. The steps look a little different but they are in essence the same.

If you hadn’t realized yet, including this infographic here is an infographic marketing tactic. We created it for another article called How to Create an Infographic: The Ultimate Guide. When we designed it, we knew we’d use it in the future for other articles about infographics, like this one!

Creating an infographic for your infographic marketing strategy is easy, you just need to follow a few steps. 

As always, we suggest that you take your time during the plan and strategy stage before jumping in to the actual designing. 

Why? 

Because it will make your infographic easier to put together and will most probably give you better results.

Let’s kick it!

1. Choose a Topic

The very first step to create an infographic is to pick the topic. Consider topics that your audience is interested in. Conduct user research to analyze what information they'd find valuable.

At the center of your infographic marketing strategy is always the user; your reader, your client, your potential customer, a future collaborator. 

If you have a content marketing strategy in place, the “choosing a topic” step will be a lot easier. Simply look at your topic clusters and choose one to start with. Use the infographic for the pillar page or one of the content pieces for the cluster.

If you don’t have this set up, here are some things you can do instead:

Conduct a content gap analysis.

A content gap analysis is a user research study that tells you what content you are missing in your strategy. The main idea is to find the magic combination of content that you haven’t created yet and that your audience wants.

This is what will give your infographic marketing strategy the best results. Here are some ways to pinpoint the gap which your infographics can fill.

1. Look at all the customer emails you’ve received and find the most asked questions.
2. Ask your followers on social media what they’d like to know more about regarding your niche or business.
3. Check what your competitors are doing. Either do what they aren’t doing or get inspired by what they do, and do it better.
4. Look on Facebook groups within your niche and look at what people keep asking about. There are generally a few questions that get asked many times. Tap into that! 

Consider guides and how-to instructions for and about your products.

Whatever it is you sell can have a sort of manual. Maybe your customers aren’t seeing the full potential of your products. Or maybe they just want to see a visual step by step instruction of how to use it. 

For a digital company, you can give tips on how your services can be used alongside others for optimal productivity. 

The infographic can be a type of visual manual or step by step guide on how to achieve something.

Get this infographic template and make it your own. Edit and download here.

Think of listicle type content your audience might appreciate.

One of the easiest types of content for an infographic, is a list. Consider the things your audience wants to know and create a list. Use the list to create the infographic.

Look at posts you’ve already published.

A super quick and easy way to find a topic is to look at the blog posts you’ve already published. Surely there’s an article with great information but no eye catching visuals. 

Updating that with an infographic is a great idea!

Always consider the timelessness of content.

Select a topic that can be separated into pieces. For example a list or set of if instructions as we mentioned above. These can be separated into snackable pieces and repurposed as singular graphics or social media carousels.

Always think of the future of your content and how long you can make it last. Choosing a topic while considering this is key to a successful infographic marketing strategy.

Think of processes that involve your product or that fit your niche.

Content that covers a step by step process or follows a timeline can be turned into a flowchart infographic quite easily.

Flowchart infographics look super interesting and Visme has lots of templates for you to choose from.

Customize this infographic template and make it your own. Edit and download here.

2. Create or Repurpose the Content

Now that you know what the infographic will be about, do you need to create new content or can you repurpose it from previously published blog posts, articles, emails newsletters, ebooks, white papers?

Set up the content as an outline so it uses the least amount of text possible. Infographics rely mainly on visuals to portray a story.

Remember that you have the choice of including the infographic in a blog post with the long form content that the infographic is based upon. This is actually a double whammy for infographic marketing as it gives you more opportunities to share on social media. 

So, if you’ll be creating new content you’re better off writing a full blog post and including the infographic in it. 

If repurposing already published content, you just need to shorten it into parts and use it in the infographic. Then add the infographic into that old content! 

3. Select an Infographic Type

This step can be sorted in conjunction with the one above about creating the content. The choice of what style of infographic to use is all about what story you want to portray. 

To give you an idea of the possibilities, here’s a list of the different types of infographics available as Visme templates.

• Statistical infographics
• Informational infographics
• Process infographics
• Timeline infographics
• Anatomical infographics
• Hierarchical infographics
• List infographics
• Comparison infographics
• Location-based infographics
• Visual resume infographics

If you’re just starting out with infographic marketing, we suggest you go with something like a comparison, list or timeline infographic. These are the easiest to set up with blog content. You can also choose if you’d like to create the infographic with one column or two. With blocks or without.

After you’ve done or two of an easier style, move on to the other types of infographics so your content doesn’t go stale.

4. Choose an Infographic Template

Take a look through the infographic templates in our library. They are organized according to the list in the point above. Choose one type and browse through until you find the one that calls to you or fits your vision. 

If you’re unsure about the length of your infographic and if the template will be the right size, don’t worry. Visme infographic templates all have a click and drag function to change the vertical length easily. 

Make the content match the length or make the length match the content. Up to you! Do keep in mind though, that social media platforms like Pinterest have a limit to how much they show in a long infographic.

If you want your infographic to show up in its entirety when it’s shared on Pinterest, best stick to their recommended sizing. 

Another thing to consider is that there’s no set rule about an infographic being long and vertical. You can just as well create a rectangular or square infographic. 

5. Input Your Content

Now it’s time to put your content into the template. The most important thing to consider when setting up the content in your infographic template is that you don’t want it to be cluttered. A cluttered infographic will render your infographic marketing strategy useless. 

Here are some tips to help you.

• Use the outline you put together at the start.
• Don’t add more words than are completely necessary.
• If a bit of text can be switched for an image, do it.
• Use white space to create space to breathe between sections.
• Take advantage of the data widgets to visualize information.
• Add maps for location based data.

