Infographics are visual representations of information, data, or knowledge that use charts, graphs, illustrations, and minimal text to convey complex messages simply and engagingly. For B2B HVAC businesses, creating targeted infographics can be a highly effective marketing technique for educating other industry players and generating new business.
However, B2B HVAC companies often face challenges in creating awareness and interest in their specialized products and services among niche trade audiences. Getting decision-makers to stop and take notice of your brand’s expertise requires creative and strategic marketing efforts.
Infographics allow B2B HVAC businesses to showcase vital industry knowledge and best practices in a visually striking, easy-to-digest format. Well-designed infographics help establish thought leadership, provide value to potential customers, and get your brand and messages shared across trade media channels.
Creating professional-level infographics can be daunting without the right design skills or budget. That’s where Canva comes in – it’s an intuitive, drag-and-drop infographic maker that allows anyone to develop high-quality visual content, no graphic design experience necessary. With countless templates, fonts, images, and design elements to work with, Canva streamlines infographic creation for resource-strapped B2B marketing teams.
Identifying Your Infographic Topic
Identifying a good topic is key to creating an informative and effective infographic. The first thing you can do is begin brainstorming ideas that would provide real value for your audience of other HVAC businesses.
Think about timely industry trends that companies need to stay on top of – for example, new technologies changing installation methods or updated energy efficiency standards. Delivering intel on emerging shift helps position your business as an authority.
You also want to showcase your expertise, so determine the topics and service areas where your HVAC company specializes. Develop in-depth maintenance tips or step-by-step installation guidelines related to those offerings. For instance, if your services center on commercial cooling systems, provide a visual guide to proper commercial AC unit maintenance.
Something else to address are some common pain points faced by your peers with infographics troubleshooting frequent HVAC problems. Create visual depictions of issues like AC units short cycling or commercial air handlers leaking condensate with clear labels pointing out causes and solutions.
Consider mapping your infographic topic ideas to different stages of the customer journey for fellow HVAC companies. Identify targets at each phase– for businesses in the awareness phase focus on trends, best practices resources. For those evaluating solutions, detail comparisons and buyers guides are helpful. Companies ready to purchase will appreciate cost analyses and ROI calculators.
No matter the specific topic, ensure your infographic’s information stems directly from your specialized area of HVAC expertise. The goal is to showcase your business as an established, trusted resource ready to assist other industry players. Use visually engaging infographics to repeatedly provide value and solutions to common B2B HVAC pain points.
Choosing a Canva Template and Customizing It
The key to efficiently creating a polished, professional infographic is leveraging a visual design platform like Canva rather than starting from a blank slate. Canva offers an expansive template library with hundreds of professionally designed infographic layouts covering business, technology, health, and many other topics.
Browse Canva’s infographic section to find a template that structurally matches the flow of information you outlined for your content. If crafting a timeline of HVAC tech advancements, choose a linear visual template showcasing progression. If comparing AC unit models and specs, pick a template presenting categorical data for effortless customization.
Prioritize picking a template with branding elements that allow easy incorporating of your logo, fonts and color scheme. This ensures visual alignment with your established company identity even when using Canva’s pre-designed starting point.
Once you select a template, Canva’s drag-and-drop functionality and wide selection of visually impactful tools streamline personalizing the infographic’s look and feel to represent your brand. Easily insert your logo in predefined header and footer containers. Replace default text with your researched infographic content using simple click-based editing. Modify colors or swap background images out for ones resonating better with your audience and messaging.
Using an already existing template rather than constructing an infographic from nothing slashes production time dramatically. But just because Canva easy to use doesn’t mean skimping on quality or uniqueness. It empowers simple experimentation with fonts, illustrations and iconography to help your content stand out while retaining professional polish. Take advantage of the platform’s vast media libraries to incorporate vibrant data visualizations, photos and graphics that capture attention while clarifying and enhancing your info.
Integrating Data and Visuals
The biggest difference between basic design and compelling infographic lies in your strategic use of the available data visualizations. It’s one thing to state some facts and figures as plain text, as it can fail to tap into information’s potential impact. If possible, try transforming statistics and insights into simple, vivid graphics not only appeals visually, but condenses complex concepts into easily digestible takeaways.
With Canva’s huge array of charts, graphs, tables and more, there are a lot of ways you can illustrate trends, comparisons and figures from your HVAC research. When you create a graph or table, make sure to select graphical formats that best represent specifics in your data to amplify meaning. If highlighting exponential savings from a new efficiency method over 5 years, a climbing line graph demonstrates ongoing impact better than a single value in a table.
Just as crucial as picking fitting visuals is verifying data accuracy and relevance. Using outdated statistics or questionable sources undermines credibility. Vet all figures for precision and pertinence before depicting them graphically. Also ensure visualizations only highlight data germane to the infographic’s overall narrative to avoid diluting key information with unnecessary asides.
