Big brands and avid marketers apply diverse and unique marketing strategies to capture their target audiences’ attention. Among these strategies, interactive content marketing is the most common.
But what is interactive content marketing, its types, and how does it work? Without knowing the answers to these questions, you can hardly receive its benefits.
That being said, this article will walk you through everything you need to know about interactive content marketing. Thus, sit tight and start reading this content.
What is Interactive Content Marketing?
Before discussing interactive content marketing, let’s learn what interactive content is. It’s a digital material, precisely a content type that delivers its message by encouraging users to interact with it.
Interactive content has several types: Infographics, Quizzes, Games, Surveys, Webinars, and more. Marketers digitally use these content formats to attract and keep potential customers engaged.
The strategy marketers use to create highly engaging and dynamic content to invite users to interact with content in diverse ways refers to interactive content marketing. In fact, it's a unique marketing strategy.
Okay, you now have a basic understanding of what interactive content is and what interactive content marketing is. As you continue reading this article, you’ll gain deep insight into interactive content marketing. Hence, keep scrolling down, folks.
What Are the Benefits of Interactive Content?
Many marketers have utilized interactive content marketing lately. They are using it after knowing and witnessing the immense benefits it provides. So, what are these benefits? Let’s explore them all.
Increase Engagement: According to research, marketers have seen an impressive 94% higher engagement rate once they use interactive content instead of traditional static content for marketing purposes.
Thus, interactive content becomes a hot cake for marketers to boost engagement. No wonder why it has been a valuable marketing tool.
Gone are those days when people struggled to attract customers with static content - interactive content is the new and surefire way to lure and engage prospective customers.
High Conversion Rates: High conversion rates are one of the prime benefits that interactive content marketing ensures. Besides engaging the target audience, this marketing strategy encourages users to take action, resulting in a higher conversion rate and revenue for businesses.
Improved Data Collection: Interactive content marketing can help you collect more and better data than other marketing strategies. With it, you’ll learn about subscribers' interests, preferences, and behaviors. You can then use this data to create more targeted and personalized marketing campaigns, generating more revenue for your business.
Increased User Experience and Brand Loyalty: You already know that interactive content marketing lets customers interact with your content and finally leads them to purchase your product and service in most cases. But what about after-shopping support? Does interactive content play any role in satisfying customers’ after-sale needs?
Yes, it plays a crucial role. How? Interactive elements like chatbots, automated customer service software, and troubleshooting tools can address customers’ inquiries and resolve other issues. As a result, user experience is enhanced, and brand loyalty is built automatically.
Get Feedback from Users: The last but not least benefit interactive content marketing provides is that it lets you gather feedback from users. As visitors/potential customers interact with your content, you can identify their views, clicks, and interactions with each element of your interactive material.
Consequently, you instantly know which interactive material best retains visitors and leads them to your end goal - purchasing a product, filling up a form, downloading a resource file, etc.
You’ll be amazed to know that people who use interactive content get better results in measuring content effectiveness than those who adhere to static content. This isn’t a made-up statement. You may see the report from this survey.
Image Credit: slideshare.net
Hence, interactive content marketing can help business owners collect valuable feedback from their targeted users.
Types of Interactive Content
Below, you’ll find the most common interactive content types proven to boost engagement and achieve marketing goals.
1. Infographics
Visual content is a real deal in the field of content marketing. Around 40% of marketers believe that 20% to 50% of businesses will depend a lot on visual content by the end of 2024. Other marketers think this 20% to 50% will surpass in the future.
Hence, it’s clear businesses utilize visual content and get positive results. These businesses use diverse visual content types, among which interactive infographics are the most common.
Therefore, you can use this digital marketing element to promote your business and boost revenue. Check the best examples of successful businesses that frequently utilize interactive infographics. Take inspiration and create your own.
2. Quizzes
Quizzes are a popular form of interactive content that instantly draws visitors’ attention and can keep them engaged for a considerable amount of time. This content type gained popularity worldwide due to its two ‘E’s (Education and Entertainment).
Yes, quizzes educate and entertain the audience. Hence, visitors love to interact with quizzes. You’ll have a high chance to attract MANY eyes and win MANY hearts if you can make quizzes creative and relevant to your targeted audience.
3. Calculator
The calculator is an effective interactive content that can help you lure visitors and make them interact with your content for a prolonged period. Suppose you have a calculator that allows visitors to calculate client acquisition costs.
Or, you own a BMI calculator that lets people measure their BMI. You can have any other calculator that provides solutions to different problems. The goal is to help your targeted audience and keep them interacting with your content.
4. Polls
Polls are excellent weaponry to boost engagement. They allow users to engage with minimal effort and easily express their opinions. Believe it or not - people love to give opinions, even if some have no idea on the subject they are talking about.
In a word, people interact with polls and you should use this powerful element to gauge public sentiment on trending topics, product preferences, or brand perceptions.
5. Maps
Maps are excellent tools for visualizing data that has a geographic component, like demographics, trends, or user activities. If you use interactive maps, they can encourage users to spend more time on your site or any other platform.
