But the world is evolving, and so is content marketing. People now want something better than just flowy lines of texts and blocks of strokes. And that’s where infographic marketing comes in.

With infographics, you don’t have to be worried about not engaging or exciting your readers enough. Moreover, infographics do much more than engaging. 

Let’s quickly dive into what an infographic is, its benefits for your content strategy, and eight actionable ways to use infographics in content marketing.

What Are Infographics?

Infographics are visuals containing images, statistics or data represented through elements like pie and bar charts, a few or more texts, and other visual icons. And its purpose is to present complex information in simpler terms while making sure your audience easily understands the messages passed.

That’s not so much different from the purpose of every other content marketing strategy. But an infographic gives you a better head start, grows engagement, encourages sharing, and improves SEO by generating backlinks.

Not convinced? Check out these popular statistics:

• Blog content with Infographics have 30x chances of being read compared to articles without.
• Almost 65% of brands make use of infographics marketing.
• You can increase your website traffic by as much as 12% with infographics.
• People remember 65% of visual information.

So if your content strategy is already redundant and you need to spice things up or you want more results, incorporate infographics.

7 Ways To Use Infographics In Content Marketing

Integrating infographics with content marketing is one of the best approaches to drive up your marketing results, and here’s how you can do that.

1. Visualize Data and Statistics

Raw data and statistics are goldmines for content marketers, business owners, and creators aiming to step up their content game. When you add such original research results especially from locally conducted surveys to your content, you’re automatically building some credible and authoritative value for your brand.

The reason is because people love real facts right from its source, not regurgitated ones that have been copied from one website to the other. However, presentation also matters. Publishing your report data as strings of words and algebraic figures make no sense to your target audience. 

That’s why using infographics is a better alternative. With a tinge of storytelling and zero fluffs, you can easily use procreate grass brushes and other design tools to visualize your research outcome with a collection of images, charts, illustrations, and many more.

The infographics you create can later be used on different channels including social media and your email campaigns to generate more engagement or whatever goals you have in mind.

2. Boost Emailing Efforts

Email marketing is one of the most lucrative marketing strategies with a ROI of $36 for every $1 spent according to Litmus. That’s a lot of returns especially if you are well-versed with the tips and tricks of running a successful email campaign.

However, an analysis conducted by Campaignmonitor showed that email open rate as of 2022 hovers merely around 21.5%. And one thing is sure, every 1% increase means more chances of converting your email subscribers to take an action such as purchasing your products or interacting with your content.

Increasing your email open rate goes beyond sending more emails or using emotionally powerful words in your subject lines. If you want to keep your subscribers always in anticipation of your emails, you need to ensure your previous email content was valuable and highly engaging.

It’s not that powerful subject lines are not helpful. It’s just that it will make your subscribers open your email the first time. But only good content will motivate them to open the future ones. 

So if you’re the type that likes bombarding your email lists with awesome subject lines but substandard email body, you need to stop.

Instead, use infographics to convey your messages like Grammarly does.

Do you have a monthly usage report to send to your subscribers? Turn it into infographics and make it more interesting to read. Use procreate chain brush sets to design some realistic illustrations for your infographics and employ appealing colors to retain their attention.

3. Spice Up Blog Posts (+summarize)

There are several millions, perhaps billions of websites on the internet. And over 7 million blog content are published per day. Moreover, 77% of people read blog pieces regularly, with almost 61% of online shoppers having bought a product after reading a blog.

So if you’re looking for the best place online to achieve your marketing goals organically, that’s blogging. The only problem is, too many blog pieces go live every day with several hundreds of thousands posting similar content to yours every hour.

That makes it more difficult to cut through the noise and have your content rank unless you’re offering something more unique. 

So how do you get your blog on the frontpage of search engines like Google?

It’s simple! Use infographics in your blog pieces. Most content on the internet lacks relevant visuals, and that point already puts your website above many others.

Moreso, quite a lot of website owners have the habit of using another website’s infographics instead of creating theirs. Now the reason could be because of a limited budget or maybe they feel it’s not necessary.

And that’s why you need to take advantage of their lapses. 

