Infographics | The Top 5 Simple Steps To Make Killer Designs

Of course, Yes! It would be so great if we could all (as marketers) create infographics as simple as writing regular old text-based blog posts. Unfortunately, making visual content like this usually takes a lot more time and even effort. But, let’s all face it — skill — than the written word. Usually, besides infographics, ZeroGPT is a tool with worldwide usage for multilingual users.

The tool helps detect AI text output in all the available languages. And, just like other related tools such as the OpenAI ChatGPT, it has the most advanced and reliable ChatGPT and GPT-4 detector tool. Students, teachers, educators, writers, employees, freelancers, copywriters, and everyone on earth may find it a very useful solution to detect AI output text.

Moving on, considering the popularity and effectiveness of visual content in marketing today, you can’t just afford to throw in the towel. And that’s why I decided to take all the pain and suffering out of your infographics creation path. Seriously — don’t give up just yet. For one thing, you, too, can create infographics that are professional-looking.

As well as, high-quality, appealing, and responsive designs completed in under an hour. All of which I’m going to prove to you. Here is a free resource about infographics for students that is free —complete with more details. But, if you are a master in this class, you can simply go ahead and start right away when you download 15 infographic templates for free first.

Understanding What Infographics Really Are

Infographics (a clipped compound of “information” and “graphics”) are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly. But, the meaning of an infographic is something much more specific. Simply put, it’s a collection of imagery, charts, and minimal text that gives an easy-to-understand overview of a topic.

Basically, they can improve cognition by utilizing the power of graphics to enhance the human visual system’s ability to see patterns and trends. Thus, if you are looking to have more interactive leads in your ads, they are the best.

As can be seen, the above diagram (on the mystery of yawning) is a very good example of an infographic. Showcasing how they use striking, engaging visuals to communicate information quickly and clearly. In newspapers, they are commonly used to show the weather, as well as maps, site plans, and graphs for summaries of data.

Still, some books are almost if not entirely made up of information graphics. This helps engage the reader with visuals in support of the context given to have a more relative understanding of the message provided by the author.

Similar pursuits are:

For your information, Isotypes are an early example of infographics conveying information quickly and easily to the masses. But mainly, infographics are widely used in the age of short attention spans. Eventually, infographics have evolved in recent years to be for mass communication. And thus are designed with fewer assumptions about the readers’ knowledge base than other types of visualizations.

What Are Infographics Used For?

Of course, Yes! An infographic is a very important tool. Simply, because the world over, they have been gaining popularity. Becoming widely used amongst businesses and organizations in both digital and print. It can be difficult for people to navigate through countless lines of numbers and statistics whether it be online or in an Excel sheet.

Infographics are used as a powerful tool to allow people to easily digest information through the use of visual data, charts, and statistics. And with the proper use of color, proportion, and negative space, information can be transformed into memorable, attention-grabbing, and even persuasive graphics. Below is what’s more to what Infographics can offer in design terms:

1. Information Presentation

Infographics are a clear, effective, and artistic way of presenting information without losing the attention of the viewer. Bearing in mind, in this fast-paced, modern age, people are inundated with information every day and attention spans are decreasing by the second.

Then again, there are unfathomable amounts of data that are stored online and organized for analyzing and reporting purposes. In that case, a simple infographic breaks down clustered information into more digestible content. Saving massive time on research and costly browsing data.

2. Content Marketing

Infographics are an important component in any well-rounded content marketing strategy. Where marketers (like jmexclusives) can create them for a variety of reasons. Like using them to grab audience attention, educate viewers, and drive engagement via multiple platforms.

Their eye-catching visuals are perfect for social media, email newsletters, and even other websites. They can be especially useful for lead generation through building brand awareness and generating backlinks. That takes users from social media platforms and third-party sites back to your brand’s main website.

3. Mass Outreach

People love to share stats and facts, and infographics are built around these irresistible bits of information. An infographic, shared in the right place at the right time, can translate into a ton of site traffic. This means that a well-designed infographic with unique insights or interesting data can even potentially go viral.

4. Blog Repurposing

You can also use infographics to repurpose old blog articles and whitepapers, especially those that had particularly high levels of engagement. Evergreen articles with step-by-step guides or listed information are especially easy to turn into infographics. While using each step or subheading to guide the infographic elements.

