Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Wouldn’t it be great if creating infographics was as simple as writing regular old text-based blog posts? Unfortunately, making visual content like this usually takes a lot more time, effort, and let’s face it — skill — than the written word. Usually.
But considering the popularity and effectiveness of visual content in marketing today, you can’t just afford to throw in the towel.
That’s why we decided to take all the pain and suffering out of infographic creation. Seriously — don’t give up just yet. You, too, can create infographics that are professional-looking, high-quality, and completed in under an hour. I’m going to prove it. First things first:

Then, all you have to do is provide the content to use inside them. Easy as that. In fact, I’m going to show you just how easy it is to make your own infographic by demonstrating with one of our 15 infographic templates in PowerPoint (pictured above). Then, I’ll explain exactly what I did so you get a sense of how easy it really is.

How to Make an Infographic

Identify the audience for your infographic.
Collect your content and relevant data.
Choose your desired infographic template.
Download your template to PowerPoint.
Customize your infographic.
Include a footer with your sources and logo.
Add an embed code and Pinterest button, and publish it.

1. Identify the audience for your infographic.
Infographics don’t sell themselves on design alone. You need to deliver “info” that’s just as compelling as the “graphic,” and to do that, you need to know the audience your infographic intends to reach.
According to Harvard Business Review, there are five possible audiences that can change how you choose and visualize your data: novice, generalist, managerial, expert, and executive. Start by comparing your infographic’s ideal reader with one of these five audiences — which one applies to your reader?
When thinking about the data you want to visualize, let the five audiences above dictate how advanced your data will be. A “novice” audience, for example, might need data whose meaning is more obvious at first blush. An “expert” might be more interested in getting into the weeds of your numbers and posing theories around them. An “executive” has more in common with a novice audience in that they only have time for the simplest or most critical information, and the affect it’ll have on the business.

2. Collect your content and relevant data.
Using the audience you’ve chosen above, your next step is to organize all the content and data you’ll use in the infographic. You can either collect third-party data or use your own original data. If you use third-party data, just be sure you properly cite your sources — just like in any other good piece of content.

Choosing your data: Compelling data needs to be “comprehensive” enough to give your readers proper context around the data you’re presenting. For example, a spike in website traffic from one month to the next doesn’t mean much — until, say, you reveal that traffic was on a steady decline over the previous three months. Suddenly you have a story of how you were able to reverse a downward trend.

Organizing your data: When collecting your data, make sure you know what story you want to tell through this information. Data for the sake of data won’t add value to your infographic at all.

Citing your sources: To keep your infographic uncluttered by a ton of different source URLs, a great way to cite your sources is to include a simple URL at the bottom of your infographic that links to a page on your site. You can also list the individual stats used in your infographic, and their sources — such as the landing page to the full offer on which you’re basing this free infographic.

That way, your infographic looks clean and professional, yet people will still be able to access the sources no matter where the infographic gets shared or embedded. It may also even drive visitors back to your site.
3. Choose your desired infographic template.
Your next step is to choose an infographic template appropriate for representing that data. The important thing is to choose a template that specifically works for the type of data set/content you want to present. As you saw pictured above, you can download our 15 infographic templates in PowerPoint and choose whichever template you’d like.
Some of your template options in the offer linked above include a timeline, flowchart, side-by-side comparison, and a data-driven infographic. Here are some basic ideas for choosing an infographic template that suits the story you want your data to tell:

Side-by-side comparison infographic: This infographic design can help prove the advantage of one concept over another, or simply explain the differences between two competing entities.

Flowchart infographic: This design is perfect for presenting a new workflow for your organization, or how a linear or cyclical process works across your industry.

Timeline infographic: This design can tell a chronological story, or history, of a business, industry, product, or concept.

Graph-based infographic: This design is suitable for content creators publishing a high volume of data and statistical information, making it a good fit for expert-level audiences, too.

Image-heavy infographic: This design caters to content creators who are trying to reveal trends and information from shapes, designs, or photography — rather than just numbers and figures.

4. Download your template to PowerPoint.
For the sake of time (remember, our mission is to create an infographic in under an hour), I’m going to create an infographic based on a compilation of steps and best practices we put together in our guide, How to Run an Inbound Marketing Campaign in 2018. For this, I’ve picked the “World’s Greatest Timeline” infographic template from our collection of infographic templates, which is helpful for my data set since it will allow me to outline each step of the campaign creation process in order.

