Written by How to make an infographic in 9 steps
1. Get to know your audience
No matter what segment you operate in, what your goal is, or even what type of content you will produce: the first step should always be to understand your audience’s profile.
After all, the customization of your approach greatly influences the modern consumer’s decision-making.
So, the characteristics of the audience you want to reach should serve as a guide for your entire production process.
The language style, the density of the content, the triggers used… all this should be defined with a focus on optimizing the experience of those considered your ideal customers.
Put it that way, it may sound like a difficult task. But really, it’s not. Today, advanced data collection resources make it easier to gain insights about your audience.
Looking, for example, at blog posts that generate great reader engagement, it’s easier to set the ideal tone of voice for your brand.
So, collect data about your audience’s behaviour and learn about their more abstract characteristics, such as motivations, needs, and desires. A good idea is to gather all this information and create a buyer persona to guide your strategies.
2. Outline the goals of your infographic
Each piece of content your brand publishes needs to have clear goals. This is no different when creating an infographic. What is the reason it exists? That is the most important question you need to answer at this stage.
Most infographics aim to bring forward information on a certain subject. For example, your goals might be to talk about a certain subject with your target audience in an easy way or even bring light to the juxtaposition of two pieces of data.
In addition, you need to define the infographic’s goals as a piece of content. Do you wish to obtain a certain number of shares? Or maybe reach a higher percentage of visibility? No matter what your goals are, they need to be outlined before you begin your work.
3. Define the type of infographic
The biggest reason to learn how to make an infographic is that it can take many forms depending on your goals and persona. After all, there are several different ways to display the same piece of information.
There are some kinds of infographics that better display numbers and others that highlight text and visual information. Consider the data you wish to gather and how it might be displayed in a way that your persona can best engage it.
Among the types of infographics, you can pick from are statistical (focused on numbers), timeline (shows progress over time), geographic (focused on maps), comparison (shows the contrast between multiple pieces of information) and list (a series of smaller pieces of information).
4. Choose the topic
Now that you know your buyer persona your goals and the type of infographic you want, the whole process gets easier.
So let’s start talking about the infographic production itself. Of course, the first step is to define the topic to be addressed in the content, a decision that depends on a broad understanding of your target market.
By observing, for example, the issues your competitors address, you can get an insight into the behaviour of your target audience. Similarly, you can conduct a keyword search to identify topics with the highest potential to attract consumers.
You must also keep in mind the purpose of your material. This will help not only to define the topic but also the type of infographic you will produce. If the focus is, for example, to compare the efficiency of two different products, a comparison infographic may be the solution.
If the goal is simply to present the evolution of a project over time, an infographic in timeline format is the most appropriate option.
After choosing the topic, it is time to focus on the information you consider most relevant to fill the material.
5. Collect the data
Ideally, you already have an active strategy to collect information and create your database. You can do this in several ways. For example, many companies invest in the creation of landing pages to obtain data from people interested in the solutions offered.
Here, it’s vital to take all necessary care to comply with the guidelines set by local legislation. GDPR, for example, works in Europe to regulate the way data is collected and handled by companies to provide greater security for consumers.
An interesting way of collecting data, still little explored in the market, is the use of interactive content. Unlike static content, this format stimulates user interaction, generating information about their behaviour and preferences.
Thus, if your company sells Digital Marketing solutions, for example, you can compile this information to show the effectiveness of your services.
Even if you don’t have an internal data collection strategy, there are several data repositories that your company can use as reliable sources. The U.S. Government’s Open Data, for example, offers over 210,000 data sets on different topics. Other interesting sources are:
- Statista;
- Kaggle;
- Pew Research;
- Google Trends Data Score;
- US Census Data for Social, Economic, and Health Research.
6. Define a data visualization strategy
As important as collecting data is knowing how to interpret them properly and how to make the audience have the same understanding. Therefore, investing in data literacy and data visualization practices is critical for any company working with data.
Data literacy is about your staff’s ability to understand the information within a dataset. To ensure this, it’s necessary to establish a data culture in your company and, who knows, invest in training courses.
As far as data visualization is concerned, it’s a matter of using graphical resources to expose the message you want to convey to the audience. Tables, charts, and timelines are just some examples of elements that can do this, facilitating the persona’s understanding.
It’s important to keep the audience’s experience in mind. If you know that your persona has the habit of accessing such content via tablets and smartphones, it’s vital to invest in data visualization for mobile.
7. Develop the content
This is the time to decide precisely what information you consider essential to the content. Since you have already defined a data visualization strategy, you should already have a good idea about the data that will compose the material. Now is the time to organize it so that the audience easily understands it.
If you are using an editable template, this process is quite simple. Remember, however, to pay attention to the size of the written elements. They should not be long but at the same time, they must convey clear and direct messages.
In addition to good writing techniques, you will need to have an appropriate design to do this.
8. Design the infographic
The infographic is content that prioritizes visual elements, so the design techniques included in the production process have enormous importance.
It’s necessary to count on a layout that is pleasant and, at the same time, capable of highlighting the most relevant information. Furthermore, the material needs to be responsive.
The use of colors is fundamental in this process. They help highlight elements, separate information and guide the user through the content.
9. Promote the material
Once you have created the material, it’s time to promote it. Use your digital channels to draw the public’s attention, indicating the reasons to consume it.
In your social media, for example, you can spread small parts of the material to instigate the persona’s curiosity. Instagram is an excellent platform for this purpose: separate important parts of the material, spread them in your feed or your stories, and invite the user to know the complete version.
The most appropriate strategy depends on the reality of your business. If you have an effective email marketing strategy, triggering messages containing a link to the material can be a good approach. The important thing is always to produce appealing and informative calls to action.
Take advantage of your other content to direct the persona to the infographic. For example, you can produce blog posts related to the topic you defined, creating a link between the two materials.