You can then embed the finished graphics within their accompanying blog posts. So that they can live as visual elements surrounded by optimized copy. If you have customer survey data, research findings, or company statistics, an infographic can also be an effective complement to formal reports.

5. Market Profiling

When done well, an infographic can play a role in brand discovery, consideration, conversions, and retention. Yep, that’s literally all the stages of the buyer’s journey. As an example, in electronic commerce, product reviews are used on shopping sites to give customers an opportunity to rate and comment on products they have purchased, right on the product page.

Other consumers can read these when making a purchase decision. And the best method for your product showcasing is through an infographic. And I was not kidding when I said these things are powerful. If your content marketing strategy doesn’t include infographics, you’re missing a huge piece of the puzzle.

Why Is An Infographic So Effective?

Infographics earned their cred in content marketing because our brains can process visuals much faster than words. While these graphics perform like images, the copy allows them to tell a more complete story. For instance, you can easily share infographics with your audience. And as a result, you’re likely to see traction across multiple channels.

More so, given their wow-factor visuals and easily digestible copy. As highly linkable and shareable pieces of marketing content, infographics can also serve as convincing sales tools. There are also statistics that make them a must-have.

Some quick facts about infographics:

Users like or share infographics three times more than other types of content.
Eye-tracking studies prove that people tend to ignore generic stock images.
90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual.

Plus, with attention spans growing shorter by the day, they are praised for being “the perfect way to connect with fickle audiences.” With that in mind, it’s now time to have a look at the elements that helps drive quality infographics. Just as we had earlier mentioned, an infographic is more than just a pretty face.

For one thing, when done right, it’s a perfect marriage of visuals, copy, information, and narrative. To give you a clear idea of the basic forces, below is an image of the key elements needed for designing an infographic:

Visuals: Infographics are, at their core, visual-based content. Every design choice, from the color scheme to the imagery, needs to be carefully considered to draw in your target audience and leave the biggest impact.
Content: Copy adds context to the visuals, but keeps things brief and punchy. The text should work in the service of the graphics.
Data: Infographics are typically informative, using hard data to educate the audience. The more you can support your message and idea with data and research from reputable sources, the more compelling it will be.
Narrative: Your infographic should tell a story, whether you’re highlighting the state of an industry, packaging the results of a survey, or offering tips and advice to your readers. Every bullet point, visual element, and word of copy should tie into that overarching concept.

Visuals and imagery obviously will receive the most attention from your designers, but don’t overlook the other infographic elements. They are extremely important to creating a final product that’s engaging and interesting.

You should always remember to be;

Simple: The point is to condense a lot of data and design a visual solution to interpret it. The design should allow the viewer to easily navigate around the information without being confused. Less is more. Leave “breathing room” for the eye and limit the use of colors. By sticking to a palette of 3-4 colors the design will not get too busy.
Universal: Universal design is important so that information can be accessible to everyone. By using recognizable icons and images an infographic will be understood by many. It is safe to assume that not only savvy internet users recognize most icons. Infographics can take on a language of their own by delivering information in an accessible way.
Original: Whether it be an important political issue, a sales report, or marketing content, each infographic design should be original. Through the creative use of color, proportion, fonts, images, and text, the design should be unique and grab the attention of viewers.
Subjective: Maintain a cohesive aesthetic with the subject matter and brand image of the organization. Start with a mood board to capture the tone of the message or purpose.

Always remember, the most visually unique, creative infographics are often the most effective because they grab our attention and don’t let go. With this in mind, below are the simple steps to follow (especially for beginners). But, for more advanced users, there are a few tools you can use (like Canva) to design beautiful infographics to help in your marketing plan.

1. Identify your target audience

First of all, infographics don’t sell themselves on design alone. So, you need to deliver “info” that’s just as compelling as the “graphic.” And to do that, you need to know the audience your infographic intends to reach. According to the Harvard Business Review, there are five possible audiences. Some of which can change how you choose and visualize your data.

Like a novice, generalist, managerial, expert, or executive. So, start by comparing your infographic’s ideal reader with one of these five audiences. Then ask yourself, Which one applies to your reader? Secondly, when thinking about the data you want to visualize, let the five audiences above dictate how advanced your data will be.

For example, a “novice” audience might need data whose meaning is more obvious at first blush. While an “expert” might be more interested in getting into the weeds of your numbers and posing theories around them. And lastly, keep in mind that an “executive” has more in common with a novice audience.