6. Make Sure Your Infographic is Snackable and Shareable

Once all your content is inside your template, it’s time to make sure that the information is understandable with a quick read. We like using the word “snackable,” as if the pieces of the infographic were bite size munchies on a delicious platter. 

Successful infographic marketing depends on the “snackability” of your infographic. This doesn’t just make your infographic easier to read and understand, it also makes it super shareable. And shareability is what will make your infographic shine in the long run.

Here are some tips to improve “snackability” and shareability of your infographic:

• The sections must be easily recognized as sections.
• Use colors and shapes to create visual separations between ideas or sections.
• Choose and place icons in the same style to visualize main ideas.
• Stick to a color palette that is both agreeable with your content and nice to look at.
• Fact-check all your content and add your sources at the very bottom.
• Proofread everything!
• Add interactivity and animation. For this technique you’ll need to have two versions of your infographic. An animated one to embed and share with a link, and another static version to share on social media.

One last tip is to create one long vertical infographic that can be separated into same size rectangles or squares.

These rectangles or squares can be separated and added inside the base blog post throughout the long content, turned into social media carousels, or even printed postcards!

Achieve this block technique with the use of Visme content blocks, where each block holds a snackable bit of information. Your Visme editor comes packed with ready to use content blocks that you can simply add into your infographic.

Use this template for your own projects. Edit it here.

7. Conduct Some User Testing 

When you feel that your infographic is finished, it’s time to show it to your peers or a focus group. This is especially important for an infographic marketing strategy but not so much if you’re creating infographics without a strategy.

You might be wondering why it’s even important to do this. Let me explain. For a successful infographic marketing strategy, you need an infographic to be:

• Engaging
• Attractive
• Easy to read
• Snackable
• Shareable
• Inspiring

The only way to know if you’ve achieved any of those things is to conduct user research. Show your peers and ask them a few questions to see how well you did.

If you have a Complete Plan with Visme, you can use our integrated collaboration features and collect comments and ideas right inside your editor.

Here are some sample questions:

• Did the infographic attract your attention to read more into it?
• Does the infographic appeal to your senses in a positive way?
• Do you understand what it’s about without needing more explanation?
• Would you share this infographic with your social media audience?
• Would you embed this infographic into your own content?
• What do you think might be missing in the design or the layout?
• Is there anything that stands out or looks “off”?
• Did you have trouble engaging with the interactive features?

8. Adjust The Look and Feel According to the User Testing

With the answers from your user testing, adjust your infographic. Most often than not, the things that need to be changed are about the way the infographic looks. 

For example:

• The text inside a box doesn’t have any space around it and looks scrunched up.
• Paragraphs are unnecessarily long.
• All the content reaches the edges of the infographic and things look cluttered.
• There’s no clear hierarchy or order to follow.
• The colors are too contrasting and it’s hard to read.
• The icons are all different styles.
• There are too many fonts.
• The interactive features are not evident.
• Animation is over the top and distracting.

Clean up the design using the user testing answers to lead you along. If you want, you can do one more round of user testing before publishing.

Customize this template for your own use. Edit and download it here.

9. Publish Your Infographic

It’s time to make your infographic go live! Publish it with its corresponding long form content. Don't forget to consider SEO and give the infographic its relevant alt text. Also, in the content, introduce the infographic explaining what is visualized on it. 

If you’re including the infographic in a blog post, include the word INFOGRAPHIC in the title for bigger impact. 

Share your interactive infographic to the web with Visme’s integrated sharing features. Use the embed code to add it to your site. 

10. Launch Your Infographic Marketing Strategy

Your infographic is now ready to start it’s journey in your infographic marketing strategy. 

Above, in the section titled “What Does Infographic Marketing Look Like,” we shared a number of ways in which infographic marketing can fit into your overall marketing strategy. 

Which one is best for your right now? 

Whatever is best now might not be a few months from now. If you’re just starting out with infographic marketing and are starting to add them to your blog posts, it might be time to look into content marketing.

Are you simply including the infographic in your social media marketing strategy? Then start sharing it as much as possible and don’t forget to link back to your site.

You should also look into considering a content marketing strategy for your blog. If you’re a small-scale blogger you don’t need a huge strategy, only one that fits your brand.

Bonus points if you put your strategy timeline down in a Gantt Chart infographic like the one below!

Customize this Gantt Chart for your own. Edit it here.

BONUS: Infographic Design Tips for Optimized Infographic Marketing – Straight From the Visual Learning Center

Learn even more about creating and utilizing infographics for your marketing strategy with these top posts from Visme's blog.

• How to Choose the Right Infographic Dimensions for Your Design
• How to Create Animated Infographics With Visme [Step-By-Step Guide]
• How to Build Links With Infographics and Boost Your SEO
• Educational Infographics: How to Use Infographics In Your Online Course
• Follow These 10 Basic Elements of Design For Infographic Mastery
• Infographic Design Tutorial Do’s and Don’ts

Get Started With Your Next Infographic Marketing Strategy

You’re so ready! What are you waiting for to get started creating infographics? 

Infographic marketing isn’t something you can just ignore. It’s a big area in the digital marketing space. Just how video marketing takes center stage, infographic marketing is close behind. Look through your content, what can you repurpose? 

Talk to your users, what do they want to see more of from your content? Your new lead generation strategy is just a few steps away. It’s time to get started with infographic marketing. If you have any questions, just ask in the comments!

Did you find this helpful? You can find the original version of this post here. For more engaging and helpful content, visit Visme’s Visual Learning Center.