Create your infographics from scratch or use existing templates and place your content inside. Publish it alongside your blog article. You can also publish an infographic as a standalone blog piece with little to no supporting textual content. 

The end result of adding infographics in blog posts is that they boost engagement, increase dwell time, improve interactions, and reduce bounce rate. Visuals also have their way of spicing up every content piece.

4. Create Comparison Content

Comparison articles are useful middle-of-the-funnel content for convincing your leads during the consideration or decision-making stage. And for people at this stage of your marketing funnel, they want to hear you speak less while passing more valuable, compelling information.

So instead of creating blocks of textual content as usual, you should employ infographics. An infographics is more helpful for creating distinct and clear comparison between two products, services, brands, and even product features.

With an infographic, you can reveal succinct and concise details between two things, minor details that would otherwise be ignored if presented as just strings of words only. Take a look at the sample below:

Source: Venngage

5. Raise Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is crucial to every business. The more people know and can recognize your brand, the more you will be able to dominate the market. And one of the best ways to do that is by including your identity on your marketing content.

For every infographics you create, etch your brand name and logo on it. Anytime people share your infographics, their audience is also going to see your brand identity. According to Zippa, it takes five to seven impressions for people to remember and recognize your brand.

Let’s say Forbes used one of your infographics in their website content. Forbes has more than 84.4 million monthly visits. That’s an enormous opportunity for exposure since there’s a possibility hundreds of thousands of people will see your branded infographics on Forbes website.

6. Create Link Building Opportunities

One of the greatest rewards from creating unique infographics is backlinks. Quality backlinks to your website helps to increase your domain authority and ranking on SERPs. And the higher you rank on SERPs, the more traffic you get.

We created a quick scenario on getting your infographics featured on Forbes. Besides the millions of monthly traffic, this website also has a domain authority of 94 and a 1% spam score thus making it a dream backlink source for every content marketer. 

Aside from Forbes, other relevant websites on the internet linking back to your infographics can boost your DA and rocket your pagerank on search engines.

7. Improve Sharing To Social Media

Social media is another huge source of indirect traffic for online businesses. As of 2023, there are about 4.9 billion active social media users with Facebook taking the largest share. Talk about an infinite pie.

Anytime you create valuable infographics addressing the pain points of your target audience, they are 3x more likely to share it with their friends and followers on social media. Now, this has nothing to do with your own follower’s base.

However, you have to ensure your infographics are shareable. Most content marketers make this mistake, thus making it impossible for readers to advocate by sharing your content. If the infographics is part of your blog post, then make sure the post can be shared. Provide links and sharing icons to different social media platforms like Quora, Facebook, and even Whatsapp.

Conclusion

Content marketing is a full-proof marketing strategy to get more leads and convert cold prospects into loyal customers. To achieve your results, however, you need to scale your content beyond the usual boring blocks of texts into visually appealing infographics.

Start with using infographics to visualize your research data and report into something readable. Then use these graphics to spice up your email, blog content, and comparison articles while ensuring they are shareable. Lastly, optimize each of your infographics for link building opportunities.

Author Bio

Ayomide Olabode is a professional B2B analyst and the senior SaaS content writer for Digital Gratified. He is so enthusiastic about digging out new market strategies that work. And aside from writing during the day, you can find him trading the forex chart at night.

The post How To Use Infographics In Content Marketing? appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Ok, perhaps some exaggeration, but for many marketers webcast success can be elusive. Which begs the question, how can webcasts be more effective? Answer: planning, execution, branding, promotion, and much more. How about a printable pdf of 57-Point Webcast Effectiveness Checklist more?

Before we get to that checklist, please consider that unless you are a celebrity, or your company is a Unicorn, your product/service might be boring? Yet webcasts are used by lots of boring companies and services. So how are they successful? Again, no silver bullets but do consider having a referenceable customer or client as a panelist on your webcast. Why? Because you are likely a vendor. Prospects often don’t want to hear from a vendor. Prospects are however, very interested in listening to their peers, or even competitors. In sum, panelist recruitment is critical to webcast success.

Next, please consider the topic, and specifically the title of your webcast. It must be interesting, even provocative. Do some A/B testing of titles via email or even Twitter. Compare title engagement, and move forward with the better, tested title.

