The Most Popular Types of Interactive Content in Digital Marketing and Their Benefits

What Is Interactive Content

Interactive content is slowly but surely becoming one of the main ways for growing consumer interest and attracting more loyal customers. In contrast to video blog posts, guest posting, Instagram stories or YouTube videos, interactive content not only promotes specific products and services but also allows users to engage in games, quizzes and other fun activities.

The ‘interactive content’ term has become a buzzword but what exactly does it mean? In general, it can be viewed as a type of content where users actively participate instead of just reading text or watching a video. Using interactive content in your digital marketing campaign means that the customers will be more eager to click on your links and will spend more time on your website.

interactive content

Why Use Interactive Content

  • Today, brands operating in the online environment are more than ever interested in using interactive content as a means of growing their business. Some of its benefits include: A higher level of active engagement
  • Improved brand loyalty
  • Enables companies to know their customers better
  • Allows for developing deeply personalised content

Interactive Content Types

As each type of digital content offers unique benefits, we have prepared a short guide detailing when and why you should use these instruments.

Tests and Quizzes

Particularly popular on Instagram, this type of digital content encourages customers to participate in a game-like quiz evaluating their knowledge of a particular topic that is typically linked to your products and services.

Below are just some examples of such activities.

  • A test assessing the consumers’ knowledge of pet allergies and foods; created by a well-known premium cat food brand.
  • A natural heritage quiz; created by a global tourism firm.
  • A movie trivia quiz; created by a creator of premium editions of classic movies.

Interactive quizzes are fun not only because they allow customers to engage with their favourite topics but also due to the fact that participation in such activities is typically rewarded. For example, you can offer a promotional discount coupon for everyone who completes your quiz. Even if the discount is small, this can be a very powerful motivator for the visitors to your website to linger and answer some interactive questions.

Games

Games are probably the most interactive type of digital marketing strategy by allowing users to interact with a virtual environment in a wide variety of ways. One of the best examples of games used as a digital marketing measure is the Audi A4 Challenge, a Flash game allowing everyone to drive a virtual version of the new Audi A4.

If you are struggling for ideas, here are some suggestions on how games can be integrated into existing digital marketing strategies.

  • A Tetris-like game distributed by a packaging and delivery brand.
  • A Super Mario-esque jumping platformer created by a sports apparel company.
  • A digital choose-your-own-adventure book created by a digital book store.

Unlike tests and quizzes, games are repayable and can, therefore, encourage repeat visits to your website. One thing you should remember, however, is that games are expensive to develop. Moreover, it can be difficult to find a suitable partner to outsource game development in contrast to outsourcing other digital marketing methods such as blog posting services.

The best thing you can do if you want to use games as part of your digital marketing strategy is to hire independent game developers with good knowledge of JavaScript and the latest technology trends.

Assessments

Assessments are similar to quizzes and in that both of these digital marketing measures pose a set of questions to the customer. Quizzes, nonetheless, focus on choosing the right answer to a particular question. Assessments, on the other hand, focus on open-ended questions or questions with no set right answer.

To further highlight this difference, here are a few examples of interactive assessments.

  • Choosing one’s favourite and least favourite colours on the website of a famous apparel brand.
  • Listing one’s favourite workout programmes and exercises using a platform provided by a sports equipment company.
  • Suggesting ideas for future meals on a website of a local restaurant.

Similarly to quizzes, you can encourage participation in assessments by providing discounts to the users who complete such tests. For businesses, assessments are invaluable in that this instrument allows for gathering a huge amount of marketing data in a relatively short amount of time.

Continuing one of the above examples, the apparel brand can use the customers’ assessments of colour as an indicator of what colours should be included in its next clothing collection.

Contests

Contests are one of the oldest forms of marketing and are easily adaptable to the digital environment. To make contests fully interactable and valuable for you as a marketer, you can encourage the participants to not only submit their photos, videos and other creative content but also complete a short questionnaire form to fuel your marketing research.

Here are some contests ideas for various industries.

  • A photo contest organised by a tourism firm with flight and tour discounts as key prizes.
  • A pop-art contest conducted by an apparel company with the winner receiving the rights to collaborate with the brand.
  • A video contest encouraging the participants to share their stories of using specific products designed by a well-known watch manufacturer.

Contests work even if your brand is not particularly famous. For instance, Instagram artists regularly encourage their followers to come up with names of their paintings with the winners receiving a high-resolution print of a particular art piece. This example also shows that contests do not necessarily have to be time-intensive.

Asking your target customers to spend five minutes participating in a contest is just as effective as holding a large-scale contest with huge prizes.

Infographics

Infographics have been a staple of non-intrusive visual content marketing for years. However, there are now tools that can be used to make infographics not only look great but also offer a solid interactable user experience. If you need some suggestions, here are a couple of examples of interactive infographics.

  • An infographic with embedded questions about the users’ recycling practices made by a waste processing company.
  • A unique financial and customer engagement graphic with flexible user paths made by a creative digital agency.
  • A sales infographic with flip tiles created by an online art gallery.

While infographics are one of the simplest ways to communicate information, they are also one of the most effective. If you experiment with the above solutions, you are sure to find a unique approach to interactive infographics that suits your target audience.

Although the transition to interactive content can seem daunting, it is important to remember that this digital marketing measure represents a huge opportunity to capture more customers and convert them into loyal clients.

We hope that our short guide has inspired you to introduce interactive content into your digital marketing strategy. It may even have inspired your own unique methods for increasing the interactivity of digital marketing.

Conclusion

It is easy to see why interactive content can be more effective than blog posting or video marketing. While this article gives you a good idea of what interactive content is and how it can contribute to your business growth, the list above is not exhaustive. Let us know what you think about interactive content. Which type of interactive content do you consider the most effective?

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