Updated January 13, 2023
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Visual Content to Educate & Persuade
Infographics and content marketing involve the use of special techniques to market an idea. These include content writing for websites and blogs, WordPress projects, and graphic design. Each is effective in its own way when used skillfully. Infographics is another way to communicate a strong idea in a visually appealing matter. If your product or service is complicated, a well-placed visual can avoid symptoms of “information overload.”
Why Use an Infographic?
There is an old saying that “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Infographics and content marketing is a real-world example of this. It is a technique used to provide the customer with a quick glance of services or product information in one glance in an image file, rather than writing it out in several paragraphs.
Therefore, in a sense, infographics is a type of content marketing. It is also sometimes known as vertical response marketing. The focus on infographics should be informational, but it needs to also be engaging and attractive to catch the viewer’s eye. Colorful imagery and design can add to the appeal of an info graphic, and serve to get across important points in a matter of just a few minutes. Because of the fact that it is a limited space which houses this information, it is crucial to know how to get to the point quickly and effectively in an infographic.
Elements of an Infographic
There are several elements of a compelling infographic:
- Pictures – Pictures are the heart of an infographic in most cases. They can be colorful and artistically designed, but they do not have to be done by a professional artist.
- Graphs – The use of graphs and charts is an effective way to give information about a study or research.
- Visual Representations of Facts – Research, statistics and other data can be presented without boring the reader, especially if they are not an expert in the area being presented. The point is to get the information across in a creative matter using pictures and words.
Infographic and Content Marketing DIY Tools
One app to create original info graphics is Wordle. It takes any URL or words and scrambles them up in an abstract but artistic manner to produce a type of word art that represents the ideas encompassed in the URL. You can view samples of it in action at Wordle.
Another interesting tool is Statsilk. This one allows you to do more than just mix up words. You can also incorporate various graphs and charts, statistics and more using this tool. Go to Statsilk to try it out.
A third one to check out is Infogram. This one appeals to even those who are not the next Rembrandt or professional graphic artist. It allows you to upload your various data and information, then translate it through the infographic technology using graphs and statistical information. Word of caution: you can create infographics but won’t be able to download them unless you pay for the service.
All of these tools are handy-dandy ways to communicate an important concept or idea quickly and in style. So even if you don’t have a graphic arts degree, there are some cool tools you can depend on to create your own to get across a brilliant idea you have to share. After all, that IS the point!
Getting Started
The key to anything is just to begin. Explore some of these options on infographics and content marketing online and who knows? You may be the next creative genius of the infographics world who will truly prove that a picture is worth a thousand words and in our age, you can even do on a computer what it would have taken Rembrandt months to complete!
As much as I love words… a visual that gets to the point usually grabs and keeps my attention. What about you?
photo credit – top: Keoni Cabral
photo credit – body: Cambodia4kids.org Beth Kanter
WordPress and Security: IP Blocker