Ok, so you have one or more panelists and an interesting title. Now all you need is a mountain of marketing, communications, and promotion. To maximize webcasts registrations, you also need time. That is, start the promotion cycle 60 days out from the webcast (longer if possible). But wait, before you start the “marketing machine” you will need the panelist(s), topic/title, and other tactical items like a webcast registration page, a news announcement, possibly a website banner or call-to-action (CTA), and more. Please do not attempt to produce a webcast 2-weeks prior–it will really suck!

About that mountain of marketing, communications, and promotion—the most effective webcasts employ multiple marketing channels that will be identified in the 57-Point Webcast Effectiveness Checklist including a news announcement, blog, social media posts, email campaigns, directory listings, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), and more. So without further ado…

Copy and paste the code below to add to your own website: 

<a href=”https://www.modernmarketingpartners.com/why-do-my-webcasts-suck/” title=”Webcast Checklist”><img src=”https://www.modernmarketingpartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Webcast-Checklist-Infographic-MMP.jpg” width=”100%” style=”max-width: 850px;” alt=”Webcast Checklist”></a><br>Provided by <a href=”https://www.modernmarketingpartners.com/” target=”_blank”>Modern Marketing Partners</a> 

Webcast Success is Possible

Successful webcasts require a lot of work, much planning, and timely execution.

The promise of a successful webcast is a lot of registrations from often marketing qualified leads (MQLs), and potentially sales qualified leads (SQLs), along with the opportunity to reinforce your brand as a thought leader for the subject matter. And webcasts are the gift that keeps giving, with On-Demand video versions useable for YouTube channels, and website resources.

Avoid “sucking” by recruiting an interesting panelist, creating an interesting title, and marketing early and often using the printable pdf of 57-Point Webcast Effectiveness Checklist.

Relevant Webcast Resources:

10 Best Practices for Webinars or Webcasts (HubSpot)

LinkedIn Events – How to Use This Well-Hidden Feature (MMP)

Event Marketing Checklist – Trade Shows and Live Events (MMP)

10 Best Webinar Platforms of 2019 (VentureHarbour.com)

18 Tips on How To Conduct an Engaging Webinar

The post Why Do My Webcasts Suck? appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

It makes it tough to be seen in the marketplace. This is especially true if you need to present numbers and statistics, which often are pretty dull and boring. Into the spotlight steps, infographics, which offer a unique way to tell a visual story through numbers and facts that relates to your clients.

Infographics work because our brains retain information presented in visual format better than text alone. According to Brain Rules, adding a picture to information will help audiences retain 65% of it up to three days later versus only retaining 10% for something they heard. People also love a good narrative, which is why marketers always have their brands promote their company story on their website. It’s also why infographics work well because they unite these two marketing tactics to help information get remembered and shared.

However, before you go racing to create an infographic you need to think about the data you want to utilize. Not all data necessarily works in this format. Additionally, companies produce a good deal of data, so you need to prioritize the most relevant points that will help you create a compelling infographic.

An infographic is not simply a chart or table, in its entirety it explains a challenging concept, leading visitors through specific details to gain a better perspective about a particular subject or product/service. Therefore, information specialists recommend several key tactics to consider regarding your datapoints and subsequent development of an infographic:

• Determine that there is data available that speaks to the point you’re trying to make
• Decide that the data if shown visually better demonstrates the idea than if written
• You need multiple sets of data, not just enough for one chart. Establish that as a whole, you have data that tells a complete story
• Comb through the data and identify purposeful points that are the most important to your goal
• Also look for datapoints that will help viewers clearly understand what is being communicated
• Connect the datapoints from beginning, middle and end to draw the viewer to a conclusion
• Try to identify a visual theme that the data points lend themselves to
• Remember to keep the graphic easy to read and visually appealing

There are definitely some types of information that naturally lend itself to be presented as an infographic. Here is a quick list of content that becomes even more valuable visually – the last two you may not have initially thought of, but in an infographic the info really stands out:

• Survey data becomes more relevant when the visuals enhance the findings
• Important benchmark reports are easily retrievable for year-to-year comparison
• Complicated annual reports presented in an infographic format are way more powerful than old-school charts
• New product concepts or service processes quickly turn into shareable infographic company success stories
• Tutorials can visually help teach clients or employees something new
• Press releases might just reach a busy journalist who is inundated with pitches

As attention spans shorten and data becomes more abundant, companies should definitely incorporate infographics into their marketing strategy.