In that, they only have time for the simplest or most critical information, and the effects it’ll have on the business.

2. Collect your relevant content data

Using the audience you’ve chosen above, your next step is to organize all the content and data you’ll use in the infographic. Whereby, you can either collect third-party data or use your own original data. And if you use third-party data, just be sure you properly cite your sources. Just like in any other good piece of content.

2.1. How do you Organize your Data?

When collecting your data, make sure you know what story you want to tell through this information. Data for the sake of data won’t add value to your infographic at all. After all, compelling data needs to be “comprehensive” enough. In order to give your readers a proper context around the data that you’re presenting.

For example, a spike in website traffic from one month to the next doesn’t mean much. Until, say, you reveal that traffic was on a steady decline over the previous three months. Suddenly, you have a story of how you were able to reverse a downward trend.

2.2. How do you Cite your Sources?

To keep your infographic uncluttered by a ton of different source URLs, a great way to cite your sources is to include a simple URL at the bottom of your infographic. Particularly, that links to a page on your site. You can also list the individual stats used in your infographic and their sources. Such as the landing page to the full offer on which you’re basing this free infographic.

That way, your infographic looks clean and professional, yet people will still be able to access the sources no matter where the infographic gets shared or embedded. It may also even drive visitors back to your site.

3. Choose your custom design template

Your next step is to choose an infographic template appropriate for representing that data. The important thing is to choose a template that specifically works for the type of data set/content you want to present. You can download 15 infographic templates in PowerPoint and choose whichever template you’d like.

Some of your template options in the offer linked above include a timeline, flowchart, side-by-side comparison, and a data-driven infographic. There are some basic ideas for choosing an infographic template to help suit the story.

You may want your data to have:

Side-by-side comparison infographic: This infographic design can help prove the advantage of one concept over another, or simply explain the differences between two competing entities.
Flowchart Infographic: This design is perfect for presenting a new workflow for your organization, or how a linear or cyclical process works across your industry.
Timeline infographic: This design can tell a chronological story, or history, of a business, industry, product, or concept.
Graph-based infographic: This design is suitable for content creators publishing a high volume of data and statistical information, making it a good fit for expert-level audiences, too.
Image-heavy infographic: This design caters to content creators who are trying to reveal trends and information from shapes, designs, or photography — rather than just numbers and figures.

4. Customize your infographic design

Obviously, this is the most time-consuming part — but it’s also the most fun. Simply come up with a catchy title, plug in your data/content, and adjust your font sizes and formatting. Feel free to switch up the graphics and colors, too. So that they’re relevant to your brand and the data you’re providing.

For other templates, you can use the simple graphs and charts provided by PowerPoint to create things like the bar graph or the pie chart. (Note: Download free infographic templates for a cheat sheet for using PowerPoint’s various features and tools). To customize the look of the infographic even further, you might add or change up the colors or font styles.

5. Add a footer (using the resource logo)

Finally, include a link to your source, as well as the source logo. So that people know who created the infographic if it gets shared on social media or gets embedded on other websites. After all, which is definitely something you want. Since one of the main benefits of creating infographics is their shareability. That’s it! This whole thing took under an hour to put together.

The only thing left to do is to publish and promote your awesome new infographic. Just as we aforementioned, we recommend using your blog to publish it (including your list of sources). It is also important to include a Pinterest Button for visitors to easily “pin” your infographic on Pinterest. And, the better you become at it, the more user engagement you’ll get in return.

Equally important, you can create and add embed code for visitors to share on their own websites and blogs as well. In other words, Infographics don’t just sell themselves on design alone. So, you need to deliver “info” that’s just as compelling as the “graphic.” And to do that, you need to know the audience your infographic intends to reach.

Takeaway,

According to the Harvard Business Review, there are five possible audiences. Some of which can change how you choose and visualize your data. Like a novice, generalist, managerial, expert, or executive. So, start by comparing your infographic’s ideal reader with one of these five audiences. Then ask yourself, Which one applies to your reader?

Secondly, when thinking about the data you want to visualize, let the five audiences above dictate how advanced your data will be. For example, a “novice” audience might need data whose meaning is more obvious at first blush. While an “expert” might be more interested in getting into the weeds of your numbers and posing theories around them.

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Infographics | The Top 5 Simple Steps To Make Killer Designs