The Future of Marketing is Interactive Content

Insights, News, Tips & Tricks

Written by

Hendrik

People like to follow the brands and companies they like on social media. This allows them to get the latest updates and news. However, a study shows that a whopping 68% of social media users ignore the brands they’re following. Interactive content marketing can resolve this problem!

You have to create something new to capture their attention and keep it. This is why we call interactive content the future of marketing. It does these things and more.

Below we'll cover

What is interactive content?
Why interactive content is the future of marketing
How to have a two-way conversation with interactive marketing
How to add interactive content to your digital marketing strategy

What is Interactive Content

Most of the content we see on the internet are videos, images, and text. With these types of content, the audience need not do anything more than to read or view them.

Interactive content, on the other hand, requires the participation of the audience. As such, they’re much more engaging, entertaining, and educating.

They add more value to the content as they create a two-way dialogue. Users can personalize their experience from the beginning to the end.

Interactive content becomes successful when a user dives in, participates, enjoys, and gains value from it without feeling targeted. The audience hates blatant ads, but they’re cool with value-adding content.

As such, aggressive CTAs, solicitations, and such don’t have a place in interactive content. Like traditional types of content, it’s all about the audience. Put them first, and your goals will follow.

Examples of Interactive Content

That said, here are a few interactive content examples to give you an idea of what you can do.

1. Quizzes

Quizzes might be the most popular form of interactive content yet. They’re fun to make and do, and everyone likes finding out where their answers will take them.

The quiz can be about anything. For example, the media website Buzzfeed makes quizzes about where the reader should travel next or whether they’re an introverts or extroverts. Some of their quizzes even promise they can guess your birth month based on your answers.

Some quizzes have scores or a grade at the end, which ignites the competitive spirit in everyone. You can do pretty much anything with a quiz.

2. Calculators

Interactive content creation, however, can be as simple as a calculator. It can be for calculating the interest of a loan, the volume of a cube, ROI, and more.

Users supply the data, and the calculator does the math to produce results. It’s simple, yet it’s effective. When people use your tool, you become involved in their decision process.

3. Assesments

Assessments are different from quizzes in that they have a purpose. They’re used to assess the needs of the audience so the company can attend to those needs.

For instance, banks can allow customers to self-assess if they’re qualified for a loan. All they have to do is supply answers to a series of questions. Depending on the answers, they will know whether they’re qualified or not.

4. Polls and Surveys

Polls and surveys are yet again different from quizzes and assessments. They’re meant to collect data for whatever purpose you have.

Aside from giving you data, polls and surveys allow your audience to get involved. They’ll feel valued and heard; it’s a way for them to give you their non-biased opinion.

In case you were wondering, a poll has only one question with several choices. A survey has many questions, and it can have different types of answers.

5. Infographics

Infographics are already quite an effective tool for user engagement, website traffic, social shares, and many more. You can take it further by making it interactive, though. How?

In some examples, a brand can make infographics interactive by “hiding” information. Users have to hover on a certain area to get a pop-up of that information.

It’s pretty simple to make, but it allows the participation of a reader. That, alone, can make people feel more connected with your brand.

6. 360° Pictures and Videos

360-degree pictures and videos are a fun way to keep the users engaged, too. Of course, there’s no way to show this type of media from all angles unless you have several screens. Users then have to pan the screen left and right to see what else is going on.

These videos are also a good way for the audience to insert themselves into the scene. That’s why they’re popular in the real estate industry. Realtors use 360 videos to show a house through the internet.

7. E-mails

There’s a way to make emails interactive, too. Email already has an edge in that it allows you to communicate with the recipient on a one-on-one basis. Making it interactive takes advantage of that.

You can put polls, do the hover trick, and more in your email body.

Why Interactive Content is the future of marketing

We now know what interactive is, but why do marketers say interactive content creation is the future of marketing?

What about it that makes it so enticing for marketers and consumers alike?

1. It's more engaging

Take quizzes, for instance; they are some of the most popular content on the internet. Around 96% of those who take a sponsored quiz on Buzzfeed finish it. This speaks for the level of engagement the audience has with it.

No other content has the same level of engagement. What percentage of your website visitors do you think finish reading your blog post to the end? Or how many of your viewers finish watching your videos?

Quizzes have the advantage of encouraging your audience to share their results. This way, you’ll get more audience from their social circle.

Any other type of interactive content requires your audience to think and respond. This ensures there’s no time for snoozing as they glue their attention to the content.

Another reason why it’s so engaging is that it’s a two-way communication. It’s a way of having a conversation with your audience and vice versa.

2. It has great entertainment value

Humans have always been on the hunt for something fun to do. This is how you can win audiences with creating interactive content.

You get to capture them by making them participate in your content. You stand out among the seas of text, images, and videos. Instead of being idle, your audience has to click, think, or do anything else.

Then there’s the joy of sharing the experience with others. We love going to the movies with friends, right? Expect that people will share what they found to be good with their friends and family.

People on Facebook, for example, love sharing their quiz results on their timeline.

They also encourage their friends to take the quiz as well, curious about their results.

There’s also an added element of competition here, especially in quizzes with scoring or grading. It’s fun to indulge yourself in a friendly competition once in a while, after all.

3. It increases Brand Awarness

As interactive content has greater value, the audience is more likely to share them, as in our example above. This will help your brand grow.

You’ll get a wider reach through likes, shares, and comments. This enables you to gain more followers and increase brand awareness. You might even convert some of your audience to customers.