The post Smart Tactics for Organizing Infographics appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

The Lies and Extortion of Paid Infographic Sites

These have been around for a while. Some of them were once free, some of them were never free, and others won’t say they are charging until you receive an email that looks something (exactly) like this:

This is an excerpt from communication with an infographic site I reached out to based on advice from a list (not our list of infographic submission sites, although that also needs updated). Located in India, I submitted for the sake of submitting, only to receive an email requesting $120.00 to be “featured” to 100,000+* monthly site visitors.

*Author’s Note: Estimated visitors was actually closer to 23,000 monthly (StatsTool).

For $120.00, you could reach a targeted audience on Facebook of 49,000 to 130,000 people (Boosted post), or an insanely targeted group of nearly 20,000 LinkedIn users.

Understandably, I declined his offer to feature my infographic on his site.

Yet his site is in no way alone. According to Gnuworld, here are some of the common pricing structures for once (some still) popular paid infographic sites.

• http://www.infographicsshowcase.com – $100 / 2 links
• http://www.infographicsarchive.com/ – $49.95 – $149.95 / 2 links
• http://www.amazinginfographics.com/ – $100 / 2 links
• http://www.infographicsinspiration.com – $100 / 2 links
• http://www.infographicsposters.com/ – $20 / 1 link
• http://www.infographiclove.com/ – $40 / #? Links
• http://infographic.co.za/ – $10 / 3 links
• http://www.aceinfographics.com/ – £1 / #? links

Pay money, get links! Sound sleazy? It is!

Why You Should Never Post to a Paid Infographic Site

Paid Links

Let’s start with the most obvious reason: They’re paid links.

This is especially true for infographic submission sites that say something like this:

• “SUPER SEO PACKAGE”
• Two (2) links may be used with supplied text (Choose your own keyword-stuffing adventure).
• Your Infographic is shareable and brandable + we will deliver 2 strong backlinks to your site.

If you are paying for a follow backlink, Google Webmasters has a nice writeup to clarify their stance (This doesn’t include the thousands… millions of blogs written about Penguin)

The following are examples of link schemes which can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results:

• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link
• Excessive link exchanges (“Link to me and I’ll link to you”) or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking

Rarely Relevant

Hypothetical situation: You’re a vendor for cloud accounting software. If you submit an infographic to a paid, irrelevant site, you could land your infographic directly between “The History of Pizza” and “30 Life hacks for College Students.”

This means two things:

• The site’s audience probably isn’t going to care
• You’re getting PageRank passed from a muddled, irrelevant site (See Irrelevant Keywords).

If you want to learn a lot about how Google’s Penguin update works, your paid infographic submission will allow you some firsthand experience.

This said, seek out your niche. There are niche sites for many industries. If you can pay for a nofollow or ad, it’s worth it for the brand awareness. We’d recommend something like Cloud Infographics for the cloud vendor.

It’s Lazy

Even if you post to free infographic sites, it’s highly recommended that you rewrite every single title and description. I don’t mean small changes, I mean that submitting to 10 infographic sites should have 10 unique titles and 10 unique 50-500 word descriptions (One of my favorite submission sites uses Copyscape to protect themselves and those submitting). Did I mention that submitting Infographics the right way is an incredibly laborious process?

If you’re really going to post to a paid infographic site (GUARATEED POSTING WITH BACKLINKS!!! ONLY $100 TO MY OFFSHORE ACCOUNT), there’s a good chance you’re going to become complacent.

“Hey! I can post to eight sites, and it’s only going to cost me $1,200?! I’ll just write one description, and paste it to all of them!”

If you have $1,200 to submit one infographic that will be buried on the respective sites by next Friday, you can afford to hire a marketing agency that can create and submit for just a bit more per month (not to mention that the infographic will look better—our designers are awesome).

