Grab Attention with a Research Infographic
Yesterday I was delighted to share the stage with Kate Morris at the Corporate Researchers Conference in Chicago, talking about the power, the potential, and the “how-to” of spectacular infographics for market research. Kate spent many years in the research group at Fidelity Investments, and it was for Kate that Versta Research first tried its hand at infographics.
We didn’t tell her we were creating an infographic—we just did it. And when we delivered it at the very end of the project, asking if it was something she might want to use, Kate’s response was:
Did you jump into my brain this morning? This is fabulous and I just emailed my PR contact about infographics…. I LOVE this infographic.
Hence the focus of our talk: How to Create Spectacular Infographics for Market Research. We learned how to do infographics for ourselves and for our clients and internal business partners. So we laid out 8 tips and tricks to share with you—things for you to keep in mind as you go down the winding path (a great image for infographics!) of learning how to do it yourself.
In case you missed our talk in Chicago, here are two tips from our full presentation of eight:
Tip #2—Keep it short. As in really short. As in one standard 8½” x 11″ page, and absolutely no more. For most of what we develop, the initial count of words and numbers is roughly 150. As we start designing the infographic we end up cutting even further. Keeping infographics short forces us to identify essential storylines and data points that pique interest without overwhelming. Keeping them short also helps grab the attention of busy managers or business partners who might otherwise never read the 20-page report we so painstakingly developed.
Tip #8—Remember it’s a marketing tool. In our view, infographics should not be graphic-rich research reports. They should not even be executive summaries. They are like advertisements, or like super short press releases. We want them to grab attention immediately and provide just enough information that the viewer learns something, remembers it, and asks for more. If we find ourselves adding more numbers, or another layer to the story, or subtle distinctions that need explanation, or a chart with multiple elements… we stop ourselves. It’s a marketing tool, we say, not a report. So leave it out.
If you did miss our talk in Chicago, then you also missed our snazzy handout, which is, itself, an infographic summarizing the 8 tips and tricks. You can download an image of this infographic, or better yet, drop me note, and I’ll send a nicely printed version you can post in your workstation and refer to for years to come.
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