Leveraging interactive content can be very beneficial to your marketing strategy as consumers increasingly opt for more creative and engaging content.
Read on to learn about interactive content marketing and its benefits.
What Is Interactive Content?
Interactive content is any material that passes a message by encouraging the audience to participate.
Unlike static content, where the audience is passively reading or watching content, interactive content requires the reader to give inputs, make responses, and engage. This transforms passive readers into active participants.
Engaging content provides personal and dynamic interactions where users can share feedback, give opinions, collect information, solve problems, and receive recommendations. It is akin to having a two-way conversation between you and your audience. It becomes meaningless without participation from both parties.
The emergence of the Internet and the subsequent growth of social media, forums, and blogs have increased the power of media interactivity for content.
Nowadays, innovative brands understand the need to include interactivity in their content marketing strategy.
However, the shift to this new paradigm is sometimes hindered when content marketers continue to rely on traditional methods to encourage audience participation. Brands publish content and wait for user feedback through likes, comments, shares, mentions, or analyzing user browsing patterns on-site.
As this article will explore, interactive content encourages users to move beyond passive reactions and engage more deeply.
Why Should You Use Interactive Content to Market Your Brand?
According to data from Demand Metric, interactive content gains 2x more engagement than static content.
As a content marketer, you must understand whether this content is appropriate for your marketing strategy. So, let’s look at the main reasons why you should (probably) use interactive content to promote your business.
- Improves user engagement: Interactive content significantly enhances user engagement, driving more traffic to your site. For instance, interactive infographics’ engaging and fun format encourages user interaction. They will spend time taking in, understanding, and sharing the material.
- Enhances lead generation and conversion: Interactive content outperforms static content in generating leads and facilitating sales conversions. Dynamic and visually appealing content captures your consumers’ attention and guides them through the sales conversion.
- Distinguishes your brand from competitors: Leveraging this content type can help to position your brand as an industry leader, ensuring it stands out.
- Optimizes content for SEO: Incorporating interactive material like videos and infographics is useful in bolstering your SEO efforts.
- Increases time spent on your site: Consumers are likely to spend more time on your site if you have interactive content than static materials. The more time spent on your site, the higher the likelihood of a sales conversion.
Types of Interactive Content to Consider and Their Examples
If you are considering including interactive content in your marketing strategy, here is a list of the types of interactive formats available.
Quizzes
Quizzes are a gamified way of testing your audience’s knowledge by asking questions. Buzzfeed became a successful brand by offering consumers interactive quizzes, such as the one recommending Cillian Murphy movies to users.
You can add interactive quizzes to your site landing page to determine their tastes and preferences and advise them accordingly.
Polls & Surveys
You can use polls and surveys to gather feedback and choices from your target audience. Polls are designed with single questions for prompt responses, whereas surveys come with multiple questions that require you to dig deeper into a topic.
For instance, your social listening strategy could involve running a poll on X to gauge product or brand sentiment.
Infographics
Infographics are a creative way of visually sharing data and information. You can embed infographics into articles, videos, website landing pages, and more.
Your brand can add infographics to its marketing collateral or knowledge base to make its content more interactive.
Games
Games represent one of the most engaging forms of interactive content. A game like Just Park’s reaction time test is useful in earning links from the press, capturing information, and driving engagement with the underlying content.
You can feature gamified content on your site or social media as a unique way of interacting with consumers.
Videos
Interactive videos are visual media that perform specific actions based on user inputs. For instance, YouTube videos usually have interactive prompts or links on their videos directing you to other videos or marketing material.
You can implement the same strategy in your video content by linking to other content on your site.
Landing Pages
Landing pages are the front end of your site and are customized to drive traffic and conversions. Adding visual and animating content to your landing page can intrigue your audience and encourage them to sign up for your product.
You can also make your landing page more interactive by including formats like videos, quizzes, and games.
Tips for Creating Compelling Interactive Content
The following are our best tips for creating inspiring interactive content.
- State your objectives: Identifying your goals for interactive content upfront is crucial. You should ask yourself: What is your ultimate aim for the campaign? Are you hoping to entertain, gain feedback, or educate your audience?
- Select the correct format: Your choice of interactive format should align with your goals and priorities. For example, polls and surveys will likely yield optimum results if you want to collect contact information. Interactive videos are the best choice if you want to entertain your audience.
- Create captivating content: Once you have narrowed down a format, ensure your content is worthwhile to encourage participation. You can design creative scenarios, challenges, and thought-provoking questions to capture your users’ attention. This helps to improve the user experience and make your content engaging.
Reach Out for Help in Crafting Effective Content Strategies
Creating interactive content is more complex than developing static content. By combining a great idea with an engaging asset, you can deliver content that encourages your audience to participate and gives your brand a competitive advantage.
If you are looking for ways to enhance your content marketing strategy. we are ready to help. At Rise Up Media, we create content engineered for growth. Get in touch with us today, and let’s begin!
