You know the old saying: a picture is worth a thousand words. This defines the importance of using infographics in your content marketing strategy. The rise of microblogging sites has taken content generation to a whole new level with hundreds of millions of units of content produced every day.
The average user is bombarded with too much information and in such a short time. The bottom line is that it takes something worth noting for them to remember it a day later.
Research has established that the addition of colored visuals to text content increases people’s willingness to read the content by a whopping 80%. Also, people tend to forget 90% of what they read within three day.
However, if the information is attached to some form of graphic, the retention ability suddenly shoots from 10% to an impressive 65%. This means that every digital marketer should take infographics very seriously because it is one of the most effective ways of creating brand awareness.
The human brain thinks in pictures rather than words. Even when we read words, we subconsciously try to form a mental image of the words. This is what makes visual content the most prolific content for communicating easily and efficiently. When you think about it, every strong brand has used visual content (videos, illustrations, vector images, and infographics) to get their message across to the masses.
Visual content has a greater potential for going viral than non-visual content. Users only share articles that they think are interesting and insightful. Adding visuals to your content gives it a whole new angle and makes it more shareable.
Your content creation strategy as a content marketer should be aimed at increasing interaction. The more people interact with you, the more they are exposed to your brand and the easier it is to sell your goods or services. Interaction also helps improve your SEO score which will ultimately lead to more organic visitors – and it all starts with visuals. Using infographics in your content marketing strategy is one of the surest ways of ensuring interaction.
Infographics also help reduce the bounce rate on your website. When a user lands on your page from google or some other traffic source and immediately exits the page, we say the user has bounced off. The more users bounce off, the higher your bounce rate score which ultimately impacts negatively on your SEO.
Adding attractive and compelling infographics will greatly reduce the bounce rate of your website since most visitors, even the ones that landed there by mistake, will want to stay longer to have a look at the aesthetically appealing graphics.
It is worth noting that the quality of infographics also matter. Some content marketers, in a rush to have the coveted infographics on their websites, end up with poorly designed infographics on their websites. This will do you more harm than good. You would be better off hiring a graphic designer or buying a stock free design online to boost the image of your business.