You all know the old adage: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Today’s world of instant gratification means average attention spans of less than 8 seconds, and a whopping 4 seconds for website viewing. Infographics are a great solution for conveying solid content and winning the war for the few seconds of your audience’s attention.

1. 5 Tips for Creating Infographics That Win the War for Attention
You all know the old adage: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Today’s world of
instant gratification means average attention spans of less than 8 seconds, and a
whopping 4 seconds for website viewing. Infographics are a great solution for
conveying solid content and winning the war for the few seconds of your audience’s
attention.
As with all marketing activities, it’s
important to follow best practices when
crafting your infographic. Whether the
format for your infographic is HTML, a
brochure, a page on your website or an
internal message, here are a five tips to
consider for success:
1. Start with a strategy. Let’s face it – this
step can sometimes be a tempting one to
skip. Taking a step back to determine your goals and objectives, target
audience, main messages you want to convey and call to action is not quite as
exciting as the creative end of developing an infographic. However, it IS true:
your infographic will be much more successful if you take the time up front to
decide what you want it to accomplish.
Case in Point: Our client, Galmont Consulting, is using infographics as a way to
educate their clients about Quality Assurance Testing. Yes, this audience is
interested in the subject as the recipients are mainly CIOs and Software Quality
Assurance professionals, however – receiving what could be viewed as the same
old information in the form of an infographic has proven successful. Their first
of a series of scheduled infographics, each conveying different important tips
about QA testing, saw an open rate that exceeded industry averages and won
them an opportunity to present in front of the IT department of a key prospect.
2. Take a look at existing infographics first. There is significant variety in the
way infographics are designed. It’s helpful for you and your creative partner to
choose a handful of infographic designs that catch your eye and decide what
elements you like before the creative process begins. There are so many things
you can do with an infographic – remembering your audience and discerning
what will be appealing to them from a design standpoint is also important. Of
course you will also want to pay attention to your company brand and infuse
elements into your infographic to maintain a connection between the creative
infographic design and your company’s look and feel.
Case in Point: Our client, Consultis, wanted to add a page to their website that
demonstrated the Top 10 Reasons to use Consultis in a fun, attention-getting
way. After sending us nearly a half dozen infographic samples, noting likes and
dislikes, our client was pleased with the first design we presented and
continues to enjoy sharing this different, easy-to-read infographic with
prospects, candidates and new employees. The design is unique and engaging,
yet includes elements of their company brand and new website.

2. 3. Keep the content short and sweet. As easy as this point sounds, it really
can be challenging! It’s a natural temptation to tell every single morsel of
information for anything that reaches the public’s eye. The fact is, though,
that the amount of information filtered into the world is currently doubling
every two years. There is also a lot of distraction in our day-to-day lives that
competes for our attention. Remember the stats above about attention spans?
Those short attention-spans and the volume of content being generated daily
are exactly why we need to quickly deliver our intended messages.
Case in Point: Take a look at this infographic for our client, Harvey Nash. They
wanted to demonstrate the results they achieved following the initial
implementation of their social media strategy. In addition, they sought to
encourage those who hadn’t fully embraced social media to do and provided
three actionable ideas to get them in the game – “Lead. Follow. Engage.” Upon
review of this Infographic, Harvey Nash could easily see how their actions
impacted the results of the companies’ social media efforts and were more
bought in than ever to make the time to incorporate it into their business
development and recruiting efforts.
4. Think outside the box. Infographics can be used for a multitude of
marketing pieces. Most people think of infographics as something posted online
or pushed out via email. They are also used effectively in brochures, PPT
presentations, and Webinars. It’s human nature to remember visual things
easier than long, verbose written documents. By using infographics or elements
of them to convey a possibly complex message, those messages become easier
to understand in things like brochures and PPT presentations.
Case in Point: Superior Consulting Services (SCS) was ready to update their
overview brochure for use at conferences and to send to prospects -and they
wanted to do something different. We decided to create an infographic on the
cover of the 8 ½ x 11 brochure that highlighted key points about SCS that
would pique interest in learning more about the company through the rest of
the brochure. So far so good! Since this is a print application, we do not have
open rates or other such stats – however, anecdotally SCS has received very
positive feedback.
5. Have Fun! Above all, infographics work best when you let your creativity
take over. The fact is, to break through the large volume of content being
created on a daily basis, you need something creative and different – an
infographic can be just the right tool.
Case in Point: Palo Alto Staffing Technology took a unique approach when
wishing their clients a Happy New Year. After surveying the team about things
like New Year’s resolutions, preferences for mobile devices and new
adventures planned for the year as a way to get to know the Palo Alto Staffing
Technology team on a more personal level, they created an infographic that
used words and images to share the survey results and give some 2013 IT
Staffing predictions.
The next time you have a message to convey or want to reach out to your target
audience, think about trying an infographic. Not only do they do the trick for standing

3. out from the large volumes of information received – but people like to “share”
infographics as they are fun and typically visually easy to digest! What are some of
your favorite infographics examples? We invite you to share!