7 steps to better infographic design

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Kick your infographic design process up a notch. Get the seven step framework I use to make Kaleidico's infographic division one of the top performing in the market. Our infographic design process goes beyond simple design and extends into the nuances and challenges of getting those creative infographics to drive targeted Web traffic and convert into more profitable business opportunites.

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Page 1: 7 Steps to Better Infographic Design
Page 2: 7 Steps to Better Infographic Design

7 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE INFOGRPAHICS.

Infographics are an increasingly effective digital marketing tactic because the Internet is becoming an increasingly media rich environment. It’s harder and harder to capture the attention of an Internet user with text--increasingly engaging images and videos are a necessity in your content marketing strategy.

An effectively designed infographic can be a perfect blend of compelling design and influential copy. Infographics can be the new sales letter. A smartly beautiful way to encourage consumers to engage with your brand without ever tripping a consumer’s natural recoil reflex to a sales pitch.

Convinced you need to give it a try? Here’s how to get it done and ensure a positive ROI.

Welcome

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7 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE INFOGRPAHICS.

Every infographic needs to start with a goal, a raison d’être!

This is more critically important than most businesses and marketers consider. Don’t create an infographic because it’s trendy or because the competitor is doing it--this will simply add you to the noise and throw away your investment.

Carefully consider the reasons you might create an infographic to set your design up for viral success.

Create an infographic because you need to communicate a complex, even boring, but important concept.

Create an infographic because you need to make the difficult understandable--revealing the hidden simplicity.

Create an infographic because you need to make something frustratingly difficult understandable and compelling.

Create an infographic because you want to reveal the beauty of a concept to your community.

Create an infographic because you want someone to have the same passion you do for an idea.

With a clear purpose for your infographic the vision for its creation will become increasingly evident. This vision will streamline the

production of the infographic and make the final product more compelling.

Give Your Infographic Purpose

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7 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE INFOGRPAHICS.

Equally important to the understanding of purpose is understanding the position and perspective of your potential audience.

Who is going to want to see and understand this infographic? How will they approach the concept? Will it be completely new to them? Or perhaps they will be skeptical and need convincing? Or maybe they are experts and you’re trying to convince them of a new approach or a revelation?

Yes, there are a multitude of places from which people might approach your infographic. To make it effective you need to set yourself in their shoes. This will help you to design the storyline and later help you build the campaign to promote and attract that audience to your masterpiece of visual marketing.

Identify the Audience

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7 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE INFOGRPAHICS.

Nothing will make an infographic fall flatter than a lack of research. Much like a poorly written copy in marketing--the best of compelling language and poetic prose can’t polish a turd of an offer or product. You need to dig deep into the topic or concept and reveal something interesting or urgent.

I could care less how many people watch reality TV. However, if you draw me into an interestingly designed storyline that reveals that 85% of those that watch reality TV do most of their Christmas shopping online and 99% of reality TV enthusiast spend an average of three hours a day on Facebook and generally like their favorite shows on Facebook, which you can specifically target with Facebook Ads and therefore online retailers should use Facebook Ads. Assuming I’m an online retailer, I probably will begin to care and try Facebook Ads.

Research Your Infographic

YOU NEED TO SHOWCASE A TREND OR A TRUTH THAT NEEDS TO BE TOLD AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, NEEDS TO BE ACTED ON.

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7 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE INFOGRPAHICS.

Believe me stats are super effective in marketing. They satisfy so many of the core needs for a consumer to take action: • Stats make you credible - The numbers support the claim. • Stats build a sense of trust - It tested and verified. • Stats demonstrates the social proof - Everyone is doing it. • Stats create a sense of urgency - Trends are fleeting. • Stats validate your legitimacy - What fraud would take the time to research?

The trick is to identify what you want your audience to do, and assuming you believe it to be valuable and compelling to them--find the data to support what you know to be valuable.

The Internet makes research easier, but you need to know where to dig for credible data. Here are a few places that I regularly use:Data HubFreebaseData360GallupNumber ofThe research is where most infographics fall flat. Don’t get lazy here. Remember beautiful design can only do so much--the content has to pull its load.

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7 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE INFOGRPAHICS.

Both generally work, but the clever angle is usually the one that sends infographics viral. You see the the formula that really sends infographics viral is when the expert community on the topic picks up the infographic and endorses it within their community--giving it the credibility and the networks to launch into the stratosphere.

This, of course, requires that it’s well researched and accurate and that you have spotted a unique trend or application that has largely escaped the community.

