This week’s guest post comes from Richard Larson, the Brand Manager for GoPromotional Banners. Richard has some excellent advice on designing your infographic, making it relevant to your readers, and ultimately seeing it succeed as a marketing tool.
Infographics can be a powerful and influential communication tool in your marketing arsenal. Initially, you want your infographic to have that “pop” that attracts your target audience’s eye . However, the most important thing is that your infographic follows through by engaging those readers. Design and clarity are a big part of achieving this.
Is your target audience addressed in your infographic and can they understand the information that you are incorporating into it? When you continually keep that in mind during the design process, you are sure to have a winning infographic that isn’t just an amazing design, but is also a focused marketing tool that your target audience will understand and share on their social channels. One way to ensure that your infographic is interesting, engaging, and understood is to tell a story with it.
We’ll be using the infographic below to show how all this works.
Telling a Story Within the Design of Your Infographic
Use the sectioning of the infographic to your advantage by including an introduction section, middle sections (the “next…” and “then…” parts of your story), and a last section (a conclusion with a call to action).
Today, we will explore our example infographic to point out how telling a story is a successful way to implement your creative design elements. Just like a promotional product helps your customers remember your brand, the image-rich nature of infographics helps readers recall information better than with text alone. Let’s explore the idea of the sections of our infographic story:
1. Introduction Section
In our example, the introduction tells readers how they can be a superhero at the next industry trade show. It immediately addresses the target audience as trade show exhibitors and lets them know that this infographic can help them attract trade show attendees to their booth. It then answers how the power of promotional products will achieve that goal.
Infographics need to drive their point(s) home with statistics – that is how you convince your reader that they need your product or services. Stating “71.6% of attendees who received a promotional product remembered the name of the company” stands out as a convincing (and memorable) argument.
2a. Next Section
The next section of the infographic tells the next part of our story. It helps readers understand specific examples of how promotional products can help them achieve success at their trade show booth, further driving home the point from the introduction that promotional products help exhibitors make an impression on attendees. Putting a logo on different objects helps improve branding. Including multiple colors and the different textures of the designs is definitely a great way to attract the eye and encourage the audience to read each colored shape in this section.
2b. Then Section
Our story continues in the “to be continued” section of our infographic, which is the “then” part of the story. This section drives home the point of “why trade show promotional products are important”. It offers more examples of products you can put your logo on and give away to trade show attendees. The promotional products are colorfully designed to attract the eye.
Our superman business hero is also an important design element because it keeps with the theme of our “how to” introduction. Plus, everyone wants to be a superhero.
3. Concluding Section
Our concluding section of the infographic drives home the point that promotional products at your next trade show will make you a superhero. Statistics show that promotional products build awareness and increases sales, which is likely the goal of almost every trade show exhibitor. The end of the infographic shows where you can buy your promotional products now that you are convinced they will help you exhibit at your next trade show. Our story is done and our creative design has helped to tell it efficiently.
Summary and Takeaways
When designing an infographic, the creative process comes proves important if you focus on telling a story. At the same time, it can also help reinforce your idea to your target audience.
Colourful images and telling statistics can support your products or services in a way that matters to readers. This is the different between telling someone something is good, and showing them its value. Weaving in a story is how you make a cohesive infographic that your target audience will want to read to the end. This leads to them sharing the infographic and ultimately engaging with your brand or company.
Richard Larson is Brand Manager for GoPromotional Banners. He enjoys sharing online marketing and business tips.