Something to Run From: An Agency that Supports Paid Links

If you find yourself talking to an agency that wants to pay for links (not advertise), run.

If it seems too cheap to be true, it is.

If you really want to find an agency worth working with, download the Comprehensive Agency Selection Guide.

SEO Isn’t Dead, Bad SEO Is

Let’s be honest. It requires a lot more thought than 1998 to make it to the top of Google. Why are you still marketing like it is?

With the right content targeting, creation, and distribution strategy, even the smallest company can reach its audience. If you’re going to pay to submit an infographic, you’re wasting your money.

From advertising to social media, content marketing to real SEO, We can help you. Learn how, and contact us today.

Stay tuned for an upcoming blog, the insanely complex and laborious process to submit an infographic the right way.

Download the Guide to Modern B2B Content Marketing today!

The post Paid Infographic Sites: The Fastest Way to the Bottom appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

We would like to thank  Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute and Ann Handley of MarketingProfs for surveying individuals and providing this data.  To register for the CMI study, you can register and download the B2B Content Marketing Survey from CMI Website.

Content Marketing Tactics

Understanding content marketing is a valuable factor to developing a strategy.  Although the strategy and distribution has remained stable, infographics have seen the biggest increase in usage (51% to 38%).

Content Marketing Usage and Effectiveness

More B2B Marketers Participate in Content Marketing: Compared to 91% of B2B Marketers surveyed for the 2013 survey, more marketers are using content marketing.  Currently, 93% of B2B Marketers use content marketing.

B2B Marketers Feel More Effective as Content Marketers: 42% of B2B marketers say they are effective at content marketing.  Up from 36% last year, this shows that an increasing number of individuals are learning new tactics to reach users.

The Profile of a Best-In-Class Content Marketer is becoming more defined: What does it take to be world-class in content marketing? How many tactics should effective marketers use? What is the average content marketing budget?

Most Tactics in Marketing B2B Content are believed to be more effective year over year: For the fourth year in a row, B2B marketers overall have rated in-person events as the most effective tactic they use.  Best-in-class B2B marketers, however, rate blogs as the most effective tactic (79%), which surpasses   how they rate in-person events (76%); only 29% of their least effective peers rate blogs as effective.

Content Marketing Strategy

44% of Marketers have a documented Content Strategy.  This means that there is a plan in place, a content schedule, a commitment to value, and knowledge of the tactics.  A few facts to consider are as follows:

• B2B marketers who have a documented content strategy are far more likely to consider themselves effective (66% vs. 11%).
• 48% of smaller B2B organizations (10-99 employees) have a documented content strategy, compared with 41% of large organizations (1,000+ employees).

73% of B2B organizations have someone in place to oversee content marketing strategy. Consider the following:

• The majority of the most effective B2B marketers (86%) have someone who oversees content marketing strategy; however, only 46% of less effective marketers do.
• Small companies (10-99 employees) are more likely than large companies (1,000+ employees) to have someone who oversees content marketing strategy (78% vs. 58%).

Content Marketing through Social Media

Distributing content is important, that’s why social media has become a great part of content marketing.  For instance, 62% of B2B users find LinkedIn to be the most important and effective means of content distribution.  In addition, the following statistics show an increasing importance of social content:

• B2B content marketers use an average of 6 social media platforms, up from 5 last year.
• B2B content marketers are using every social media platform listed here more often than they did last year.
• Social media platforms that had the biggest increase in use from last year to this year are SlideShare, Google+, and Instagram.

Content Marketing Challenges

B2B Marketers do face challenges in content marketing.  Time, Quality, and Quantity top the list of challenges faced.  This is what leads to the outsourcing of content strategy, specifically in the writing and design departments.

Other Content Marketing Factors: Measurement, Goals, Budget

Many of the survey respondents believed the following regarding budgeting, goal setting, and measurement of their content marketing:

• 80% of the most effective B2B content marketers cite lead generation as a goal, compared with 64% of their least effective peers.
• 58% of B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budget over the next 12 months.
• Brand awareness continues to be the top organizational goal for B2B content marketing.
• On average, 30% of B2B marketing budgets are allocated to content marketing.  The most effective B2B marketers spend a higher percentage (39%) of their budgets on content marketing   than their least effective peers do (16%).

