In a world driven by data, marketers are finding new and better ways to present data to make it more visually appealing—and this data visualization strategy is invaluable to content marketing approaches because it makes the data easily consumable, notes Tony Adragna in an article in Business 2 Community. Adragna offers some tips to help marketers better use data visualization in their content strategies:
1. Only Use Accurate Data—If you want to get the appropriate insights from your data, you have to ensure that your data reliable and you can trust it. That means you have to carefully evaluate all the data that you plan to use in your visualizations, especially if someone else generates it. “If you use data obtained internally, ensure you’ve taken all the statistical steps necessary to have sound data points [upon which] to base conclusions,” Adragna says.
2. Once Upon a Time—It’s important to tell a story with the data. Storytelling puts the data into context and makes it easier for your audience to relate and remember. Data visualization can help you tell the story. However, Adragna says to tell an effective story, you have to understand your target audience so your story will “resonate” with them.
Once you have identified your target audience, create a content marketing offer like such as an eBook, guide, or how-to article that speaks to your audience’s concerns. “Utilize the data you have to support and drive your story within the text,” Adragna notes. “Additionally, you can also place data visualization within your story to highlight important and noteworthy data points.”
3. How to Present the Data—You can visually present the data in many ways, including through infographics, timelines, maps, charts, and graphs. It all depends on the type of data you’re presenting. But here are a few best practices to help you decide how to present it:
- Context: Don’t remove all the story and context around the data visual, so your audience can understand the relevance of the data, even if the graphic is presented as a standalone.
- Design: Keep the design of your data visualization simple. Group related data points together and use contrasting colors for data that you want to emphasize.
- Actionability: When used by itself, data visualization should suggest an action. “Data is useless without action, so it is critical that the data presented is actionable,” Adragna says.
4. Data Visualization to Attract, Not Convert—Don’t hide your data visualization behind a form or a landing page. Rather, it should accompany your content marketing offer so it can draw attention to the content offer. “[It] should only be used as a starting point in the path to your content offer that will convert a lead,” Adragna says. “Attract visitors using data visualization but use your data-driven content marketing offer to convert those visitors into leads.”
“Data visualization is a great asset for marketers to utilize in their content marketing strategy when executed properly,” Adragna says, and we couldn’t agree more.
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