 We didn't create this infographic. But it's a nice one to illustrate this article. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then an infographic, done right, is worth 2,000.
It’s often convenient, if not downright imperative, to convey your company’s offerings via a succinctly annotated image. Done right, it packs the punch of a headline. It quickly conveys the big picture. It even gets across a few crucial details—in the proper sequence, that is, after the main message has made its point. Note that we said “done right,” twice, above. It’s really key. Look at the flip-side: An infographic, done wrong, will have the opposite of its intended effect. It will confuse. It will disorient. It will convey the wrong message. It will show the whole world that you can’t even describe your own offering. With that caveat as a motivator, let’s dive in. How to create an infographic Step 1: Step back You thought we’d be talking about color palettes and fonts, right? Wrong. That’s part of the execution, the tactics, of the infographic. You need to start with the strategy. And you can easily devise this by considering two basic things:
Basic, yes. Simple, no. For the intended audience, let’s say it’s prospective customers—a fair assumption. But are they qualified or un-qualified? What you tell them would vary accordingly. If you want to move them along the sales funnel, you need to know about their needs and behaviors. Put it this way: You don’t want to get deep into the weeds with them if they’re truly viable, and yet such deep detail would only confuse them or turn them away too early in the game. (If that’s the case, you may well need to create Infographic 1 and Infographic 2, for the un-qualified, and qualified, leads respectively.) Also, from the “audience” standpoint, what’s their situation and sense of urgency? How much, how desperately, do they need to learn what you want to present to them? This will really help your efforts downstream, as it will translate to the types of colors, fonts, verbiage, and imagery you employ. You want to do the best job of pushing their buttons. After all, the tacit job of that infographic is to sell. Another consideration: The form factor. Where will your audience be seeing this infographic? In a huge, printed brochure? Or minutely displayed on their iPhone screen? The answer to that question will dictate just how much, or little, info you can clearly convey. Once you’ve answered the “target audience” question, the “What do we want to show them?” question becomes easier to answer. A rule of thumb: The narrower your focus, the easier this becomes. If you know, for example, your audience consists primarily of logistics executives who are seeking to reduce costs for overland transport, that rapidly narrows down what you should convey in the infographic, in a very good way. As always, you want to respect the viewer’s time. Assume that they’re jammed. Never assume that they’re going to cuddle up with your infographic and read every word. So keep those logistics people focused on logistics, or whatever the case may be. Here’s another basic guideline: Less is more. You simply can’t say everything about your business in a single infographic. It pains us to even say this, but too many companies actually try. Narrow your focus. Consider the job at hand. Think of what you must do, who you must convince, and what action you want them to take. In case you hadn’t figured it out by now, this requires a lot of discipline, and we haven’t even gotten to the execution yet. In other words, infographics are hard. We’ve worked with ad agencies that have spent months developing a single infographic. Think of it like a Super Bowl TV commercial: Well done, it zips by in 30 seconds. But you know they spent months making it. How to create an infographic Step 2: Prioritize By this point, you’re very well armed. You understand your target audience and their needs, and you know what you want to tell them, in the infographic. The hardest part is behind you. Take the next step in Word. Write down all the bits of information you want to convey. Don’t worry about sexy wording; just make a list. Bullet points are fine. Now look at that list, and rearrange it. Find all the most urgent stuff, set it in big/boldface, and move it to the top of the list. Then find all the least urgent items, and set them in a smaller size or italics, and move them to the bottom of the list. Ta-dah. You’ve carved the thing into three big chunks: Urgent, average, and less-urgent/detail. Now, some of the “Average” items will be qualifiers of some of the specific “Urgent” things; similarly, some of the “Details” will be qualifiers of discrete “Average” items. That’s good. So now, move them around, so the list looks like this: Urgent Item 1
Urgent Item 2
Urgent Item 3