5. Customize your infographic
Obviously, this is the most time-consuming part — but it’s also the most fun. Simply come up with a catchy title, plug in your data/content, and adjust your font sizes and formatting. Feel free to switch up the graphics and colors, too, so they’re relevant to your brand and the data you’re providing. To customize the look of the infographic even more, you might add or change up the colors or font styles.
In this example, you’ll notice that I’ve inputted my text and changed the font colors to HubSpot’s signature orange and dark blue:

You’re not limited by what the template includes, either. You can use the tools in PowerPoint’s software to create bar graphs, pie charts, and other visuals to support your data. (Note: Download our free infographic templates for a cheat sheet for using PowerPoint’s various features and tools.)
6. Include a footer with your sources and logo.
Finally, I included a link to my source (which can be found here), as well as the HubSpot logo so people know who created the infographic if it gets shared in social media or embedded on other websites — which is definitely something you want, since one of the main benefits of creating infographics is their shareability.

7. Add embed code and a Pinterest button, and publish it.
The only thing left to do is to publish and promote your awesome new infographic. As I mentioned earlier, we recommend using your blog to publish it (including your list of sources), including a Pinterest button for visitors to easily “pin” your infographic on Pinterest, and create and add an embed code for visitors to share it on their own websites and blogs, as we did above.

Share This Image On Your Site <p><strong>Please include attribution to blog.hubspot.com with this graphic.</strong><br /><br /><a href=’https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/create-infographics-with-free-powerpoint-templates’><img src=’https://blog.hubspot.com/hs-fs/hubfs/free_infographic_template_custom-1.png?t=1519094621186&width=1138&height=3412&name=free_infographic_template_custom-1.png’ alt=’free_infographic_template_custom-1′ width=’660px’ border=’0′ /></a></p>
That’s it! This whole thing took me under an hour to put together — much shorter than it would’ve taken me if I’d started from scratch (not to mention more professional looking… and less expensive than hiring a designer). 
That’s it! This whole thing took me under an hour to put together — much less time (not to mention more professional looking) than it would’ve taken me if I’d started from scratch. Plus, it’s less expensive than hiring a designer and using the resources you might want to save for larger campaigns.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Did you know that landing pages have the highest conversion rate at 23% than other types of signup forms? It’s true, but landing pages don’t convert visitors to leads all by themselves. If they don’t have attractive and compelling offers behind them, they won’t generate the leads your sales team is looking for.
That’s why it’s so important to create valuable content people want to download, and then package it in a way that’s visually appealing to your readers. An ebook is a practical content choice that delivers so much value to your audience that they won’t mind submitting a lead form to download it. WP Forms reports that ebooks are the most popular lead magnet amongst subscribers, with 27.7% of marketers using them.

Adding ebooks to your content archive can be a worthwhile effort, but it’ll take work. While every step of creating an ebook is critical, a substantial step of the ebook development process is creating a design that helps tell the story in the copy. A professional and functional design makes the copy more readable to your audience, thus making it more likely that they’ll refer back to it and maybe even share it with a friend.
We know not every team has someone in-house who can (or has time to) whip up a slick, shareable ebook design. But we have good news: You don’t need to be a designer by trade to design beautiful ebooks yourself. With the right resources and approach, you can deliver valuable content to your audience in a fraction of the time.
A few years ago. we created ebook templates to help make this process easier for you. They were so popular that we decided to revamp the offer and include PowerPoint, Adobe Indesign, and Google Slides formats. We hope these templates minimize the time you spend on the details of design, allowing you to concentrate on writing valuable, lead-generating content your readers will love.

Download the Templates Now
 
Start With One of These Free Ebook Templates
Each of these templates is sure to organize your content into a readable, shareable ebook that your readers will enjoy. Each one is complete with a table of contents, chapter page, copy pages, and a call-to-action page at the end. Here is a preview of some of the ebooks you’ll find in the template bundle:
1. Artistic Theme

Download This Template
For the marketer, salesperson, or designer who needs to communicate a vision from high-level strategy to detail, the Artistic theme template is a smart choice. This template uses white space to set boundaries between sections, giving your ebook a clean, uncluttered charm. Colorful headers with serif fonts, eye-catching graphics, and stunning images will make your ebook come to life. The Artistic theme includes several unique layout options including light and heavy text pages, photo layouts, and more so that the design is fresh from one page to another.
The Artistic Theme Ebook Template is best for:

Marketing Content
Target Audience Personas
Sales Tips and Tricks

 
2. Professional Theme

Download This Template
Appeal to the professional yet bold aesthetic, the Professional theme ebook template. Image-based title pages and thick, bold fonts draw attention to headlines and big ideas while body pages with room for photos make it perfect for a showcase or inspiration guide. The Professional template is made with the visual communicator in mind. Social media experts, event planners, and web designers — this one is for you!
The Professional Theme Ebook Template is best for:

