Client Infographic: Top 20 Marketing Automation Software Solutions

Designed here at InfoNewt for Capterra, the new infographic: The Top 20 Marketing Automation Software Solutions explores the relative Popularity of different software companies playing in the Marketing Automation arena. 

In this design, I used a pie chart to represent the total Popularity of the Top 20 solutions, and connected the related company logo to each slice as appropriate.  It was a specific design choice to list the rank number, but not the specific percentage of each slice.  Because the data was gathered and combined from a number of different sources that can change daily, the results needed to be informational at a general level and valid for a longer period of time.  Visually, you can quickly and easily understand the relative popularity, but the specific value isn’t relevant to any purchase decisions.

An infographic product comparison is a great way to help buyers cut through the clutter and add value.  There are currently 184 software solutions listed in the Marketing Automation category directory, so buyers need some way to compare products and make an informed decision.

Capterra is the authority when it comes to finding software solutions for businesses, and they’ve done some great work gathering data and measuring the relative popularity of different software categories.  Although popularity doesn’t necessarily mean the software is right for your business, it is a really good indicator that the solution is working successfully for many businesses and may be worth a closer look.  A better indicator than just total revenue or trying to rate “the best.”

Designed in OmniGraffle, and I cleaned up the logo images using Pixelmator.

Thanks to Mike and the great work from the team at Capterra!

Client Infographic: The Visual History of Christmas Trees

The Visual History of Christmas Trees is a new infographic from ChristmasTreeMarket.com.  Designed by InfoNewt and designer Jeremy Yingling, this one creates a visual timeline of the major milestones for the Christmas Tree mostly focused on the last 100 years.

The history of the Christmas tree has garnered a lot of fascinating points over the years. A tradition with humble beginnings in 15th century Latvia, the festive tower of foliage has grown to be one of the holiday season’s most beloved symbols. From the first decorated tree in 1600 to Gubbio, Italy’s 650-meter tall wonder, get a glimpse of Christmas tree history through this handy visual guide from Christmas Tree Market.

This one was a lot of fun, and of course is timed to be appropriate for the holidays.  I love how this design turned out, and it was a unique topic that had not received a thorough infographic treatment before.  The design challenge was letting the images shine, keeping the text to a minimum, but still providing the reader with a lot of interesting information.

No matter which side of the Live Tree vs. Artificial Tree debate you fall on, you’ll find lots of good information in the infographic.  I bet you’ll even learn something you didn’t know.  I’m still fascinated by the upside-down Christmas Tree!

Client Infographic: Look Both Ways Before You Cross

Pedestrain Deaths in Southern New Jersey takes an infographic look at some usually inacessible and hard-to-find data from the different state department websites.  Console & Hollawell worked with InfoNewt and designer Nancy Gage to bring the data together into one infographic that tells a more complete story.

The New Jersey personal injury lawyers at Console & Hollawell receive calls on a daily basis from the unfortunate victims of car accidents across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We are actively pursuing lawsuits in several cases. In an effort to bring attention to these dangers in New Jersey, we created the infographic below to help bring these statistics to light and ultimately help pedestrians maintain more awareness when crossing these dangerous New Jersey streets.

Although child deaths while crossing the street are the events that get the big headlines in the news, I was surprised that only 4 of the 157 deaths were kids.

Client Infographic: The Hotel Price Index

Twice-a-year, Hotels.com updates their Hotel Price Index, and this year I was contacted to design some new infographics to go along with the report.  InfoNewt worked with designer Jeremy Yingling to create two infographics for the current set of data from the first half of 2011.  Since the research is global, we created one infographic based on American travelers and one based on Canadian travellers.

The hotels.com® Hotel Price Index™ (HPI™) is a regular survey of hotel prices in major city destinations across the world. The HPI is based on bookings made on hotels.com and prices shown are those actually paid by customers (rather than advertised rates) for the first half of 2011. The report largely compares prices paid in 2010 with prices paid in 2011.