Also, maps can increase the total number of your content shared on social media. As a result, your platform gets a broad reach and more potential new customers. We hope you now understand the importance of maps in interactive content marketing.
6. Contests
You’ll hardly find someone who doesn’t love a good contest. People love participating in contexts, especially when these contests promise attractive prizes.
If you have prizes that people want, you can use this interactive content - contest - to engage visitors and grow your brand awareness. You can run simple contests on your website or social media profiles to capture many potential customers.
7. eBooks
eBooks work incredibly well in keeping customers engaged. But not all ebooks can do that, especially those that come in a static pdf format. Then, which eBooks are we talking about?
Well, we’re indicating eBooks that don’t only contain text but also feature videos, images, graphics, animations, links to resources, and more. Readers find such eBooks visually appealing and much more enjoyable.
8. Webinars
Webinars are powerful tools for engaging the audience. Unlike other interactive content types, webinars are proven to deliver excellent results, such as quickly generating leads.
If you want to educate visitors through online training, you can use this interactive content type to let them learn interactively and in a much more fun way.
Using webinars allows you to enlighten your target audience and helps you increase your business’ authority and expertise!
9. Surveys
Want to gather a large volume of data without spending much penny? Surveys can help you in this case. This interactive content type lets you collate objective feedback and preferences from your audience.
Surveys can even help you create buyer personas and make the perfect customer targeting for your business.
10. Interactive Video
Interactive video is a video type that takes user input and acts accordingly. Simply put, these videos feature clickable areas for particular actions. You can play them like regular videos and directly interact with and control the content of those videos.
Using specific tools, you can add features like click, scroll, drag, hover, and more to these interactive videos. As a result, your target audience will have more options to explore, and they will stay on your platform for an extended duration.
Related Read: Best AI Video Generators
11. Assessments
Assessments are similar to quizzes, making users interact with this interactive content type. However, instead of throwing random questions to users, assessments display questions about visitors, helping them assess and grade themselves.
Audiences love interacting with this content type as it informs them where they stand compared to other participants. While assessments provide interactors with these benefits, they help marketers with increased lead generation and customer engagement.
12. Interactive Flipbooks
Interactive Flipbooks are akin to physical books that readers can read on your website or any other digital platform. But what sets flipbooks apart from other types of paper-based content like magazines, reports, catalogs, brochures, etc., is that you can include many other interactive elements.
For example, you can add marketing games, polls, quizzes, and more to give your targeted audience remarkable interactive experiences.
13. Gamification
Gamification refers to applying game mechanics to non-game environments like websites, apps, or business processes. Its goal is to engage users, motivate behaviors, and solve problems through rewards and fun experiences.
Virtually everyone loves a good game. Therefore, many companies, especially the big ones, use this interactive content type to achieve enviable success. You can also do the same to grow your business.
14. Social Interactive Content
Social Interactive Content combines interactive content with a social aspect, encouraging customers to share their experiences with friends, similar to how referral marketing works. The goal is to motivate visitors to create their own content and share it with family and friends.
15. Marketing Games
Marketing games are engaging, interactive tools businesses use to attract new customers, connect with their audience, showcase products, and generate leads. These games have various types, including puzzles, spin-the-wheels, spot-the-difference, etc.
You can use these games and encourage visitors to participate in these games. You can lure users by promising exciting win prizes.
16. Image Sliders
Image sliders can be highly effective as interactive content when you use them correctly. Image sliders allow users to engage with visual elements as they slide through images.
Sliders can help you tell a visual story and highlight different products or features. Another benefit of image sliders is that they let you present multiple pieces of content without overwhelming the viewer.
Consequently, visitors’ platform browsing experience remains positive, and your business achieves a good impression.
17. Giveaways
Giveaways are one of the best types of interactive content because they capture attention and create a positive impression of your business. Everyone loves a gift!
Not only do they engage your existing audience, but they also attract potential customers. You'll be surprised at how many people you can reach without offering a large prize.
18. Animation
The last interactive content type that countless marketers use in interactive content marketing is animation. They utilize it as it grabs attention and keeps users engaged.
Dynamic visuals, movement, and vibrant colors draw people in, making the experience more interactive and enjoyable vis-a-vis static content.
Therefore, include animation in your marketing strategy and create memorable experiences for your targeted audience.
Top Five Interactive Content Tools
Here’s a sneak peek into the top five interactive content tools that most marketers use lately.
I. ThingLink
Thinglink is one of the best interactive content tools that lets users add several engagement points to a photo or video to create a fantastic experience for targeted visitors.
Furthermore, this tool allows users to add additional information, audio, attachments, and internet links to their multimedia content. So, ThingLink works best to keep audiences engaged for a long time.
II. Mapme
MapMe is designed specifically for creating interactive maps. A key benefit is that companies can customize maps to align with their marketing strategy and allow users to input valuable data.
