Infographics are a hot commodity in the digital marketing space, both as part of SEO strategies and for content marketing initiatives. They’re a great way to connect with audiences, educate readers in a creative and visual way, and build editorial backlinks. About 65 percent of people are visual learners. That means well over half of your target audience is people who you should market to visually.

As infographics have gained in popularity, though, many companies have pushed out graphics that don't offer enough value to the viewer. Ask yourself these questions when you’re developing an infographic to ensure your graphics offer enough value to rise above the crowd:

• Is the internet a better, more useful place because we released this infographic?
• Does this infographic provide information or insights that existing infographics don’t?
• Does this infographic provide insights that readers will find interesting, compelling, and relevant to their lives and pursuits?

Once you have created a high-value infographic, how do you turn a one-off infographic strategy into a complete marketing campaign? Here are some of the tactics we've used to maximize the return on investment from infographics.

#1 — Offer an initial exclusive

If you’re creating an infographic for SEO benefits, it’s a safe assumption that you’re doing outreach. Before you start the general blogger outreach, though offer exclusive first coverage to a few top tier publications. Many to-tier publications will be more likely to publish your infographic if you offer them exclusive first-publication rights. Typically, this means they get to publish it first and you won’t allow it to be published elsewhere for a certain amount of time thereafter (for example, one week). After that time period is up, you can publish it anywhere you choose.

#2 — Submit a press release

If your infographic contains original data or combines data in a fresh way to arrive at unique conclusions, consider writing and distributing a press release. We’re not interested in the backlinks we get from the press release itself; rather, we’re interested in the possible coverage we can get if editors see the press release and decide to cover the story.

This screenshot above, from prnewswire.com, shows a press release we submitted for an infographic. (We created Black Friday Survey 2015 for one of our clients.) The infographic was based on original data, making it a newsworthy angle publishers were interested in. The piece was cited by several targeted top-tier publications.

#3 — Leverage UGC as data for your infographic campaign

Create a survey to gather original data for your infographic. By getting your audience involved in providing data, you get at least two additional benefits:

1. The survey itself is social media content that can help drive engagement and shares.
2. Once the infographic is done, survey takers will feel invested in the piece and be more likely to share it.

#4 — Cite it as source in guest blog posts

Citing data from an infographic or using part of it as a graphic in a guest blog post is a great way to:

• Work an attribution backlink into a relevant blog post (for example, into a guest column on a high authority website)
• Build a natural backlink and diversify your link portfolio

#5 — Spin the infographic into posts for your blog

Once you’ve done the research and designed the infographic, you can write blog posts covering each section of the infographic in more details. You’ve already done the research and created a custom graphic you can use for each post!

#6 — Include it in emails

Infographics can be great content to use in emails. Here are a few ways you could transform infographics into email content for your list:

• Send out a newsletter highlighting the entire infographic
• Write auto-responder emails based on slices of the infographic
• Feature the infographic in your next newsletter
• Politely brag about any top-tier publications that featured your infographic

#7 — Piggyback on a holiday

In addition to the major holidays, such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, the calendar is packed with lesser-known holidays. Aligning your infographic with one or more of these holidays could be very beneficial. Consider how leveraging this could enable you to:

• Provide opportunities to ride the wave of hashtags and buzz within relevant communities
• Give you a unique angle for pitching bloggers on your infographic
• Open doors for joint ventures with individuals, organizations, and communities that are invested in the chosen holidays

#8 — Slice and dice it for social media

Most infographics can easily be sliced up into bite-sized pieces perfect for posting on Facebook, Pinterest, and other websites. If you’re able to make some slices that have very little text, you can boost the posts on Facebook as well. (Remember, Facebook has a maximum 20% text rule for posts you want to boost.)

This excerpt from 5 of the World’s Most Secure Vaults & Bunkers (another infographic we created for a client) is a great example of how infographics can be sliced into smaller pieces for sharing on social media or using in a blog post. An entire infographic is too long and too in-depth for quick social media sharing, but an excerpt like this is a quick read and easy share!

#9 — Tie it in with a contest or giveaway

An infographic can be paired with a contest to drive additional buzz and encourage blogger participation. For example, Macy’s partnered with Better Recipes on a campaign around the KitchenAid mixer. The infographic showed 25 kitchen items you can replace with a mixer and was then attached to a giveaway of a KitchenAid mixer for Valentine’s Day. Keep in mind that giving away free gifts in exchange for links is (according to Google) the same as purchasing links, so tread carefully in this space.

#10 — Use it as a lead generation landing page

Infographics can be repurposed as a lead generation asset.

Here's how to make it work:

1. Create an ebook or whitepaper with more data and details on the same topic as your infographic
2. Publish the infographic with a prominent opt-in form to download the ebook/whitepaper

#11 — Use it in paid ad campaigns

Infographics can be repurposed and worked into your paid advertising campaigns in several ways, including:

• Using data and graphical elements from the infographic to create display ads
• Using data and stats from the infographic in ad copy and landing pages
• Running ad campaigns to a lead generation page that features the infographic
• Running a low-CPC (display and/or native) ad campaign featuring the infographic to drive brand awareness and leads

#12 — Include your brand's charity work in the infographic

Are you participating in a humanitarian program or charity? Create an infographic that ties in with the charity or issue you’re involved with. Remember to keep the focus on promoting the charity/issue at hand, not on patting yourself on the back for your contributions. This offers several additional benefits:

• Gets more of your organization involved your company’s marketing efforts in an organic way
• Helps you support charity work and make the world a better place (cliched, but true!)
• Opens up additional channels to promote your infographic

What other ways do you use infographics across different channels to maximize the return you get on the time and money invested in creation?