Going viral on social media once is sometimes all it takes to boost your account. However, that’s easier said than done.

Your post must have something of great value to capture the interests of thousands of people. Video marketing has a higher chance of producing more engagement. But, the good news is that an interactive video or content can help you with that, too.

It can even be about nonsensical things, like a quiz to determine what type of shrimp dish they are. Yes, it’s a tactic that worked for Red Lobster.

Make sure it’s on-brand, though, to further increase brand awareness. A shrimp dish quiz will work for Red Lobster, but it might not work for an SEO company.

4. It's more educational

Interactive content is one of the ways to educate your audience in a fun way. It can break a large monotonous content into small, fun pieces.

These are much easier to digest and go through. So, they’ll come out of the content feeling like they earned something out of it.

You can turn a long article into interactive content, for example. Your e-book can have interactive content, too.

This will help the readers go through the material without dropping off mid-way. In the end, it’s good for both your brand and the audience. They’ll walk out having learned something.

This is good for brand reputation, as they’ll associate those good feelings with your brand. Build upon that by keeping them satisfied after they have converted into a customer. This then leads to brand loyalty.

5. It helps your website SEO

Did you know that interactive content is also good for your website’s SEO? The effect is more indirect, but it’s positive still.

You’ve learned above that interactive content is more engaging. As such, they are more likely to keep your visitors on your website. The time they spend on the website, therefore, increases.

This is a good signal for search engines. To them, it means that the content is valuable to users, so your rankings will increase.

Another way it helps your SEO efforts is by bringing in traffic.

We’ve also mentioned that people like sharing things and competing with their friends and family. When they share your website content and people click on it, this will add traffic to your site.

This is also a good ranking signal. The more people visit your website, and the longer they stay, the higher you’ll rise through the rankings.

To maximize this effect, you should make sure your website is mobile-optimized, too. As a reminder, Google pushed its mobile-first indexing a while back. This should be enough reason for you.

An additional benefit, though, is that you can also target mobile users. As 3.5 billion people have smartphones, you have to make sure they can use your interactive content with whatever device.

6. It's great for generating leads

It’s also a good tool for generating leads. Take an assessment quiz, for instance.

It’s great for collecting contact information from your customers.

In an instant, you have a lead or subscriber to your email newsletter. As such, interactive content is great for directing any user into the marketing funnel.

You can also use interactive content to personalize your offerings. For instance, you can ask a series of questions about them.

Based on their answer, you can then offer the right product and services for them.

You’ll also be able to adjust your products and services accordingly.

This will also let you create rich lead profiles. You’ll learn more about what your audience likes and what their problems are.

This will then help you become more engaged in their buying cycle.

7. It helps convert customers

Because interactive content is engaging, they can also increase your conversion rates. More leads, greater brand awareness, bigger brand loyalty, and many more all lead to more conversions and sales.

Because interactive content is a form of conversation, it’s a good way to build a relationship with users. Your audience is also more likely to convert because they’ve already invested in your brand. Even if they’ve only invested their time, they’ll still feel a connection.

They may not convert right after taking a fun quiz. But, if you continue building that relationship, they’ll turn into a customer in time.

It’s also a way of staying on your customers’ minds. As they interact with your brand more, they will remember your brand more and more. When they need your product or service, you’re the first thing that will come to their minds.

How to have a two-way conversation with interactive marketing

Since the beginning of social media, the tables have turned for brands and marketers on how they effectively connect with their audience. Social media is in fact that, a “social” way to engage, enforcing the need to interact with one another. Coming across as power hungry as a company can be perceived as a major turn off in today’s digital culture.

Have you ever gone on a date that felt like a seemingly one-sided conversation where questions are answered with mere “yes” or “no”? As humans, no matter what environment or experience, we yearn for personality and involvement. For brands, this validates that in order to succeed in your marketing efforts you have to “give”.

Unlike traditional advertising, where brands would issue a unidirectional message to a passive audience, new media consumers want to enter into a dialogue and interact with the brand and its messages.

Connect on a human level

In a one-way conversation the message is dominated by the brand’s narrative with little acknowledgement or interaction with the audience. In a two-way conversation the brand connects with the consumers, bridging the gap between their needs and the overall message.

A good rule of thumb is to add value and focus on brand building for 80% of content. The other 20% should be for self-serving, which includes promoting events or endorsing products.

Be sure to share news and ideas, even if they aren’t yours. The idea is to educate, inform, and “delight.” This shows that your company is not disconnected from the audience and may contribute to a sense of authority in the industry when it comes to what type of content you share, like the creation of interactive content and sending out through al your “active” channels.

Show your brand's personality

Diving deeper into the importance of coming across as human-like, the voice portrayed to the audience will mold the brand’s overall personality. Voice does not necessarily mean text alone. Pictures speak a thousand words and are great marketing tools for your digital platforms.

Personality can be showcased in polished campaign photos, influencer marketing promotions, or genuine raw photos from around the workplace.

Add Interactive content to your digital marketing strategy now!

Every digital marketing strategy has space for interactive content. It is, after all, the future of marketing. However, there’s no denying that it isn’t easy, and it can be more expensive than others.

We’ll gladly help you out with that! Don’t hesitate to rely on experts who can ensure you get the highest quality interactive content to boost your marketing efforts.

Our interactive video software: Spott, is a user-friendly platform where you can make almost everything interactive: content can range from pdf to videos to catalogs even 360° images are possible.

Check out an interactive content example below, all created in our interactive video platform: Spott. Curious about learning more? Simply head to Spott.ai or book a demo here.

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