III. Ceros
Ceros is a platform that equips users with robust tools to create high-quality, interactive content without developer assistance. Its drag-and-drop functionality allows users to design six types of content: Lookbooks, Catalogs, Infographics, Magazines, Nanosites, and Ebooks.
IV. Outgrow
Outgrow is a fantastic interactive content tool. It offers a wide range of interactive content options and simplifies integration. You can embed the tool on your webpage, popup, or chat to engage with customers immediately.
The tool also provides intelligent analytics and data integration, allowing you to track the performance of your interactive content over time.
V. Apester
Apester is a tool designed to boost user engagement. The platform allows users to create interactive content such as surveys, quizzes, polls, and questionnaires.
One unique side of this tool is that when someone interacts with content, it suggests new articles that may interest the reader and enable quick social media sharing, helping drive virality and organic traffic.
Powerful Tips for Interactive Content Marketing
Before creating interactive content, think about these questions: Who is your audience, and what do they want? How do they behave? What are their pain points? In short, learn everything about your targeted audience/potential customers.
Afterward, create a persona and set your marketing goals. Finally, start creating content. Here are a few more tips to help you on your interactive content marketing journey.
1. Use Existing Content
You can start with the content you already have at the beginning of your journey. However, before choosing any marketing materials, ensure they have the potential for interactivity.
For instance, you can select an ebook that you previously used to generate leads. But this time, you turn this ebook into an interactive page while adding additional information, such as a quiz at the end, to give readers something new.
2. Pay Attention to Funnel Steps
You need to think about the funnel stages while preparing your marketing strategy. You need to define what content you’ll produce for the funnel stages. It’s essential if you want your interactive content to fulfill its purpose in the sales cycle.
That being said, here’s an idea of how you should choose content depending on the funnel stages.
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Try to use a stunning lookbook at the top of the funnel to capture leads.
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Place a calculator at the bottom of the funnel to help your audience calculate the financial benefits of having your products/solution.
3. Make Interactive Content Responsive
Being a digital marketing enthusiast, you already know the importance of responsive websites. As you know, many people browse websites using their smartphones.
Hence, make your website/ or any other platform and interactive content mobile-friendly and precisely device responsive. Since interactive content tends to come with animations, many buttons, and other elements, check if all these elements work on diverse devices.
If you choose any specific tool for interactive content creation, make sure it takes care of the content layout and makes it mobile-friendly.
4. Brainstorm Marketing Techniques with Collected Data
As you know, you can collect a vast amount of data using interactive content. You need to utilize that data to develop fail-safe marketing strategies appropriately.
You can use this data to know your customers better, build a buyer persona, design marketing approaches, and optimize the segmentation of diverse marketing campaigns.
5. Collect the Audience’s Contact Information
Our last tip for you is to collect your audience’s contact information to further them along the sales funnel. In order to acquire their contact data, you can use your preferred interactive content.
However, we recommend you choose a quiz or survey and ask your targeted customers to submit their contact details when they seek the answers to a quiz. Additionally, don’t forget to ask for your consumers’ email addresses to send them personalized marketing campaigns later.
How Do You Get People to Engage with Content?
You can post multimedia content like images and videos to get people to engage with your content. You can also ask them for responses to your content.
Other than this, try to be creative with your post, be funny, share information about your topic, create polls, organize contests and giveaways, and interact with other business pages to increase the engagement rate of your content.
How Do I Create Interactive Social Media Content?
You can follow diverse strategies depending on the type of interactive social media content you want to create.
For example, if you want to build polls and surveys, you won’t need a third-party application, as most platforms (Instagram, X, Facebook) have built-in poll features.
On the other hand, if you need to create quizzes, you can utilize Buzzfeed or Outgrow to create engaging quizzes. So, first, decide the content type you want to create and then choose the best tool to build your content.
No matter which interactive content type you create, ensure it resonates with your target audience. If you are to create written content, write in a conversational tone.
If you plan to build visual content, incorporate storytelling and include interactive elements into your content to make it highly engaging.
Finally, try to engage with your audience by responding to their comments and questions on your post.
How Do I Make an Interactive Page?
If you are talking about a web page, there are numerous ways to make an interactive page. For example, you can add fade-in images to your website. You can implement a method to load images sequentially,
You can use sticky menus. You can add hover effects to particular components of your web page. Also, you can add toggles to change content. Literally, you can apply as many techniques as you want to make an interactive page.
But that won’t be wise as excess of anything is very bad. Hence, adhere to website design best practices to build an interactive page. However, if you don’t want to learn these techniques and need a ready-made solution, Dorik AI has you covered.
This no-code AI website builder takes care of all the pain you face while creating an interactive page. It’s your personal web developer that listens to you and does the work accordingly. So, you may give it a try.
Bottom Line
Interactive content marketing is a powerful way to boost engagement. However, you need to use the appropriate interactive content to enjoy this benefit.
Remember not to overwhelm your target audience with many interactive content types in a single marketing campaign. Use one content type at a time, depending on your marketing goal.
Above all, research your audience before showing them any content. This way, you’ll reap the most out of interactive content marketing.
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