Why You Need to Implement Infographics in Your Content Marketing Strategy

Why Visuals are So Important to Your Content Marketing Strategy

It’s likely you’ve come across a good amount of infographics and other visuals whilst perusing a content-savvy individual’s or company’s content online. Reasons for that is probably because, according to Visme, 62 percent of content marketers publish visuals at least twice a week and 67 percent of B2B marketers are creating and sharing infographics.

Why We Crave Visuals

Why is visual content, specifically visualized information in the form of infographics, so popular? Because human beings are visually wired: 70 percent of all the sensory receptors are in the eyes and 50 percent of the brain is involved in visual processing. Astoundingly, we can get the sense of a visual scene in less than one-tenth of a second: it takes 150 milliseconds for a symbol to be processed and 100 milliseconds to attach a meaning to it.

The Benefits of Infographics

Visuals are able to convey information in a more eye-catching, engaging, accessible, persuasive, and easy-to-recall way.

1. They Help Counter Word Overload

In this day and age, we suffer from information overload. Due to the wonder that is the Internet, we receive five times the amount of information today as we did in 1986, consuming 34 gigabytes—or 100,500 words—outside of work on an average day. With web page visitors only reading 28 percent of words per visit on average, infographics help counter that word overload.

2. They’re Colorful

Infographics are great because they’re colorful. In fact, researchers have found that color visuals increase the willingness to read by 80 percent, increase readers’ attention spans and recall by 82 percent, and make an impression that’s 39 percent more memorable.

3. They’re Comprehensible

One study found there was a 70 percent rate of understanding for medicine labels that were text only and a 95 percent rate of understanding for those with text and pictures. Think Ikea instructions: people following directions with text and illustrations do 323 percent better than people following directions without illustrations.

4. They’re More Persuasive

According to a study by the Wharton School of Business, infographics and visualized information are more persuasive. While 50 percent of an audience in the study was persuaded by a purely verbal presentation, 67 percent was persuaded by the verbal presentation hat had accompanying visuals. Furthermore, mentioning cognitive neuroscience and incorporating pictures of brain scans make people more inclined to believe what they’re reading.

5. They’re More Memorable

Infographics are memorable because while people only recall 10 percent of what they hear and 20 percent of what they read, they remember 80 percent of what they see and do.

6. They’re Great for Social Media

Still looking for more pros of using infographics in your content marketing strategy? They’re extremely engaging, easy to digest, and fun to share (especially on social media).

Ready to get started incorporating visuals into your content marketing strategy? Let’s chat.

This post was originally published in 2014 and updated in 2021.