Picking the right kind of images and illustrations can really help supplement your data points within infographics by connecting viewers on an emotional level. Canva’s media library offers millions of photographic and vector images that you can use to incorporate into your infographic. Select pictures based on resonance with target audiences not just topical relevance. Vivid shots invoking curiosity, solution-based thinking or brand reliability better sustain engagement than generic stock imagery.
Strategic employment of data visualization provides empirical substance to inform, while illustrations and photography provide emotional grounding to attract and convince. Together they create Canva infographics that really pop off with an alluring balance of logic and feeling that turns viewers into confident advocates.
Optimizing for Sharing and Promotion
Creating share-worthy infographic content is only half the battle. The other half is optimizing it for maximum visibility and conversion across digital platforms.
You will want to render the infographic into several different formats and dimensions suited for all of the media channels you post to. Create a square version fitting Instagram’s requirements, along with landscape-style iterations matching most websites and blogs. This facilitates easy sharing across any outlet without black bars or cropping.
Research all of the relevant hashtags and HVAC-focused keywords that corresponds with the theme of the infographic, and then integrate them directly within copy throughout the infographic’s content. Also include a separate call-out box near bottom recapping main tags and search terms. This will help boost discovery across social platforms and SEO findability in Google searches.
However, don’t have just compelling content alone. This will fail to actively direct viewers into your sales funnel. Make sure you have an urgent, benefit-focused CTA is key for conversion. Include conspicuous button with brief, descriptive text like “Learn About Our HVAC Service Packages” or “Request an HVAC Consultation.” Link the CTA straight to targeted landing pages on your website for immediate lead generation payoff.
Set your business apart from the competition by taking a content-first approach that starts with genuinely useful Canva infographics, then actively guide prospects down the conversion path through optimization. Let generating more leads, not impersonal bragging, be the infographic’s focus and you’ll see benefits extending far beyond social media metrics.
Additional Tips and Resources
Mastering Canva’s immense creative capabilities may seem like a challenge at first. But applying a few fundamental best practices makes infographic design intuitive. First, take time manipulating various elements to understand how customizing works before tackling any full-scale visual. Getting comfortable with modification workflows saves tons of time later.
Make sure to browse the thousands of professionally created sample visualizations within Canva for inspiration when brainstorming designs. Seeing what works well in existing infographics sparks creativity. Mimic interesting data visualization approaches or modern, engaging color palettes that catch your eye.
While Canva simplifies the design process, don’t be afraid to experiment once basics are understood! The platform makes applying graphic design principles approachable for everyone. Feel empowered to try inventive layouts, fun new fonts and outside-the-box color combinations most basic tools don’t allow. The more you creatively explore Canva’s options, the more you’ll develop signature visual styles that grab attention.
Creating stellar infographics is part inspiration and part practical application. To aid with the latter, here are links to helpful marketing resources for further boosting your HVAC content efforts:
Mastering Canva:
- Canva Design School: https://www.canva.com/designschool/
- Canva Blog: https://www.canva.com/learn/
- Canva YouTube Channel: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=un50Bs4BvZ8
B2B HVAC Marketing Resources:
- FieldPulse Blog: https://www.fieldpulse.com/blog/
- HVAC Marketing Lab: https://hvacmarketing.com/
- BuildWithRise Blog: https://buildshownetwork.com/contents/hvac-design
- ServiceTitan Blog: https://community.servicetitan.com/t5/Blog/bg-p/community_blog
- Contractor Nation: https://www.contractornation.com/
Additional Links:
- Infographic Design Inspiration: https://www.creativebloq.com/graphic-design-tips/information-graphics-1232836
- Color Inspiration: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EIsRweZxZto
- Free Stock Photos: https://www.pexels.com/
Conclusion
Creating targeted, professionally designed infographics should be a cornerstone of any modern B2B HVAC marketing strategy. As we’ve covered, infographics provide a versatile medium to establish thought leadership, demonstrate expertise, educate industry peers, and attract potential customers.
Specifically for HVAC companies, infographics’ visual nature offers an eye-catching format to simplify complex technical information. Charts, graphs, and illustrations integrate seamlessly to showcase data and best practices in a relatable, engaging manner. This allows brands to connect with niche trade audiences on an emotional level to build trust and credibility.
However, small B2B marketing teams often lack the extensive graphic design skills required for compelling infographic creation. This leaves them stuck cobbling together lackluster visuals in basic business software – or worse yet, avoiding visually engaging content altogether.
Fortunately, Canva’s online graphic design platform bridges this gap with intuitive tools empowering all skill levels to develop polished, professional infographics. Leveraging Canva’s drag-and-drop interface, extensive media libraries, and comprehensive template collection streamlines infographic creation for B2B marketers of all backgrounds.
So whether you’re an established brand seeking an awareness boost among industry peers, or an emerging HVAC company vying for more local authority – start leveraging Canva today. Well-executed Canva infographics intended to inform, assist and guide fellow businesses can rapidly strengthen brand reputation and improve sales pipelines. Don’t wait to integrate visual content into your digital marketing approach – your competitors surely won’t.
