One of my goals with this site, besides defining and systematizing what direct response content marketing is and how to harness its power, is to give you examples of how content marketing and direct response marketing have been used in subtle and creative ways in the past.
My purpose for this is to show content marketers how much they need direct response principles, methods, and techniques and also to show direct response marketers how much they need content marketing principles, methods, and techniques.
This post I have for you today has the purpose to do just that…
What is an Infographic?
Midori Nediger, over at Venngage, defines an infographic like this…
“An infographic is a collection of imagery, charts, and minimal text that gives an easy-to-understand overview of a topic.”
– Midori Nediger, information Designer at Venngage
What is the Purpose (or Benefit) of Infographics?
In my experience, creating an infographic can have a powerful impact on you and your business. How? Let me give you three reasons:
- It allows you to present information in a way that it can be quickly consumed by busy people. (Even though I personally think it’s crazy, most people don’t/won’t read these days!)
- It allows you to present information in a memorable, attractive, and visual way. (People remember things they can see and picture in their minds.)
- Infographics are very shareable and can spread your ideas and get you exposure you would never get without them. (Everyone is looking for helpful information to share on their websites and with their social media followers. Infographics give information that can easily and quickly be shared by anyone!)
My Own Shocking Experience with Infographics
In 2012, I was thinking about how all the content that people love seems to have common themes, regardless of whether it is on TV, in movies, in books, or is even in a blog post.
After thinking about all these content themes, I decided to try to come up with a list of all of the types of content that people crave.
I looked at my final list and thought it was a really interesting list.
I believed it could really be helpful to people, so I decided to get an infographic of the list made. I contacted ContentMarketingInstitute.com (CMI), to see if they would be interested in using it as a guest blog post. They said they would.
I really thought that what I had come up with was an important list, but I still wasn’t sure how the CMI audience would respond.
The infographic, and the short blog post that I wrote to go with it, originally appeared on CMI back on June 5, 2012. It was called “21 Types of Content We All Crave.” Here is my infographic…
The Response
As soon as it appeared, people began commenting and sharing the post.
And they KEPT commenting and sharing it and commenting and sharing it.
It ended up being tweeted well over 800 times and it received 102 comments before the comments were finally closed.
Not only that, but the founder of CMI, Joe Pulizzi, later gave me a testimonial that said that my post was one CMI’s most popular posts of the year. I couldn’t believe the response!
Quick Tangent: Here’s How to Hear More of My Crazy Story and Discover the Lessons You Can Learn From It
You can listen to more of my story and learn how I stumbled into marketing 20 years ago, by listening to an audio recording from the marketing class I teach for UC Berkeley Extension.
In that story, I reveal the crazy zig-zaggy path I took on my marketing journey.
You’ll discover:
- How I ended up putting together a book with interviews with 38 top business, sales, and marketing experts
- How I ended up being interviewed on the radio for the “resolution solution” knowledge that I had gained
- How I unintentionally began using content marketing (before the term existed)
- How I ended up doing marketing consulting and helping small business owners, business founders, and others
- How I began speaking in front of authors, small business people, and B2B content marketers
- And… how I ended up writing for top marketing websites, wrote a book that was nominated for an award, have been interviewed on podcasts for my content marketing knowledge and ideas, and how I became a marketing professor for UC Berkeley Extension
**Do you want to know the craziest part of my story? I have done all of this without a degree in marketing. (I am 100% self-taught.)
And in this audio, I reveal four, hard-earned marketing lessons that you can apply to your own career and/or to your business.
Click here to sign-up and listen to it for free, right now.
Ok, Now Back to Our “Regularly Scheduled Post”… 🙂
So, you can see why I believe in the importance of and the power of infographics.
But there was one completely incorrect thing that I believed about infographics (and I didn’t even realize my mistake).
I thought infographics were a new, modern idea. (I started noticing them around 2011.)
Turns out that I was wrong. But at least I was only 61 years off! Haha!
Did Advertising Legend David Ogilvy Create the First Infographic in 1950?
