Todd Jamieson is the President at EnvisionUP and has extensive experience in Internet Marketing, Web Development and Local SEO. To learn more about Todd, visit his company’s website at EnvisionUP.com.
Not every business has the luxury of being in a “hot” industry like fashion, music, or entertainment, where visual marketing seems to come so easily. But the problem with deciding your business is boring is that it guarantees you’ll overlook the variety of fresh marketing approaches available. If you’re looking for ways to get creative, infographics are one of the best methods of giving your content marketing a boost–no matter how run-of-the-mill you think your business may be.
Lyndon Antcliff from CognitiveSEO has some useful advice for marketers who may be discouraged. He says, “There are no boring subjects, only subjects you find boring and have not yet researched.”
Kristi Hines also has this advice on content marketing for “boring” industries to offer: “Audiences in certain industries may not want exciting or entertaining, but rather straightforward, professional content.”
With these two key things in mind, read on to learn about how various organizations make infographics an exciting part of their marketing campaigns.
Bridge two topics
According to Danny Ashton from Moz.com, “Any niche can be made interesting by using ‘topic bridging’ or creating content with key hooks that people actually care about, and providing attention-grabbing material for various audiences, you can make boring topics much more interesting.”
Solve the target market’s other problem
It’s hard to imagine a more challenging service to market than a site that trains medical programmers and billing agents. But Medical Billing and Coding worked around this dry subject by creating a campaign about the dangers of sitting all day–perfect for developers and admin staff.
This timely campaign came out right when stand-up desks started becoming trendy. The end result was a popular infographic that gained a link on Mashable.com’s popular blog (with over 70,000 shares!).
Tell a story
Infographics don’t always have to be about data; sometimes a story–any story–can be appealing to your prospects. Every organization has a few interesting tales to tell, and as long as it’s somehow related to your business, it doesn’t have to be about your business to work.
Group small stories on a theme
The Leeds Building Society, which offers mortgage and investment tools, created a brilliant campaign around the strangest things found in a new home.
Find the shapes in numbers
Nobody likes to read annual statements. They’re usually too long and full of financial information that most people find boring. AirBnB created an infographic and turned their boring facts into a beautiful visual overview.
At a quick glance, even the most inexperienced investor can understand the direction of the company.
Piggyback on a holiday theme
Hootsuite had a little fun at Christmastime with an infographic about which brands were getting positive or negative mentions on social media. The simplified infographic took the information and organized it by “naughty” or “nice.”
Simplify an overly complex process or concept
Sometimes people find things boring because the subject is complex and there’s no way to dip your toes in the shallow end before getting in deep. The key to engaging newbies is to give them an appealing overview so they know enough to understand the basics. Then anything they learn after that will make more sense. An infographic is one of the best ways to do that because they combine text and visuals.
Show the big picture
Statoil, an international energy company with operations in 36 countries, created an interesting infographic that simplifies the complex way carbon pricing works. The beauty of this illustration is that it shows not only the many parts, but how they interact. The infographic got a mention on Forbes.com and thousands of views.
Group similar items in a memorable way
Full Plate Living is a non-profit organization with a simple mission: to encourage, educate, support and inspire anyone who desires to live a healthier lifestyle. They created a highly informative infographic that explained how food rots and how to keep your produce from going bad so fast.
The infographic has received over 1,700 shares across social media to date.
There is no such thing as boring
As marketers, our role is to see things our clients may not and show them (and their target market) the business from a new light. If you have an inquisitive mind and some creativity, there are truly no boring businesses–just unexplored ideas.
Have you thought of any interesting ways to show your business in a new way? Share your ideas in the comments below.
Want to make infographics for your marketing content? Check out our templates page.