The research is extensive, so we had to keep the information shared in the infographics fairly focused on only a few categories.  This keeps the design clean and easy to read, but also whets the reader’s appetite for more.

We varied the visual designs for each category.  The monument silhouettes attached to locations on the globe was a unique way to show map data and not look like a standard map.  The silhouettes also help the reader recognize the cities faster than reading the text.  It’s subtle, but the lines are color-coded by continent as well.

The Canadian data was a little bit different, so the design had to adapt:

You can see the complete report data on The Hotels.com Hotel Price Index page.

Client Infographic: Sudan, Bombing Everything That Moves

Sometimes, you get the opportunity to work on a project with a very serious topic and global relevance.  Recently, InfoNewt (my company) worked with Prof. Eric Reeves and designer Mike Wirth to design the infographic Bombing Everything That Moves (hosted on Eric’s site SudanBombing.org). 

For well over a decade the Government of Sudan—the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party (NIF/NCP) regime in Khartoum—has engaged in a sustained campaign of deliberate aerial military attacks on civilian and humanitarian targets in both South and North Sudan. These attacks have been only fitfully condemned by the international community, and no effective action has been taken to halt them.

Obviously, the topic is very political.  Prof. Reeves has published an extensive report and makes his Excel data file available to everyone on his site, so I’ll keep my comments focused on the unique challenges we faced when designing the infographic.

The data for this visualization is much different that the readily available Internet stats we see every day.  There is no database to query or reseach data file to purchase.  The exhaustive work Prof. Reeves has done to manually consolidate these confirmed bombing attack reports from U.N. observers, humanitarian aid personnel, radio reports and news reports is a massive, ongoing effort.

Even though the number of attacks in the report was known, most reports had unknown numbers for casualties and the number of bombs used in the attack.  Because of that, the bar chart-style visualization that is the center of the design only shows the number of attacks (a solid number we could work with) and separately shows the average numbers of bombs and casualties from the reports that had that information available.

Data transparency is always important.  As an infographic, the data sources have to be very transparent becuase you want your audience talking about the implications of your information, not challenging your credibility.

Eric Reeves is Professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. He has spent the past twelve years working full-time as a Sudan researcher and analyst, publishing extensively both in the US and internationally. He has testified several times before the Congress, has lectured widely in academic settings, and has served as a consultant to a number of human rights and humanitarian organizations operating in Sudan.

Due to the nature of this infographic, please keep any comments on the infographic design itself.  Any inflamatory or political comments will be removed based on my judgement.

Client Infographic: A Solar Innovation Story

Solar Savings: A Solar Innovation Story from ExtraSpace.com is a new infographic by InfoNewt and designer Jeremy Yingling.  This one tells the story of how the company is adding solar panels to the roof space on some of it’s self storage facilities all across the country.  The environmental, financial and community benefits are huge, and this was only the first year of a multi-year plan.

Extra Space Storage is on a mission to produce solar powered clean energy and reduce the carbon footprint of our 850+ self storage facilities. We aim to install 20,000 solar panels this year, and increase the pace of panel installation every year. Energy efficient clean power is good for our customers and our neighborhoods, our planet, and our investors. By the end of 2011 this program will save 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide and 100 acres of fir trees.

An infographic is a fantastic way for Extra Space to tell their story to customers, investors and anyone interested in alternative energy solutions.  It puts their efforts into context and shows the potential of how large their cumulative environmental impact could become.

You can follow Extra Space Storage on Facebook and Twitter (@extraspace)

Client Infographic: Making an Organic Choice

Making an Organic Choice from So Nice is a new infographic by InfoNewt and designer Jeremy Yingling.  This one tells the story in numbers of how organic food processing is better for you and the environment compared to conventional food processing.

We are what we eat, goes the old adage.

So Nice is committed to your health and that of the environment, which is why we use only certified organic, non-genetically modified organism (GMO) whole soybeans grown from environmentally responsible farming operations.  Below, we’ve contrasted only some of the data surrounding conventional and organic farming to help you learn about your food and beverages.

