Infographics That Tell a Story (and Other Successful PR Recipes)
Ingredients:
- Choose the right topic
- Offer something real
- Tell a story
- Design what’s next
- Know your target
Preparation
Choose the Right Topic. The topic of your infographic should relate to your client’s industry, but it must also be accessible enough to make people want to share. A successful infographic can establish your client or brand as a thought leader in the industry. As such, it should provide interesting information on trends or introduce new statistics people would want to know. Don't focus on something that is too much in the weeds, self-serving, confusing, or just plain uninteresting, and be sure to consider timeliness. Pitching a trend that was hot three years ago isn't likely to garner much coverage.
Offer Something Real. As you search for relevant data points, statistics or facts to incorporate into your infographic, remember that it should provide valuable and reliable content. Perhaps you could team up with an analyst firm and leverage findings from a recent industry report. Or you could use this as an opportunity to connect with engineers and others who are closer to your client's products in order to gather real, compelling facts about a solution or trend.
Tell a story. The numbers from a recent survey over the latest tech trends are great, but without a story, your infographic is just a pretty data sheet. The power of visual storytelling should never be understated. Ask yourself if viewers will be able to follow your infographic from start to finish and come away with knowledge they think is important to share. If the answer is yes, you are on the right path.
Design what’s next. The ultimate purpose of an infographic is to express a complex idea in a visually appealing, easily digestible form. Design something people want to look at. Use a flowing structure that will allow viewers' eyes to glide from point to point without getting lost. Avoid covering the page in words or numbers, as it will deter a prospective reader from even looking at it. Don’t include images that are unrelated to the subject matter. If it's confusing, readers and journalists will not appreciate it.
Know your target. There is no infographic that can please everyone, so you must do your due diligence to identify who you want to reach and the action you want your audience to take. In fact, you should have had your target audience in mind before you even kicked off the project. Don't blindly pitch the infographic to every publication you can think of. Remember that a smaller circulation with the right audience is more valuable than a larger publication with an entirely uninterested audience.
Want to know more? Lois Paul and Partners brings you a series of recipes featuring the best ingredients and practices required to achieve great PR results. From creating an effective pitch, producing compelling digital content to crafting messaging that truly differentiates a brand – this cookbook will fill your appetite with 13 recipes outlining "secret sauce" strategies and tactics to take your public relations efforts to the next level.
The cookbook includes recipes for:
- An effective Pitch
- Converting and Intern into a PR PRo
- Monitoring Social Media Conversations for Industry Trends
- Securing Executive Participation for Thoughts Leadership
- Maximizing Blog Content to Drive Reader Engagement
- Crafting the Perfect Media Outreach Plan Around a PR Launch
- Communicating Financial News
- Compelling Social Media Content
- Securing Business Press Coverage
- Infographics That Tell a Story
- Messaging that Truly Differentiates a Brand
- Metrics that Matter
- Owned-Earned-Paid-Shared Content Strategy
To get the eBook, just click on the PDF under "Documents & Links" on the right-hand side of the page.
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