You’ve probably heard that information is best retrieved directly from the horse’s mouth. While it’s a common cliche, it’s also true — especially when it comes to content marketing.
When we market to customers, we’re asking them to part with their money in exchange for our products and services. However, we’re also soliciting their feedback.
If you know what your customers think after an interaction or transaction, you can apply that feedback to future encounters.
This is where interactive content marketing comes in.
What Is Interactive Content Marketing?
Map it out and get to work!
The idea behind interactive content marketing is to provide a more engaging, useful, and enjoyable experience for the customer. While articles and other static forms of content marketing remain useful, more brands have begun to experiment with interactive alternatives.
It can also take many forms:
- Polls and surveys: Directly ask your customers what they think, want, or don’t want.
- Trivia: Let your customers test their knowledge on a specific topic.
- Assessments: Take your customers through a series of questions to gauge their opinions, beliefs, or traits. Think of these as a standardized test — but, you know, fun.
- Brackets: Take a leaf from the sports pages and set up brackets. Let your customers choose teams, pick items, or participate in R&D.
- Maps: Guide your customers on a tour of your offices or some other interesting locale. Universities often use these form of interactive content marketing to great success.
Why Is Interactive Content Marketing a Game Changer?
Today’s consumers often get bored with standard content. Some topics don’t lend themselves to blog posts or articles; they’re better communicated on an interactive platform.
More importantly, you humanize your brand when you open up content to others’ input. People love it when you value their opinions and lived experiences, so leverage that desire with your next content marketing campaign.
Have you ever flipped open a lifestyle magazine while waiting at the doctor’s office and felt compelled to take the quiz inside? We’re a competitive species, and we love to test our knowledge.
Maybe you’ve taken those quizzes on Facebook, too. Which Hogwarts house do you belong in? What classic cartoon villain are you? How well do you know Broadway musicals?
These quizzes offer an almost irresistible magnet to consumers, and you can harness some of that power for yourself.
Who Uses Interactive Content Marketing?
Let the conversation begin.
You might think that you need to land on the Fortune 500 list to make interactive content marketing part of your strategy. You’d be wrong.
While an Ion Interactive and Content Marketing Institute survey revealed that 63 percent of companies using interactive content fall in the enterprise category, small businesses make up a surprising 40 percent.
These days, interactive content is far less expensive than it was when it first debuted, and you can sometimes even set it up for free. Of course, working with an agency will result in a higher quality product, but you can dip your toes in the water by making your own quiz or designing your own poll.
How Far Can Interactive Content Go?
Believe it or not, you can design an entire website to consist of nothing but interactive content. For instance, visitors might land on your home or landing page and be asked a trivia question. You decide where the customer goes next based on his or her answer.
Did you ever read the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books as a kid? This is a similar concept.
You can also set up microsites for your interactive content marketing. These small websites stick to one theme or topic, and if you make them interactive, they’ll likely get shared more on social media.
No matter what size business you run, interactive content marketing is the wave of the future. Either grab your surfboard or stand on the sand and watch your competition hang ten ahead of you. In the meantime, jumpstart your content marketing campaign by getting a free trial here at Media Shower.