Infographic marketing is going strong (58% of marketers use infographics, according to the Content Marketing Institute’s B2B Content Marketing Report 2017), but not everyone is doing infographic marketing well.
Even though the format has been around for the last decade, many brands are still stuck in 2009, creating irrelevant and poorly designed infographics that don’t do anything but make someone want to click something else. But not all brands.
5 Brands That Do Infographic Marketing the Right Way
Because we like to celebrate great work, we thought we’d give you a rundown of five brands that are doing outstanding infographic marketing. These all-stars are making stellar infographics that help them achieve their goals, whether that means boosting SEO rankings or building brand awareness. If you want to up your infographics game, find out why they do infographics so well—and how you can apply their philosophy to your work.
1) Course Hero
Who they are: Course Hero provides instant access to online learning via millions of study resources, course notes, test prep, etc.
Why their infographics work: Course Hero expertly uses infographic marketing as an extension of both their service and their brand promise: making learning easy and accessible.
As such, they have created a variety of infographics that provide useful education to the reader, specifically via their literary infographics series. The infographics work as visual CliffsNotes, breaking down famous works of literature by detailing everything from main characters to major themes.
These visual aids help bring the literature to life and make it easier for learners to connect with the material, increasing comprehension and recall. With these simple infographics, Course Hero successfully builds brand awareness and provides a useful educational tool to readers, proving that everything they do is meant to help you learn.
What you can take away: Consider ways to demonstrate your brand value through infographic marketing, whether you create something entertaining, educational, or inspirational. You can also learn how to incorporate your product or service marketing into your infographics.
2) Incapsula
Who they are: Incapsula provides DDos and web security to any website, making sites safer, faster, and more reliable.
Why their infographics work: For a web security company, understanding how web threats affect people and their businesses is crucial. For that reason, Incapsula conducts regular research to both identify issues that people may be unaware of and assess how those issues affect businesses.
Most importantly, they turn their research into interesting and unique data stories, told through infographics. This helps them share their insights in an engaging way, bringing the data to life for their readers.
For example, this animated infographic, based on an Incapsula survey, looks at how a customer’s SAAS site availability stacks up against competitors. It’s a subject that speaks to a target group, and its eye-catching design makes it hard to miss.
What you can take away: Internal data is the perfect place to find compelling data stories that reveal your expertise, authority, and (ultimately) ability to solve existing problems. If you’re not a data wiz, follow our step-by-step guide to find the stories in your data.
3) LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Who they are: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is dedicated to helping marketers effectively connect with people through the LinkedIn platform.
Why their infographics work: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions focuses on providing value to marketers by giving them all the tools they need to do their job well. While, yes, that means LinkedIn’s specific tools and solutions, their infographic marketing is focused on providing knowledge and insights that help marketers in a larger sense.
Whether it’s tips on how to craft the perfect marketing mix (visualized as food) or the people you need to create a rockstar marketing team, their creative infographics serve up an endless stream of useful info to help marketers work smarter.
What you can take away: Think about how to provide true value through your infographic marketing, whether it’s tips, tutorials, or other info that helps readers in some way. To start, here are 7 ways to create more valuable content.
4) Jobvite
Who they are: Jobvite is a recruiting software company that makes it easier to source, hire, and onboard the right people.
Why their infographics work: Jobvite focuses on a specific portion of the population: recruiters. And they know this segment is very busy trying to hire the right people. They need the knowledge to do their job better and an eye on the industry to compete. To provide this, Jobvite does the legwork in helping them stay on top of it all.
Via data-heavy infographics that communicate the latest job market statistics, Jobvite synthesizes info and delivers it in an easy-to-consume manner, saving their incredibly busy readers time and energy.
What you can take away: Think about what people want to know but don’t have time to dig into. You might distill the latest industry report or research into an interesting infographic, or think about what concepts, info, or data you might visualize in a way that makes it easier (and more compelling) to digest. If you can communicate that info concisely, they will be endlessly grateful.
Not sure where to look? Here are 104 free data sources to find interesting stories.
5) Digit
Who they are: An app that automates your savings.
Why their infographics work: Digit is about helping people become more financially healthy, but their content focuses on what that means in every sense.
Instead of dry, boring infographics about smart financial management, their infographic marketing covers the more colorful side of money management. From the cost of a “good time” in pop music to the financial state of the marijuana industry, Digit’s interesting pieces bring money to life in the modern world.
What you can take away: Digit’s creativity is something to be admired. They can put an interesting narrative spin on just about any subject that relates to finances, letting them create a large variety of content.
Consider how you might make your own content more appealing by infusing it with pop culture or trending topics. Newsjacking is also a great way to do this, but first read our tips on how to do it the right way.
5 Tips to Make Even Better Infographics
While you can learn a thing or two from these brands, it’s on you to take your own infographic marketing to the next level. With better stories, slicker design, and smarter distribution, you can improve the efficacy and impact of everything you make. Not sure how to do it all? Here are a few ways to start:
- Use this template to write a better infographic brief.
- Try these exercises to come up with better infographic ideas.
- Learn how to create infographics from scratch.
- Avoid the 15 most common infographic design mistakes.
- Optimize your infographic for SEO to get more traffic.
And if you need someone to help guide you through, here are 10 questions to ask an infographic design company to find out if they’re the right partner for you. Of course, we’d be happy to chat with you, too.
