The Cost of Creating an Infographic
Infographics have taken off in popularity in the past few years. Audiences are demanding more visual content, and marketers are happy to oblige with engaging graphics that drive traffic and shares. According to HubSpot, 74% of marketers (including 52% of B2B marketers) now prioritize visual content in their designs.
Not only is visual content engaging, it’s also effective for sales and branding. The same HubSpot report found that 65% of internet users will remember a message three days later when it’s paired with a visual design, compared to 10% who remember text alone. If you’re trying to create a message that sticks, the best option is to go visual.
While companies want to tap into visual marketing, many departments are left wondering how they can do it. Should they make the investment and hire someone in-house? Should they take on a freelancer to do the work for them? Or, should they find an agency that specializes in their field?
There’s no perfect answer. Every company is different and has different needs. However, by learning about the infographic design process and what each option offers, you’re better prepared to make a choice that suits your brand. Keep reading to learn about the costs and process for creating an infographic.
How Much Does an Infographic Cost?
An infographic will cost anything from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. CopyPress, like most agencies, charges clients around $2,000 from start to finish for an infographic. We feel that we provide value to our customers that’s worth the cost.
The cost of an infographic varies based on the source of the work and what’s included. For example, hiring a freelancer is typically viewed as a more affordable alternative to working with an agency. Some designers on Fiverr charge only $5 for a design, while other freelancers charge $500 or more. However, working with freelancers can mean more work for you and more time that your team spends helping the design process. If you hire a graphic designer for $100, they might be trying to build their portfolio and not know as much as someone who is more advanced. Their design might not have all of the tips and tricks you want to make your graphic shine.
Similarly, hiring freelance workers often means onboarding them to your brand. You will have to clearly communicate your style guide and brand goals to make sure they create something you can use. This expends resources, limiting the benefits of taking on the freelancer. As you continue to learn about the infographic design process, you might realize the benefits of tapping proven professionals instead of hiring unknown freelancers on the cheap.
The 6-Step Infographic Creation Process
Infographic creation isn’t only about graphic design. There’s a good deal of writing, creative thinking, and planning that comes with the development process. By following CopyPress’s six-step model, you can ensure your infographic is exactly what you want and accomplishes your marketing goals.
1. Topic Ideation
One of the benefits of working with an agency instead of hiring a freelancer for infographic creation is the knowledge of the topic ideas. A freelancer is limited to what they know about the industry. They might come up with some great ideas, especially if you brainstorm with them, but you’re only tapping into their knowledge base. Conversely, when you work with an agency, you’re tapping into four or five people who all understand your industry and have different perspectives on it. At CopyPress, we often bring in people from other departments to contribute their ideas, keeping topic generation fresh.
Agencies are also typically better at aligning your infographic topic ideas with your sales and marketing goals, especially if they work with you to provide other content services. There are multiple types of infographic designs that vary depending on an organization. You might want your IG to boost social traffic to your website, garner links from top publishers, or drive direct sales. Knowing your goals and the reader’s intent when they see the infographic, we can come up with topic ideas to improve your bottom line.
2. Research
Once a topic is selected, the research process begins. In the era of fake news, it’s more important than ever to have an editorial team that pulls useful data that is both interesting and accurate. If even one of your points is false or comes from an unreliable source, your whole graphic could be rejected and your investment a complete waste.
Our researchers and writers experience a thorough editing and quality assurance process to make sure all of the information in your graphic is reliable, up-to-date, and accurate.
3. Writing
Once the research process is complete, the design team can start writing. Infographic content is different from most other written pieces. It needs to be quick, informative, and persuasive, all at the same time. For example, a graphic that focuses too much on data and statistics might struggle to convert customers or send a message. Conversely, a graphic with too much wording and narrative might bore readers and make them bounce.
We hand off infographic writing to our content team, not our design team. This allows us to tap into our expert writers who know how to convince readers. This makes us more effective than some freelancers who might not be strong copywriters or who would refuse to do the writing process altogether.
4. Wireframe
Once you have an idea for what your infographic is going to say and how it’s going to say it, you can move on to the design process. The first design aspect of infographic content creation is the wireframe. This is essentially a visual outline that helps you see what the design will look like when it is complete. Marketers will typically go through two to four wireframes before approving one to get exactly what they want.
If a designer is seeing the concept for the first time, they might completely miss the mark when creating a design. However, when designers are involved in the creative process, they can have a strong idea of what the vision is, increasing the chances of creating an impressive wireframe on the first try.
5. Design
Once the wireframe is approved, the design team moves on to actually create the infographic. During the design process, we would rather over-communicate than disappear until there’s a finished product. You approve our choices step-by-step to ensure you get a design you love.
Even if you feel like you have more control by designing an infographic in-house, you might not be able to get the exact look you want. Agencies pay for stock photo access and other design tools so that we have the best options to choose from. We also have a large design team that’s capable of creating the look you want. While a freelancer might invest in a few of these services, there’s no guarantee they have everything they need to create something perfect for you.
6. Revisions
Content creation is a conversation. It’s not a one-way street where you get what we give you, and it’s not a drive-through where you pull ahead to the next window to pick up your order. The revision process can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on what you want to execute your vision.
One of the main reasons we ask clients for approvals throughout the design process is to make sure we’re on the same page the entire time. It’s much easier to make changes during the writing or wireframe process before a final product is made. These micro-approvals typically make the revision process faster. You might come back with a few font changes and small edits instead of a complete rewrite of your vision.
Before you enter into any agreement for graphic design creation, whether it’s with an agency or freelancer, make sure there’s a comprehensive approval and revision process included in the services. Some cheaper options will charge extra for changes or won’t give you the chance to approve steps along the way. You need to make sure the design process is a conversation with multiple check-in points, or else you could end up paying for something you hate.
The Estimated Timeline for Creating an Infographic
At CopyPress, it typically takes four weeks to create an infographic from topic ideation through the revisions. While this varies by client, we have a system that allows for transparency and multiple approvals, reducing the time spent making changes.
This timeline is fairly standard in the content marketing industry. If you work with a freelancer, they might be able to complete the work faster, but only by a week or two. We caution people to avoid hiring freelancers who say they can complete an infographic in a few days. This typically means they’ll get a cookie-cutter design that has been seen before or a lower-quality graphic that doesn’t take much time to create.
If you’re considering tapping into the world of visual content, know what you’re getting into before you decide to hire someone. Creating an infographic isn’t hard when you have the right support system writing, designing, and guiding the process for you.
CopyPress writer
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