How to Run an Infographic Outreach Campaign for Lead Generation

Infographics can be a great way to turn people — who have no idea who your company is or what you have to offer — into a sales lead. Turning visitors into leads boils down to a two-step process: First, crafting an infographic that solves a problem they currently face, and then crafting a great pitch to a website they visit to help solve their problems.

Crafting the Infographic

Your pitch to that great blog you found is only as great as the infographic you have to offer. Without a piece of content a publisher would be excited to share, your email pitch is no different than the 1,000 others they received that day. That is why creating a great linkable asset that publishers want to share with their readers is crucial to the success of your campaign. Yet how do you come up with ideas publishers are excited to share?

When trying to come up with a topic, keep in mind the first step in the consumer-buyer behavior process: problem recognition. When people start looking for the product/service your company provides, it is because they have a problem that they need solved. What better way to introduce them to your company than by reminding them of that problem and then showing them a way to fix it/what could happen if they don’t fix it?

For example, Straight North has a client that sells tablet POS software to retailers. For an infographic, we brainstormed all of the scenarios that lead to customer dissatisfaction in a retail setting and then demonstrated how using a tablet POS system could solve that problem. Another great example is when a software security company created an infographic that detailed the most common mistakes people make with their file sharing apps that lead to data breaches, and then offered solutions to every problem.

What problems does your product/service solve? What do you help people do? All of these questions and more are what you need to ask your team in the concept-and-design process. Once you have a great infographic that helps solve problems, it’s now time to show it to the world.

Pitching the Infographic

Unless you are a website with a massive following, odds are the “build it and they will come” theory will not work for your new infographic. You are going to need the help of other websites to promote/post your infographic so that your soon-to-be leads learn who you are and how you can help their business. However, is it as easy as finding a site your target market reads and sending the editor or publisher an email saying, “Hey check out this infographic we created”? Sometimes yes it is, but most of the time you need more.

Publishers receive scores of emails every day, pitching them everything from tools to guest blog posts. Why should they take the time to read your email over the 100 others they have in their inbox?

Before even starting the pitching process, you should find some statistic or reason that proves why the problem your infographic solves is important. For example, if I were pitching an infographic on quick SEO wins to a dental practice management website, I would try to find some statistic detailing how many people use search engines to research dentists before calling them. If I could not find those specifics, I would broaden it to local business in general. The fact that a high number of people use search engines to find local businesses makes quick SEO wins important. That statistic gives the publisher a reason to want to post my infographic because it will help his/her readers — and at the end of the day that is why this website exists.

Infographics can be a great source of data, but far too often they are full of data that is irrelevant a few months after publishing. On top of that, they give no compelling reason for the person viewing it to go back to your site. Instead, focus on creating timeless infographics that aim to solve the problems of your potential customers. That way, when you do craft that great pitch that compels the publisher to share it with his/her readers, your target market will then see it and visit your site to learn more about your business.