You see, I recently came across a video of legendary adman, David Ogilvy, being interviewed in 1977 by John Crichton, president of the American Association of Advertising Agencies.
In the video, Ogilvy told stories about his early years.
In one story, he said that when his agency was starting out, he was the research director and had never really done any creative work when it came to advertising.
It was during this time that his agency received a job where they had to an ad for Guinness (beer) and oysters.
He kept trying to think of what kind of ad they could possibly do and that’s when it suddenly came to him.
On the train ride home from work he was struck with inspiration.
He decided that his ad would be a guide to oysters.
He was so excited about the idea that when he got off the train, he immediately called the office right away and told them his idea.
When I saw the image of the ad appear on the screen during this interview, I was caught off guard.
I had to stop the video and “google” the ad to see it up-close for myself. And when I did, I realized how wrong I had been about infographics being a modern idea.
Take a look at this ad and see for yourself if it doesn’t have a really familiar look and format to it…
Isn’t it crazy how it looks exactly like an infographic!?! That’s because it is one. It’s an infographic in print.
I haven’t researched to see if there are any older examples, but this appears to be the first infographic (or at least one of the first).
The Most Surprising Part of the Story
The most surprising part of the story was what David Ogilvy said as he finished off this part of his story.
He said that this was his first advertisement.
If I understood him correctly, that means that David Ogilvy’s first ad was a print-based infographic. (And he said it appeared only in The New Yorker!)
He used content marketing (in the form of an infographic) as a way to provide helpful information for beer drinkers and build an affinity between beer drinkers and Guinness Beer.
That means that David Ogilvy, a man who strongly believed in direct response marketing, saw the importance of, and the benefit of, content marketing.
A Freak Accident or an Effective Strategy?
In case you’re thinking, “Yeah, so what? So he used what we would now call an “infographic”… once! That doesn’t mean he found value in infographics or content marketing!”
Oh really?
Ogilvy told the interviewer that after they did that first guide they went on to do a SERIES OF ADS of different Guinness Guides!
They also created these guides:
If the first guide didn’t produce results, then there’s no way that David Ogilvy would have produced other guides.
That means his use of infographics and content wasn’t just an accident.
It was a strategy that he used repeatedly.
To Readers Who Are Direct Response Marketers or a Part of Companies Who Mainly Use Direct Response…
So, to my readers who are direct response marketers or to companies who mainly use direct response, I hope this helps you to realize that content marketing is something that can add to the marketing and advertising that you do.
I hope you stick around, come back for more insights that can enhance your marketing, and even consider becoming a free member.
To Readers Who Are Content Marketers or a Part of Companies Who Mainly Use Content Marketing…
And to my readers who are content marketers or to companies who mainly use content marketing, I hope that you see that the content marketing principles, methods, and techniques that we use today have deeper roots that go much farther back than we’ve probably ever realized.
I hope you stick around, come back for more of these “forgotten insights” that can enhance your marketing, and open yourself up to the idea of learning how to add direct response to make your content marketing even more powerful. And I hope you also consider becoming a free member.
Some Helpful Links for You
Here is a list of links to many of the things that I mentioned in this post and also to some links to additional resources:
- To find out more about what direct response content marketing is, check out: The “Direct Response Content Marketing” Manifesto
- To learn more about infographics and how to create effective ones, check out Midori Nediger’s post called “What is an Infographic? Infographic Examples, Templates, and Design Tips.”
- If you want to learn more about content marketing, check out ContentMarketingInstitute.com or JoePulizzi.com.
- If you want to know more about the awesome agency that David Ogilvy left behind, then check out their Facebook page or their website.
- If you want to hear how important David Ogilvy thought direct response marketing was to all effective advertising, then check out this previous post: Rare David Ogilvy Video on General Advertising vs Direct Response
- You can listen to my personal, crazy story of how I got into marketing and discover some important lessons that can help you to market yourself or your company, then you can sign-up to listen to it here.
