Marketing diagrams communicate complex ideas in an understandable way. At their simplest, marketer diagrams can be used to convey how a business operates; at their most complicated, they can map out the production of goods for international trade between companies whose economies span the whole globe. Marketing diagrams are essential for pitches, presentations, reports, online content, and infographics among other important uses.
This article looks at the different types of diagrams you may come across when writing reports or proposals and explains what they show. Make sure to read the entire article as it’ll help you pick the right diagram for your next marketing report.
Flow Diagrams
Compared with other graph types, flow diagrams are useful for showing how items flow through a process or how information flows between people within an organization. They can also indicate movement in time such as day-to-day activities.
Flow diagrams all follow similar principles: Each section is separated by a bold line with dots along its length, and the key information is written directly over the relevant section. The first or title box contains a brief description of what is to be shown like The Flow of Work on an Assembly Line.
The subsequent boxes each show different but related aspects of this process such as two consecutive stages of assembly-line work. Arrows are then drawn to indicate direction; one arrowhead for flow in one direction and two for flow that moves back and forth.
Process Maps
Process maps are not dissimilar to flow diagrams. They also communicate how items move through a process, although often without the indication of time given by arrows.
There are usually no more than six steps involved in any one process map; the name of each stage is written in a box along with its relationship to the others before arrows are drawn to show movement. The stages may be interconnected by lines or separated by dotted lines, depending on what level of detail is being displayed.
Org Charts
Organizational charts display the structure of an organization in pictorial form, showing who reports to whom and who has which responsibilities.
As the name suggests, org charts are divided into different boxes that relate to the different levels of management within the company. Names are then placed next to each box, either inside it if they belong only at that level or outside it if they have responsibility for more than one section.
Arrows indicate reporting relationships between members of staff. An arrowhead pointing towards a named person indicates that person reports directly to whoever is named, while an arrowhead pointing from a person to their boss indicates that the person has responsibility for whoever is named. The ideas may sound confusing but it’s important that you keep these in mind for your next presentation.
As with process maps, dotted lines between org charts indicate that the section being described does not have a manager of its own who reports into another chart.
Functional Charts
Functional charts map out the responsibilities of different people at different levels in an organization, in much the same way as org charts do. However, while they follow very similar principles in terms of data presentation, they are still different graphs. Each step is described by its own box and relationships between steps are shown with arrows.
Functional charts tend to include more information than their process-based cousins. They also tend to use wider boxes containing large amounts of text.
A functional chart's name is usually written in bold inside the first box; below this are two or three key areas that affect performance. Underneath these headings are smaller boxes that detail tasks within each category. These are followed by yet more boxes that detail the specific work done by each role.
Chronological Charts
Compared with other diagram types, these show how activities progress through time, usually with a line for each stage.
Data may be shown in the form of bars next to the timeline. They could stand for quantities produced or resources used, for example.
As with process and functional diagrams, chronological charts are named after their key element. This is written in bold inside the first box, then two or three main areas affecting performance are described along with tasks within them before smaller sections describe work undertaken. Arrows denote causality between stages. The earlier stages affect later ones directly while parallel stages do not interact.
Matrix Diagrams
Matrix diagrams are used to show how different elements are related. They are very useful for visualizing workloads or budget allocations as well as the links between different departments or job roles.
A matrix diagram usually contains two axes: one showing the rows of data and the other showing the columns. This makes it is easy to see at a glance where any given piece of information should be situated.
For example, an org chart may use red lines indicating responsibility for each box to key in the information next to the appropriate place on a matrix.
Network Diagrams
Network diagrams can represent projects, internal workings inside an organization or even informal groups within society at large. Whatever they represent, they are all fundamentally similar because they map out networks of connections.
A network diagram usually has a central box inside which has the name of the section being described. From this core emerge lines that branch out into circles representing people or groups. These, in turn, connect to other circles that represent other people or groups.
Lines between circle pairs indicate ways in which two entities interact with each other. Dotted and solid lines may be used to distinguish between informal and formal connections, for example.
Make Your Marketing Diagrams
Finding out which marketing diagram is right for you can feel a bit tricky. Fortunately, with Venngage, you can create any of these marketer diagrams with ease. Check it out to design a professional marketing diagram today!