Where is the Future of Content Marketing Headed?

Every year, the Content Marketing Institute puts this study out, assisting marketers in the development of a content strategy and comparison with peers.  As surveyed, there has been an increase in content effectiveness and usage, and this trend will continue through 2014.  Interested in more information from this study? Just fill out your information and we will send it to you.

[contact-form-7 id=”2715″ title=”CMI Report 2014″]

The post B2B Content Marketing Survey Findings for 2014 appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

In our last blog post, we shared a checklist of the top 10 marketing best practices for IT marketing with detailed descriptions including: analysis and research, planning, brand image, brand awareness, website improvement and SEO, event marketing, thought leadership content, blogging, social media, and direct marketing. For more details, read Information Technology (IT) Marketing Best Practices.

Before the infographic, let’s look at 4 reasons IT firms should reconsider marketing:

To read the complete guide and access a printable PDF, link to our quick and easy registration form: IT Marketing Best Practices. Please comment, bookmark and share this post using the social tools below.

The post Information Technology (IT) Marketing Infographic appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Maybe you’ve even started to build your own infographics. But, if you build it, they won’t necessarily come. Infographics, though viral by nature, can reach a wider audience through the process of submitting them to infographic directories/blogs – while boosting your SEO at the same time.

A misconception of infographics is that they do not have SEO value. While it is true that a search engine cannot derive the content of your infographic, your audience can. An infographics can benefit a SEO campaign if it is shared. A major aspect of SEO is building the number of inbound links that direct consumers to your website. And infographics can support such an effort.

Here are some infographics directories to consider and submission tips to get you started:

Top 20 Free Infographic Directories

There are a lot of options and things to consider when submitting to infographic directories/blogs. There are some that require registration, offer paid options, and more. Is the link follow or no follow? What is the anchor text? Even if the website offers no follow links, it can still help you build traffic. Below are the top 20 free infographic directories along with the answers to some of those questions.

While they are all free, some offer paid options to expedite approval process or for guaranteed placement. Be sure to familiarize yourself with all of your options. For most of the options below, registration is not required, though you will have to provide a contact email.

Infographic Submission Tips

Infographic submissions can be a time-consuming process. Therefore, it is important to follow some general guidelines to ensure your infographic will be published.

First, be sure to mix up your infographics title as much as possible through submissions. You don’t want to cannibalize your original infographic on your website. And further, many infographic submission sites have stringent submission guidelines – which brings us to tip two..

Write an original description for your infographics. Infographic directories/blogs do not want duplicate content on their website, and therefore, require unique content. Some will even run your description through plagiarism tools like Copyscape to ensure uniqueness. Though this can be time consuming, it will pay off in the long run.

Read guidelines thoroughly. These websites tend to get a lot of submissions, so they can be picky. To increase your chances of getting published, read over all submission guidelines before starting. Many have content, size, or format requirements.

Learn more about SEO here: Search Engine Optimization Top 10 Priorities

Want more infographic tips? Be sure to read our post: Infographic Marketing Basics and Tips. Or check out some of our infographics:

CMO vs. CIO: Clash in the Cubicle

Cause Marketing 101

Infographic Designer

Need an infographic designed? Modern Marketing Partners can help! Contact us today for a free quote!

The post Top 20 Free Infographic Directories and Submission Tips appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

This blog will describe 4 benefits of using infographics, 3 tips for creating infographics, and 3 techniques for promoting your infographic. Of course, no primer on Infographics would be complete without some samples!

4 Benefits of Using Infographics in Your Content Marketing Strategy

Preferences shifting towards visual

Infographics are more eye-catching than printed words—their ability to combine images, color, movement, and content generate a natural attraction of the eye. In a society of increasingly shorter attention spans, “scanning” has become the new “reading”. Infographics cater to this trend by presenting quick facts using both words and images. Furthermore, we tend to remember more information we have seen rather than read, so even long after the consumer has forgotten the text of your website, they will still remember the images of your infographic.

