The infographic is a misunderstood creature. On the one hand, its viral potential is huge – it’s a data-packed, visually appealing representation of information. On the other hand, few know how to leverage its viral potential and ROI.
Ask content marketing firms in Toronto or anywhere else, and they’ll say infographics are ideal tools in their repertoire, but only the best agencies know exactly how to make the most of them.
Extremely Viral, Limited Use
It’s plain to see how powerful a piece of viral content is for marketing purposes, but the infographic has some limitations including:
- Its image format cannot be crawled by search engine spiders, therefore its SEO use is limited to metadata optimization, keyword inclusion in the filename, and accompanying webpage copy
- It’s a piece of extremely shareable content that, for many channels (including social), cannot be easily linked to a point of sale or front end webpage to lead users directly to conversion
- It’s not really a content type that targeted audiences typically use – indeed, infographics normally only spread awareness, and do not typically foster purchase consideration
BUT, what many miss is that a tool in a content marketing repertoire works best when used in conjunction with other tools. Simply put: many people just use infographics on their own, and that’s not the wisest decision.
Bottom-Line: Top-of-Funnel
Different content types and subject matter appeal to audiences in different stages of the sales funnel. While the digital consumer journey may be extremely complex, it can still be broken down into three phases: top of the funnel, middle of the funnel (where things get complicated), and bottom of the funnel, where the closed sale is the end of the journey.
Infographics are top-of-funnel tools that spread awareness and foster need recognition. When people use them on their own and don’t pull audiences further into the funnel, they’re disconnected from the rest of the inbound marketing effort.
A Simple Approach
So, yes, infographics are great tools for generating leads for your content marketing, whether locally in Toronto or globally – but you need to complete the funnel and drive your leads from the top to the closed sale.
Consider this simple approach:
Step 1: Develop an offer that you will market using an infographic
Step 2: Create your infographic bearing in mind how it can both be informative and persuasive (for the benefit of your offer). Make sure that you optimize the graphic using the metadata tools
Step 3: Use a blog post to showcase the infographic, encouraging social sharing through easy sharing buttons and an accessible embed code for the infographic that creates a link back to the original blog post
Step 4: In the blog post, craft a strong CTA to the offer’s landing page
Instantly, you leverage the viral potential of the infographic in a unified campaign to lead people to your offer.
Best of all, depending on the your market, infographics are more effective as lead generation tools. Also, depending on your subject matter and presentation of the information, infographics can be used to target audiences at a later stage of the funnel.
Remember, a carpenter can’t build a house with just a hammer, regardless of how useful and popular it may be. Infographics alone will get you incomplete results. Properly used however, infographics are powerful lead generation tools for your content marketing efforts.
Image: Cash studios
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