Social Media Guidelines
Event Planning
Web Design Content

 
3. Honeycomb Theme

Download This Template
Your ebook is sure to get the crowd buzzing with this honeycomb-inspired design. The hexagonal shapes in the background are neutral-colored in the original ebook template, but adding in your brand colors can make these hives look sweet. Inside, you’ll find page layouts for quotes and captioned photos, making it a good choice for ebooks with a healthy balance of imagery and copy.
The Honeycomb Theme Ebook template is best for:

Recipe Books
Customer Service Guidelines
Technology Best Practices

 
4. Triad Theme

Download This Template
Great for educational workbooks that include heavy visual designs, the Triad theme provides plenty of space to organize your content on every page. The triangular shapes in this template give your ebook a sense of direction that keeps the reader moving forward. The bold complementary colors jump right off the page and grab your attention, but this template can be edited to incorporate your brand colors.
The Triad Theme Ebook Template is best for:

Educational Workbooks
Educational Presentations
Seminar Courses

 
With these polished templates, you’ll be able to:

Create beautifully designed ebooks without either the cost of a designer or experience with InDesign/Illustrator/Photoshop.

Choose from six different ebook designs across three different platforms (Adobe InDesign, PowerPoint, and Google Slides), and even add your own brand colors for a custom look.

Spend more time writing awesome content and less time getting the layout right.

Use all of the stock images provided in the templates, free of charge.

Save your ebooks as professional and attractive PDF files that are ready for download.

 
Start Creating Your Ebook For Free
Ebooks are one of the most popular content offerings available to consumers, but the effort required to make them can deter content creators from starting the process. These templates make designing your ebook simple so you can spend more time sharing your big ideas with the world.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Nowadays, significant career shifts are as prevalent as they’ve ever been. Some people want to assume a different degree of responsibility. Some want to pursue a passion they’ve put on hold for too long. And some flat-out need a change of pace.

It’s a popular course that comes with a host of challenges, several potential pitfalls, plenty of barriers of entry, and a lot of requisite hard work — especially when it comes to transitioning to a role in marketing.
And if you’re making that leap, you’ll need all the help and insight you can get, so we’ve provided some tips and tricks to consider if you want to shift your career trajectory and become a marketer.

1. Study, study, and study some more on your own time.
This one might go without saying, but you can’t expect to smoothly transition into a marketing role if you have no concept of what marketing entails. One of the best ways to make your job search and ultimate career shift more viable and straightforward is to study marketing on your own.
Learn as much as possible on your time. Check out some books on the subject. Follow marketing influencers. Conduct independent research, and if you have the necessary time and motivation, complete some online courses to help bolster your marketing knowledge and relevant skillset.
Employers are rarely interested in new marketing candidates who haven’t demonstrated the interest and initiative to understand the field. Plus, training new hires who are building their marketing knowledge from scratch is often a waste of time and resources.
If you want to transition to a marketing role, you need to show that you’re familiar with and enthusiastic about the practice. Learning about the field on your own time is one of the best ways to do both.
2. Try to assume more marketing-oriented responsibilities
within your current role.
While using external resources like books and online courses to step up your marketing game is always a good call, accruing real marketing experience can help you stand out from other candidates and make your transition between fields even more seamless.
See if you can help with some marketing responsibilities at your current company, and make a point of legitimately pursuing and fulfilling them. That might mean helping out with tasks related to social media, email outreach, company newsletters, or any other aspects of your organization’s marketing strategy that the department might need help with.
In doing so, you can string together some legitimate experience that shows potential employers (or your current company) that your interest in and aptitude for marketing isn’t all talk. That kind of clout can go a long way when transitioning to a marketing role.
3. Consider accruing external marketing experience.
Sometimes assuming marketing responsibilities at your current employer isn’t feasible. Your company might be perfectly satisfied with how its marketing team operates, or it could want to keep departments siloed and focused on their immediate responsibilities. 
In that case, you might want to look into avenues and opportunities to supplement your current role. Try pursuing positions like part-time or unpaid digital marketing internships that can help you get your feet wet in the field.
Bear in mind that if you go this road, your current position has to remain your first priority. You don’t want to undercut your professional performance by prioritizing what will essentially be a side hustle.
So naturally, this point falls squarely on you and your free time — it means putting in a lot of extra effort outside work hours. But if you’re serious about making the transition to a marketing role, it’s an excellent way to flesh out your résumé, refine your skillset, and offer you some much-needed clout.
4. Adjust your résumé.
As you can assume, employers trying to hire marketers aren’t prioritizing candidates who only tout skills and accomplishments relevant to other areas. So if you don’t have extensive experience in marketing, you’ll likely need to re-tool your résumé a bit when trying to make the shift to the field.
That doesn’t mean throwing every record of your professional accolades, accomplishments, and acumen by the wayside. Instead, see if you can use your experience in your current field to highlight skills that can be applied in the context of a marketing role.
For instance, if you’re in sales, you could play up your strategic and critical thinking skills by discussing how you helped shape and implement a successful go-to-market sales strategy.
You might also demonstrate a knack for high-quality content creation by referencing effective pitch decks or case studies you’ve had a hand in. And you could tout your communication skills by pointing to your experience with responsibilities like prospect outreach or social selling.
Again, you don’t have to lie about or disregard your prior experience. Just be mindful of what potential employers will be looking for. Make sure your résumé reflects the fact that you have the necessary fundamentals to be an exceptional marketer — not just a solid worker in general.
5. Fold more marketers into your professional network.
These days, a robust professional network is much more of a need-to-have than a nice-to-have — and when you’re transitioning into a marketing role, one can be an invaluable asset. When you’re trying to breach a new field without much experience, you need all the guidance you can get. An active network can provide that.
Try reaching out to internal marketing experts at your company to see if you can shadow them a bit. See if they’d be willing to set aside some time to provide some insight about their experiences and advice to set you on the right track. Maybe, you’ll even find someone who could be interested in mentoring you.
And while you look for more immediate connections, hit LinkedIn and reach out to some external marketers to see if they’d be willing to chat and offer some advice. One way or another, communicate with experienced marketers and learn as much as you can. It can only help your case when trying to transition to a marketing role.
Switching professional gears in favor of a position in marketing is never easy. It takes a lot of effort, thought, persistence, and ambition. So if you’re thinking about transitioning into this kind of role, you need to make sure you’re truly in it before you start taking the necessary steps.
But if you’re still set on shifting careers after considering the challenges that might come with the process, it’ll be well worth the trouble. Just be sure to consider the points on this list — among others — when you start setting things in motion.

