Infographics have become a powerful part of many marketing campaigns in recent years, and rightfully so. They can increase brand awareness, establish a brand’s authority in their niche and, according to HubSpot, can increase web traffic by up to 12%.
Marketers report that original graphics, like infographics, receive the highest engagement out of any type of visuals. There are even more compelling reasons to use infographics to communicate information: When people hear information, they’re likely to only recall 10% of it three days later. When that information is paired with a relevant image (such as an infographic), people will recall 65% of it three days later.
If you want to make an infographic without hiring a graphic designer, use one of the following simple-to-use infographic generators.
1. Venngage
Venngage is an infographic creator that helps you produce a beautiful infographic in only three steps. All you need to do is choose a template, add original images (or images from their library) along with your charts and customize your design with different colors and fonts. Venngage charges $49 per month, and with that subscription, you gain access to business, premium and custom templates, premium icons and charts and live training workshops. You can also add your own branding and upload 500 images. If you stumble across any issues, you can use its 24/7 support or its knowledge center to troubleshoot.
2. Piktochart
Piktochart is a website that allows you to create infographics for $24.17 or $82.50 per month. With the pricier plan, you can collaborate on projects, include annotated commenting, use rules and permissions and receive ample image upload space. Piktochart also offers thousands of images and icons in its library, as well as an SEO feature, which allows Google to find and rank your infographic. They provide templates, sharing options for your blog, ebook, email or social media sites, and preset color schemes. There is no live support, but they do have a support center where you can find answers to your questions.
3. Visme
Visme is an infographic creator that costs $14 or $25 per month. By paying more, you receive access to unlimited projects, 10 GB of storage, privacy controls, all premium assets and templates, all charts and widgets and the ability to create color palettes. The site provides hundreds of templates to choose from, or you can mix and match content blocks from their library. Visme does not offer live support, but there is a knowledge base for answers to questions, and a video you can watch to learn how to use their infographic creator.
4. Infogram
Infogram is another infographic creator that is $19 a month for a pro plan, $67 per month for a business plan and $149 a month for a team plan. With the various plans, you receive access to between 100 and 3,000 projects, more than 100 premium templates, HD images, privacy control, and live data. You’ll need to spring for a better plan to add your own logo, see basic analytics, get tracking links and participate in real-time collaboration with other team members. Infogram provides live chat support and a support center. For your infographic, you can choose from more than 20 design themes or create a custom design with your brand’s fonts, logos, and colors. They offer one million icons and images, a drag-and-drop editor, the ability to import data and a tutorial on creating infographics.
5. Adobe Spark
Adobe, which is known for its suite of graphic design capabilities, has an online infographic creator through Adobe Spark that starts at $9.99 per month. The site offers thousands of free icons and images, the chance to customize infographics with your branding, colors and fonts, access to custom-made Adobe fonts and professional themes. Adobe Spark has a support center for any questions, as well as live 24/7 support if you’re in a hurry.
Best practices for infographics
What, exactly, makes a good infographic? If you’re just getting started, here are some best practices to keep in mind:
1. Create a clear and succinct copy. The point of an infographic is to show and not tell, so opt for visual representations of content and data and keep the copy light where possible.
2. Don’t fill every available space with visuals. Just because you can use visuals, doesn’t mean you should go overboard with them.
3. Use a simple color scheme. Utilize colors that logically work together, and try to incorporate your brand’s colors into the infographic.
4. Use reputable sources for your facts and statistics, and include them at the bottom of your infographic. This shows your brand is credible and that you use factual information to back up your claims.
5. Optimize your infographic for mobile. Make sure it’s responsive, which means it looks good on a screen of any size, and that the words are large enough to read on a mobile device. A mobile font size of 13px to 16px is recommended.
6. Include sharing buttons. When you post your infographic on your website, incorporate buttons where your audience can easily share it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms.
7. Use a call to action. At the bottom of your infographic, encourage users to share it, subscribe to your blog or email list or comment on the post.
8. Look at other great infographics. Before creating your infographic, find some examples of the best ones out there for inspiration.
Creating your infographic
When you create infographics, you have the opportunity to boost your brand reputation and awareness, attract your audience and ensure your business is getting the attention it deserves. Since you don’t want to spend tons of time and money on getting started, test out Venngage, Piktochart, Visme, Infogram and Adobe Spark with free trials before you see which one is the easiest to use and provides the best features for your needs.
Mario Medina is a content strategist. He can be found on Twitter @mariovmedina.