Of course, it won’t look exactly like that. Some of your urgent items will be stand-alone's. That’s fine. Now, take that list, and do a “Save as...” in Word. Call your new doc something like “Infographic Text 1.docx.” Now you can play around with the actual verbiage. So something like “Fast Response” becomes something like “99% Same-Day Turnaround.” Yes, use numbers. A lot. They’re the “info” in “infographic.” And your Urgent/Average/Detail might shake out like this: 56 Locations Nationwide
See how all of your work from Steps 1 and 2 is paying off? How to create an infographic Step 3: Execute This is the last step—the step that far too many companies believe is the first step, to their peril. Unlike them, you now know exactly where you’re going. This step is fast, cost-efficient, straightforward, and fun. You have all the cool verbiage in your “Text” document. You know, from your target-audience exercise, what kinds of colors, images, and moods will resonate with them. You know which items in your “Text” doc are the most urgent of the urgent ones. You even came up with a cool title for your infographic (such as ABC Logistics Support at a Glance, to play out our above example). Now you can search stock libraries such as Shutterstock for cool images, icons, and backgrounds. Cast a wide net: Grab more than you need. Keep your eyes open for surprising images you hadn’t expected. (We have a cool article on that very topic: New Approaches to Stale Stock Images.) Then, you either hand off all these images and text to your graphic designer, or take the next step and use either a dedicated app such as Illustrator, or an easy-to-use online tool, such as Canva, to design the thing yourself. (If you go the latter route, be sure to look at the different infographic templates they offer; you can tweak any of them to your liking.) Need help? We know about infographics, because we help our clients with them all the time. We can help you, too. Simply contact us today for a friendly, no-obligation consultation.
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 See this professional cameraman? He won't be shooting you. Not long ago, only world leaders and celebrities would ever be shot on video. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Today, video cameras are about the size of a raisin, and they’re ubiquitous: every phone, tablet, desktop, and laptop computer has one. Factor in the latest coronavirus lockdown and the work-from-home tsunami, and things have changed like never before.
Which means, sooner or later, you’re going to be on camera. This article will help you. To be clear: This is not about making yourself into some backward-ballcap YouTuber. This is about building your business and your brand. Because these days, you’re likely to get interviewed, not by a camera crew coming to visit you, but by the camera that you already have. The interviewer could be a reporter from a trade publication or other news outlet, or a rep from a client, peer, or vendor. Or it could simply be a virtual replacement for what was until recently a local meeting at the office. In any event, all of this is tossing the burden squarely on you to look good, and perform great. There won’t be a cinematographer. There won’t be a director. There won’t be hair-and-makeup. You’ll be flying totally solo. If this makes you nervous, consider yourself healthy. It should. Arm for action If no one’s providing you with a safety net—if no one else is there to ensure that you look great and don’t screw up—you’ll have to do it yourself. We can’t sugar-coat this: Appearing on video is a big deal. Assuming that the final piece will reside on someone else’s computer screen or website (and likely hosted on YouTube or Vimeo), you can’t control it or call it back once it’s out there. It will likely still be out there, after you’ve shuffled off this mortal coil we call life. Sobering, huh? All that said, there are plenty of things you can do to prepare your space, prepare yourself, and perform well. Let’s cover them all. Setting the stage Since we’ll assume that this interview has been booked in advance, you fortunately have some time to play and experiment. Use this to your advantage. Consider the space you’ll be in. Probably your office, right? Here’s the first thing to do: Fire up your computer's camera. And look at the scene it shows. Start with the obvious. Eliminate the clutter. Discard those Starbucks cups. Stow any stray power cords. Straighten those pictures (or better yet, awards) on the wall. Make sure the camera lens is clean; if not, clean it. Look at the lighting. Adjust it as best you can. Phone- and computer-based cameras, despite vendor claims, aren’t the greatest. They can’t handle high-contrast situations well. Play with combinations of room light, lamp light, and sunlight. Avoid backlight. The camera can’t handle it. That is, don’t sit with a window behind you. In fact, the exact opposite is often really helpful: If you can park your computer right up against a window, the big wash of light that will fall upon you will be very flattering, and you can adjust the brightness simply by tweaking the blinds. You can also use the overhead room light, now behind you, as an accent for