Storytelling and visuals are two of the most powerful tools content marketers have. Both of these  attributes can help get ideas across more effectively and increase engagement. Combining these two  elements—well, that’s a recipe for success.

How can marketers go about creating a successful visual story? Luckily, there are plenty of tools  available to help you take a marketing yarn and weave it into a beautiful visual. Here are 11 of the  top software programs, websites, and more for creating your visual content marketing stories.

1. Ceros

Ceros is a design platform that makes it easy for marketers—or anyone, really—to create  infographics, e-books, and websites without the need for coding knowledge. It enables you to create  aesthetically pleasing designs easily, animate them, and input features like social media plug-ins and  pop-ups. It also includes access to a catalog of fonts and icons.

Here’s an example of an animated infographic created by Fitbit using Ceros. Infographics are popular  these days, and they’re very effective pieces of content. The animation in this one, though, helps it  stand out from the crowd and makes it more engaging.

2. Infogr.am

Infographics are a fantastic way to organize information visually. They make text easy to digest and  tend to get shared a lot on social media. Infogr.am is a tool that makes designing your own  infographics a simple process. You can also make cool charts and maps by using one of Infogr.am’s  themes.

National Geographic is great at creating interactive maps that make information easy and fun to look  at. Here’s an example of a map of U.S. states and their ecological footprints. You could easily create  something similar with Infogr.am.

3. Uberflip

Uberflip helps content marketers create engaging content and keep it all organized. It features tools  for creating interactive flipbooks, as well as an attractive home for all your content. Uberflip also  includes tools for adding in things like calls to action and social media buttons. There’s even a place  where marketers can manage all their content and receive insights about it.

Dyn, a company that offers internet management services to businesses, has an example of a great  content page on its website. It looks good visually and has content organized in an easy-to-use way.

4. Loupe

If you’ve got a bunch of photos from a company event or some other function and want to share  them with your customers, try using Loupe to help you present them in an interesting way. Loupe  lets you make a collage of your photos in a custom shape, send them in a card, or even look for  photos in a Where’s Waldo-inspired game.

5. Aviary

If you really want to make your photos stand out, try using Aviary. This site or app features a bunch  of different filters and other photo-editing options that’ll make your pictures stand out among all the  photos that are using Instagram filters. It’s easy to edit your photos, save them to Adobe Creative  Cloud, and post them to social media from the app.

Using high-quality photos on your website’s homepage can grab visitors’ attention, make your site  look more professional, and encourage people to stay there longer. Large background photos,  especially those featuring people’s faces, are known to pique people’s interest. That’s what Doc MJ  did with its site, resulting in a clean, professional website that reflects the company’s legitimacy.

6. Canva

Canva is another one-stop shop that helps marketers easily create beautiful designs. The program  allows you to drag and drop features and use templates to create posters, graphics for social media,  and other content. It gives you access to images, fonts, icons, and photo filters, so you don’t have to  go looking for stuff to add into your design.

Because visual content performs so well on social media, being able to create it is crucial for  marketers. This is an example of the type of visual content you could create for social media with  Canva.

7. Prezi

If you’re looking for a simple way to create gorgeous presentations, you should check out Prezi. The  company offers a number of sleek templates to which you can add text, images, audio and more.  You can then easily share and present your creation. You could use Prezi for your next big meeting or  try using it to create an interactive video for your website.

Here’s an exciting example of using Prezi to explain something exciting. This presentation by Red Bull  explains why Felix Baumgartner was attempting the world’s biggest ever free fall.

8. WordArt

WordArt is more or less what it sounds like. It’s a website that lets you make art out of words. All  you have to do is copy and paste words from, say, your latest blog posts and choose a shape, and  you’ll get a cool-looking shape made up of the words you uploaded. You could use this to visually  sum up a piece of text, but there’s another benefit: The words used most often appear largest,  which can give you some helpful hints when optimizing for search engines.

Here’s an example of a visual made with WordArt that features the words “Michael Jordan,”  “basket,” and “NBA.” You might have guessed this already, but it’s also shaped like a basketball.