Easier to understand for your audience

As humans we are very visual creatures—our ability to quickly view and interpret visual information is much greater than that of written words. Infographics allow you to relay a complex message in an easy-to-understand way.

Viral Nature

Include an embed code and simply watch it spread. This code allows an automatic link from the original site to yours. Before long you will see your content on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. Publishing great content across a variety of platforms allows consumers to interact and connect with your brand. By providing an opportunity to build a relationship, you have invited the consumer to be an active member in your community.

Link-building/backlinks

A misconception of infographics is that they do not have SEO value. While it is true that a search engine cannot derive the content of your infographic, your audience can. An infographics can benefit a SEO campaign if it is shared. A major aspect of SEO is building the number of inbound links that direct consumers to your website. Infographics display information in a way that encourages consumers to share it. The majority of those who share on their website/blog will provide a link to the original source = link-building!

Tips For Creating an Infographic

Creating your own infographic is becoming even easier these days with the emergence of tools for creating your own infographics. While this is great news for businesses lacking a graphic design department, it has also oversaturated the infographic world with visualizations that provide no value to the audience.

While infographics tend to be more engaging and viral in nature, quality and value to the audience should still be of paramount importance to your creation process. Here are 3 tips for creating an infographic:

Unique

The key to creating a successful infographic is to first understand this fact: your infographic is not the first a consumer has seen and it is certainly not the last, but it can be the one they remember. In order to be remembered and not simply one of the 1,275 they have already seen, is to avoid exactly that—being one of the 1,275. There are a lot of infographic template programs out there that allow the user to simply input their information and watch as the program spits out an infographic. While templates might be less expensive and time consuming that creating a custom solution, the results will reflect exactly that. Consumers will not interact or remember your generic template-generated infographic and websites will not share it because it is not unique.

Simple

The challenge of creating a great infographic lies in making it visually appealing yet keeping it simple. If there is too much going on and your audience needs to work to understand the image, there is no way they will get the “message”. Infographics open the door to endless opportunities to attract and engage a variety of consumers, but in your attempt to woo and impress them with elaborate graphics, you may in fact have caused them to move on.

Less Text, More Impact

This is where design becomes so important. The design of your infographic should be so creative that the possibility of a consumer ignoring it becomes impossible. It takes a high degree of creativity to design such an effective infographic.  Too often the emphasis on the content and message overshadow the actual physical design. The physical design is what will captivate your audience, urging them to read on. Without an incentive to “read on”, the content and message become irrelevant.  Overall, it is the combination of these elements that will result in the success or failure of your infographic.

How to Promote Your Infographic

While viral by nature, infographics won’t generate the buzz you desire unless you do a little bit of promotion.  The following points can help your infographic garner more backlinks, social attention, and more.

• Embed codes
• “Pin It” button
• Submit to an infographic directories like visual.ly, and this list of free directories

The post Infographic Marketing Basics and Tips appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Customer relationship management (CRM), mobile applications, marketing automation, data warehousing, and social media are just a few marketing initiatives that can create an increased need for marketing-IT collaboration. And in the digital world, a disconnect could prove futile.

Below we will share an infographic based on Accenture’s 2013 study, The CMO-CIO Disconnect, detailing the divide between departments, and provide recommendations for improving the CMO-CIO relationship.

CMO vs. CIO

Tips For Marketing-IT Alignment

1. Having shared goals and metrics encourages both departments to work together and gets everyone on the same page.
2. Establishing common definitions. Speaking the same language will ensure that there is no confusion between departments.
3. Share all data. Data should be available to and easily accessible by both departments.

Are your marketing and sales departments clashing too? Check out 3 Ways to Align Marketing and Sales in 2013.

The post CMO vs. CIO: Clash in the Cubicle appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

The following infographic shares the types of cause marketing, projections of cause marketing spend, who is using, how it influences purchasing behavior, the leading issues consumers think companies should address, and 6 tips for effective cause marketing. For more information on cause marketing, be sure to read our whitepaper, How Brands Can Use Cause Marketing For Results. You can share/embed the infographic on your website using the embed code below.

Cause Marketing Infographic

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Share this infographic by copying and pasting the embed link below!

The post Cause Marketing 101 – Infographic appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.