highlights on your hair. It’s Hollywood without the Hollywood. If you have a choice of a laptop or desktop computer, try both. Shoot test footage of yourself with each; see which comes out better. It’s not just the quality of the embedded camera; it’s also the point of view. A desktop camera will usually shoot down on you as you sit at your desk, making you look smaller, while hiding the deep background (sometimes that’s desirable). A laptop camera, on the other hand, always looks up at you, which makes you look bigger (and possibly imposing); you’re almost always closer to a laptop camera, too, so you get a closeup instead of a wide shot, and you’re also closer to the microphone. Which leads to the issue of sound. Make sure your venue is quiet. You can’t have distracting noises (traffic, sirens, other workers, doorbells, barking dogs) popping up during your interview. If you can’t control these factors, choose another location. Getting ready for your closeup You do phone calls all the time, and never consider how you look. Not long ago, you'd sit in meetings and feel confident about how you looked, because you took the time to prep yourself in the morning. One or two stray hairs, for example, wasn't an issue. No one noticed; no one cared. Video, unfortunately, is different. The person watching the video of you could well be in their underwear. It’s a totally one-way street. You need to look as close to perfect as you can get. Honestly: If you’ve got one wisp of stray hair bouncing across your forehead during the interview, that’s all anyone will watch. Tragic, but true. So fix your makeup. If you’re a guy, you likely don’t do makeup! But a little shave talc will help to take the shine off your face; you don’t want shine. (This is where the expression “Powder your nose” comes from, and why sometimes the restroom is called the “Powder Room.” But we digress.) Lock down your hair. You can use hairspray or gel to death and you’ll be fine. You just don’t want to worry about it. Then dress properly—for the camera. Business casual is good; a blazer and open collar are fine. Wear neutral tones. Avoid black. Avoid white. You may look great in those colors in person, but the camera can’t handle it. It will compensate for what it thinks is a “dark” or “light” scene, and screw up your skin tones accordingly. So stick with neutral tones. Ditto for colors. Stay neutral. If you wear bright blue or yellow, for example, that cheap laptop camera will interpret it as “sunlight” or “incandescent light” respectively, and adjust its colors to compensate—again, screwing up your skin tones. Do wear a neutral top. Don’t let that camera make you look like a member of Blue Man Group or like you’ve got third-degree burns. One other thing to avoid: Busy patterns. Small checks or narrow stripes confuse video cameras (even expensive ones), creating on-screen “noise” that swims and moves and is very distracting. Don’t go there. Shoot test shots, with sound, of yourself. Play them back. And then adjust, adjust, adjust. Fix the sound. Fix the lighting. Fix the background. Fix yourself. And don't forget to mute your phone! Disable email, on-screen notifications, and so on. You don't want them mucking up your interview. A performance primer Ideally, get the interview questions emailed to you in advance. Some reporters will be reluctant do to this; if so, ask them to just send you a list of general topics that will be covered. It’s a lot better than nothing. And if “nothing” is what you get, you can still prepare. Heck, you can accurately guess the kinds of questions you’ll be asked. So jot some down. Consider how you’d answer them. And then practice those answers, on camera. Record it. View the results. Then do it again. All of this repetition not only hones your answers. It improves your performance. The main reason is that it gives you practice. What do military pilots always say when they successfully eject from a burning fighter jet? “It was the training.” You want to de-sensitize yourself to what otherwise would be the unnatural shock of suddenly being on-camera. If you can enlist a colleague, get them to help. Make the training (just as the military does) as realistic as possible. Give them the questions you got in advance, or had guessed at yourself, and have them interview you on a Skype, GoToMeeting, or Zoom call. Record it. View it. Try it again. TV news anchors always look so relaxed on camera. Why? They do it all the time. The novelty is gone. They know what to do. They’re confident in their hair, makeup, wardrobe, lighting, and the set they’re sitting in. You’ll be doing all that, too. Paradoxically, the optimum result of all this preparation is to make it look like you never prepared at all. You want to come across as relaxed, conversational, easygoing, confident, and thoroughly knowledgeable. Follow all these tips, and you will. Need help with that next video interview? Need footage of yourself for social posts or vlogs? We can help. Contact us today to learn more. |