Without being preachy, using an infographic presents the data in a way that their potential customers can easily understand and use to make informed decisions.  They not only posted it online, but So Nice is also using it as a printed, informational poster at trade shows as a conversation piece with visitors to the booth.

You can follow So Nice on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/So-Nice/77766940782

Client Infographic: Facebook, Privacy and Health

For the Path of the Blue Eye Project, InfoNewt (my company) recently designed the infographic: What You Need To Know: Facebook, Privacy and Health.  The group at the Path of the Blue Eye Project has done some fantastic, primary research about online users’ willingness and attitudes about sharing health information online, and specifically Facebook.

The answer is overwhelmingly “NO”.

If Facebook is so popular (Pew reports that 62% of Web users frequent sites like Facebook and MySpace), why are people shying away from sharing health content with others on the site?  To answer this question, the Path of the Blue Eye Project commissioned a national survey designed to tease out some of the reasons why Americans are reluctant to exchange health information on Facebook.  We found:

• 68% of Facebook users have not and would not share their personal health information on the site. The most commonly cited reason for refusing to share: “it’s no one’s business but my own (86%).”
• Privacy concerns may be one reason many refuse to share.  39% of non-sharers were afraid strangers would find their health information and 32% worried marketers might use it to sell products and services.
  

Online users do a lot of searching for health information, but very few are willing to share any of their own information on social sites like Facebook.

The Facebook Privacy Policy is huge, and most of the concerns why oline users are unwilling to share online information have to do with unintended people finding their information.  Insurance companies, marketers and strangers top the list of concerns.

Thanks again to Fard and the team at Enspektos.com.  There’s much more information available at the Path of the Blue Eye Project.

Client Infographic: Waste in the Texas Energy Market

Waste in the Texas Energy Market from ChooseEnergy.com is a new infographic by InfoNewt and designer Jeremy Yingling.  This one tells the story of how much money is NOT being saved by households that don’t take advantage of lower pricing since Texas has a deregulated electricity market.

As the economy struggles to recover and households continue to cut back on spending, one of the easiest ways to save money might just be in your electric bill. In these tough economic times, consumers realize the importance of watching how every penny is spent. Today we look at the “Waste in the Texas Energy Market” and how pennies can certainly add up quickly to improve consumer finances.

Following the Infographic Release Strategy from InfoNewt, ChooseEnergy also did a great job setting up a dedicated landing page and custom URL for the infographic.  All of their links then drive traffic to this single page.  So the company blog post, Twitter feed and Facebook posts provide additional descriptions and links to this landing page.

While highlighting the fact that the Texas energy market is the 11^th largest in the world, the infographic also shows that 48% of the electricity consumed is from residential use.  So what’s the big deal?  On average Texas residents pay about 11.5 cents per kWh for their home electric use when they could be paying 8.5 cents per kWh.   Doesn’t sound like much does it?  Well, those 3 pennies can add up fast and they add up to $3.7 billion for the Texas consumer market.

You can follow ChooseEnergy on Twitter at @texas_electric

Client Infographic: How Affiliate Marketing Works

Recently, InfoNewt (my company) designed How Affiliate Marketing Works for Internet Marketing guru Rae Hoffman-Dolan and her site: Sugarrae.com.  You can see the high-resolution version here.

After spending over a decade in the Internet marketing industry, I think I often forget – and have failed to address – the most obvious question most folks new to the industry have about affiliate marketing.

When I appeared as a guest on Weapons of Mass Marketing earlier this week to discuss the topic of marketing affiliate programs, the hosts evidenced the importance of the often overlooked question by leading off their interview with a variation of it…

“How does affiliate marketing work?”

No numbers, no statistics, no data visualizations.  This infographic is visualizing a process, and I do many of these for clients.  Business processes, strategies, workflows, business models, flow charts and explanations of how things work.

In this case, characters on a simple path visualizes a process of 10 steps.  Way more interesting than a text numbered list in a blog post don’t you think?

You should follow Rae on Twitter: @sugarrae