In 2020, Email Volume Grew 7% and Consumers Responded with a 13% Increase in Open Rates
We’re excited to announce the release of our annual 2021 Benchmarks Report. So many of our customers dealt with huge changes to their businesses, including everything from decreased in-person business to managing increased online behavior, as well as problems with supply chain and fulfillment. During all of this upheaval, email became an important communication channel in order to provide COVID-19 information and content—and of course, transaction details. 
The 2021 Email Benchmarks Report analyzed over 100 billion emails sent globally by CM Group clients. With so much more customer interaction happening online, email grew an incredible 7% in 2020, compared to a growth rate of only 2.5% the year before. This equates to more than 1 billion more emails sent year over year by CM Group clients per month, with the highest increases happening in March and July when clients sent 1.5 billion more emails.
Not only that, we saw that our customers’ audiences were highly engaged, with an increase in open rates at a staggering 13%. Even with the record number of emails going to inboxes, people were more likely to engage than ever before, with the peak open rates happening in April and May. 
This is a highly encouraging sign for our customers, especially as many will continue to rely on email this year as new changes unfold and as they learn to balance “back-to-normal” behavior with their newfound online preferences.
Here are several other key findings from the Report:

Friday had the highest open rates: In a shift from past years where early week-day performed the best, Friday was the highest performer in 2020.

Mobile share decreased: With less time in lines and commuting, mobile’s share of opened emails went down for the first time in years, from 63% to 54%.

Click-to-open rates decreased: Many more emails were sent to simply provide information, rather than to drive an action, resulting in a slight click-to-open rate decrease from 2019.

Several industries saw click-through rates above 4%: Four industries — government, education, nonprofits and agriculture — all saw increases to its click-through rates in 2020, all reaching above 4%.

Unsubscribe rates were historically low: Specifically for entertainment, media and, importantly, retail, Campaign Monitor saw unsubscribe rates near 0% throughout the year.

Looking ahead, we see the opportunity to have larger and more engaged email subscriber lists this year. But as everyone gets back to life as usual, having the right segmentation and personalization will be even more critical to reaching your audience. Now is the time to test, test, test, in order to determine what keeps subscribers most interested over the long term, not just for an individual email or campaign. 
To get a full breakdown of performance benchmarks in 2020, including send volume, open rate and click-through rate by industry and day of week, we encourage you to download the full Report. 
These benchmarks serve as an important and valuable baseline for marketers as they try to plan 2021 without their typical historical data to rely on.
To download the full 2021 Benchmarks Report, click here.
The post 2021 Benchmarks Report Shows 3x Email Growth appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

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