Give Your Infographic a Clever Angle

Merely present the data and the conclusions in a unique way, or

Find a unique of clever angle on making the data meaningful

Believe me if there is an interesting concept to be explored, someone has compiled statistics on it. You can also be assured that several folks have also already passed some judgement or made some supposition around those statistics. This leaves you with a couple of options when you set forth to create your infographic on the topic:

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7 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE INFOGRPAHICS.

Slapping numbers on a picture is not enough to make a compelling infographic. You have to craft an interesting story.

Start to weave together all of the work you have done so far: purpose, audience, research, and unique angle. Consider where your audience is most likely positioned when they come across your infographic and how you can take them to the place you’re trying to land them.

Every story has a beginning, a challenge, a struggle, a resolution, and hopefully a moral of the story. This isn’t a bad formula for designing your infographic story.

Begin with a clear picture of the current state of your infographic concept.

Explore the challenges and struggles, the problem with business as usual or missing the value of this explanation. Now, you need to take your audience straight to the promise land--show them how to consistently beat this struggle and achieve consistent, repeatable success. Then, at the height of their confidence, call them to take action and seize the opportunity.

This is how you design an infographic for engagement. The story draws them in and gives them confidence; not only inspiring their own personal action, but also the need to share that discovery with others.

Tell an Interesting Story

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7 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE INFOGRPAHICS.

Certainly it’s not always so dramatic, but the principle is sound. You want to create an infographic that sparks a couple of key emotions that will maximize engagement and encourage sharing.This has some value for me and inspires me to an action, and Pay attention! This is the moneymaker, as an infographic marketer: If I share this infographic others will find it interesting, or even better, it will make me seem interesting.I’m exposing so marketing secrets here. I’ve witnessed it over and over again. The stuff that goes viral rarely is the most useful or valuable, but instead it’s the stuff that makes the sharer feel like others will find them clever or interesting.

It’s a subtle, but critical difference. Create stuff that makes your army of sharers look like insiders.

Design for Engagement

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7 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE INFOGRPAHICS.

You’ve created a beautiful infographic.

It boils the most complex and important of topics down to a simple, memorable story. You’re certain that it’ll drive anyone to take action and share it with all of their friends.

You’ve officially entered the danger zone. If you mistaking believe that you work is done; that great art gets its reward, you are about to be disappointed and frustrated.

The most important and hardest view to get for any piece of Internet content is the first one. Once your content has been seen, shared, and swept up into a tightly networked community--viral is easy. Prior to that point, getting some one to look at your content for the first time takes some heavy lifting and hardcore selling.

Get it Seen

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7 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE INFOGRPAHICS.

1. Give your infographic a good, relevant home. Hopefully it is surrounded by other relevant content and the host page is optimized for sharing: killer headline, keyword rich introduction, the infographic itself, easy to cut and paste HTML embed code, and multiple social sharing options.

2. Use a good old fashion press release to announce your infographic. Present it like any other research report--it’s just more visually appealing.

3. Leverage image sharing sites like Flickr, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram to attract more visually oriented audiences and communities.

4. Social media drip campaigns are way underestimated for

gaining traction and building sustained traffic to any kind of content. Simply build an editorial calendar that regularly posts and re-posts your infographic or teaser snippets of it to your Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ communities.

5. Don’t underestimate the power of paid media. Google AdWords and Facebook Ads can instantly ramp up your Web traffic. If your infographic supports the selling of a product or service or you’re effectively capturing prospects or emails the ROI might just support a little paid traffic to boost its visibility.

6. Blogger outreach is hard, I won’t lie. It’s kind of like sales, but it is super powerful and rewarding. Done in a good way you are building connections and relationships that return value far beyond the featuring one infographic. That really is the secret here. Try to be a little human about requesting your infographic be considered for their blog.

Get my infographic PR checklist to increase your infographics opportunity for viral success.

Here’s the summary version:

Page 12: 7 Steps to Better Infographic Design

7 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE INFOGRPAHICS.

At this point, you would be right to conclude that infographics are a bit more complex to launch and employ as an effective digital marketing tactic, than at first glance. However, there is no denying how powerful they can be in influencing and growing a lucrative audience.

We’ve given you a complete and successful framework. Literally, this is the framework we use to launch infographics for our clients. It works. Nothing is left out. But, if you need help in designing or launching your first infographic marketing campaign--we’re here. Get Kaleidico to assist you in designing and promoting infographics for your marketing campaign.

Call 313-782-3933 to talk to a live designer (the actual designer that will create your infographic).

Launch Your First Infographic Campaign