A few years ago, One Click, an online eyewear retailer ran into a problem. One of their brands, Sunglass Warehouse went into a slump—its website traffic and revenue were hit.
They needed to do things differently. One of the solutions they came up with was to create compelling infographics around eyewear topics such as ‘The Sunglasses & Facial Hair Pairing Guide’ and ‘Famous Eyewear From Pop Culture.’
These infographics were featured and linked to by over 200 websites including leading ones such as Design Taxi, Goodreads, and Daily Mail. As a result, Sunglass Warehouse saw a 20% increase in year-over-year organic traffic.
Now that’s a winning PR infographic campaign.
It’s a crowded market. Sending out a press release along with generic images certainly won’t cut it. To get the editor’s attention, you need to offer something exclusive, valuable, and engaging.
Infographics can help you achieve that. People love visuals and stories, and nothing aptly combines the two the way infographics do.
Let’s take a look at how you can use infographics to boost your PR efforts.
1. Introduce your business
You’re launching a new business. This is a great opportunity to devise a PR strategy and garner media attention.
But is sending a traditional press release enough? Not quite.
An interesting way to introduce your new (or repositioned) brand is to design a compelling infographic that tells your brand story.
You can create a simple company infographic like the one below to give a visual company overview.
Source: Venngage
Alternatively, you can also create an infographic with some interesting company facts like the way Guinness did below. It instantly captures attention and provides fodder for editorial coverage.
2. Showcase your company history or milestones
Are you going to be completing 20 years in business, is your 10th store going to be launched soon, or have you reached the 1 million users count? These are all company milestones and deserve to be celebrated—not only with your employees but with your customers and the media too.
As a Society for Marketing Professional Services article states, “Marking a corporate anniversary is a fun PR and marketing initiative, one that promotes pride in the organization and builds goodwill with a company’s constituents.
Think of the milestone as a year-long celebration of the company’s longevity, and plan an anniversary campaign that strengthens the brand and promotes the firm and its mission.”
You should use this opportunity to secure media attention, get your brand story in front of more people, and reinforce your legacy.
As part of your PR initiative, you can make a timeline to showcase your company history or milestone achievements. This takes readers through a visual ‘throwback’ journey while keeping them engaged.
Here’s an example of a timeline infographic by Starbucks that chalks out the history of their famous beverage, Frappuccino.
3. Communicate product or service value
Imagine receiving a pitch email or press release filled with large chunks of text stating the features of a product or service. Even the sound of it is exhausting, isn’t it?
Don’t subject editors to such boring content.
A better way to bring out the features and benefits of your product or service is to create a product infographic. It lets you create a visual presentation of the product or service while communicating value in an interesting manner.
The key is to illustrate its biggest features or benefits. You can also use this space to show how the product works or compare and contrast options to aid decision-making.
Here’s a product infographic by Samsung that highlights the product specifications of one of their phones.
4. Present research findings
Editors love data. Sharing original data and facts is likely to grab attention, pique their interest and increase your chances of getting coverage.
As Laura Kane, Chief Communications Officer at PRSA puts it, “It’s easy for journalists to find people who are willing to share an opinion on a subject, it’s rarer to find someone who has data points related to that topic.”
And what better way to present your research findings or survey results than a well-designed infographic. You can combine text with charts, graphs, pictures, and symbols to visualize the data and make it an interesting read.
Make sure you clearly label charts to provide context, remove unnecessary distractions, and only include the essential data points.
Here’s a snippet from an infographic Venngage created after surveying and gathering insights from over 200 content marketers on the use of visual content.
Source: Venngage
5. Share entertaining content
You don’t always have to share informative, educational, and promotional PR infographics. Sometimes, sharing light-hearted, entertaining content can also get you media mentions and help you go viral.
What’s important is creating content that resonates with your target audience while staying true to your brand.
For example, here’s an interactive infographic Marriott created to promote its hotel in Scottsdale. It comprises an easy-to-use flowchart that suggests a set of local activities on the basis of the user’s responses.
6. Raise awareness about a cause
Most companies have a CSR program and the role of PR is to amplify those initiatives and emphasize the cause.
The question is: how do you communicate the message and create an impact? This is where infographics come in.
You can use infographics to:
- Raise awareness about a cause
- Create a sense of urgency
- Encourage action
- Present a unique solution to a problem
- Demonstrate the impact of your CSR initiative
Here’s an infographic by Nestlé that addresses labor and human rights abuses in the seafood supply chain.
The takeaway: create compelling PR infographics
Most people avoid creating infographics because it’s considered to be time-consuming but the best part about them is that they can be easily repurposed into other content formats such as social media posts, newsletters, blog posts, eBooks, and more.
So, go beyond traditional press releases. Add visual interest to your PR mix by using infographics to communicate your message effectively and stand out in a noisy inbox.
