The Rise of Interactive Content Marketing

What is Interactive Content?

A lot of the content that’s online these days will simply display or convey a message to a viewer. With the rise of interactive marketing content, users can do much more than that—they can actually get involved with it - whether it’s by taking a poll or filling out a quiz, for example. This allows an audience to use the content to personalize their experience and prompts them to respond and react while educating or entertaining them on the topic at hand. More engagement means more views, and that leads to more brand awareness, which eventually translates to more customers.

Interactive Content Marketing Examples

Online quizzes—whether it’s finding out what city best suits a user, or what potato chip flavor they are—these are examples of widely used and shared pieces of interactive content. But today’s businesses are finding practical ways of using these quizzes and polls to grow their sales and customer base. Take Warby Parker’s frame-finding quiz, for example, seven simple questions provides the company with the data they need to narrow down which products best suit their customers, and the customer receives several pairs to sample based on their answers. 

Calculators and similar tools (such as calculating mortgage loan or car loan payments) are other examples of interactive content. Hubspot’s website grader is a quick, free way to evaluate your website and a brilliant way for them to grow their lead base and provide further advice to those with poor ratings.

With online video becoming increasingly popular, more marketers are finding ways to turn these videos into interactive content by making certain elements of the video clickable, and taking viewers on their own personalized journeys. 

Engagographics are a way to take flat, boring infographics that everyone is already used to seeing, by turning them into something much more fun while also providing users with the information and facts they’re after. 

Just as there is no limit to the types of static content that can be created, the same applies to interactive content. Whether marketers have a creative concept in mind, or they need help with a campaign from scratch, companies like ion interactive or Zembula can help develop unique and effective pieces of interactive marketing content. 

Best Practices

Interactive content allows users to get involved with a specific piece of content, it’s important to make it personalizable, but not too complicated. If it’s too difficult to figure out, or too time-consuming, users may get frustrated and give up quickly. Don’t forget that while interactive content should be helpful to users and drive leads for the company producing it, its ultimate goal is to provide an enjoyable experience for users. Make it visually appealing and make it fun!

Also, remember that developing killer interactive marketing content is half the battle, but getting it out there is just as important. Eventually, great content tends to get around on its own, but it’s important to use best practices in the beginning so that it receives as much exposure as possible.

It’s also a best practice to take a close look at your data and learn more about your audience. For example, if you’re using a quiz as part of your content marketing campaign, you can analyze the responses to improve your interactive content. If you see that users tend to give up on the quiz after a certain question, you can use this information to make wiser decisions in the future when creating new content.

Potential Drawbacks

While there are so many benefits of an interactive marketing campaign, there are also some potential drawbacks to consider. Because interactive marketing tends to be more technical and has more moving parts than static content, there is more potential for something to go wrong. A component of the content may stop working, or it may fail to load properly on certain devices. As such, marketers should ensure that they frequently test out interactive content and prepare for all possible mishaps. By working with a company that’s experienced in creating interactive marketing content, or by receiving the necessary training in creating functioning interactive content from the start, marketers are less likely to hit snags. 

Because of the complexity involved with interactive content, it can be easy to invest too much time - more time than originally allocated for. Keep this in mind, along with the projected ROI, when planning your content marketing campaign. 

Interactive Marketing Content: The Data

Despite any potential pitfalls of using interactive marketing content, recent data shows that this type of content generally performs pretty well. 

According to ion interactive, 70 percent of marketers say that interactive content is effective at converting site visitors. Inc.com reports that marketers rate the effectiveness of interactive content at 93 percent, compared to the effectiveness of static content at just 70 percent. 

Those on the fence about whether or not to use interactive marketing content may want to consider what their competitors are doing. According to data from the Content Marketing Institute, 75 percent of marketers expect to increase their use of interactive marketing content, with 79 percent agreeing that interactive content has reusable value. In the same survey, it was revealed that 51 percent of participants have been using interactive content as part of their marketing efforts for at least three years.