How interactive content helps you achieve your marketing goals
Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2024 6:43 am
Achieving your digital marketing goals requires continuous focus and constant adjustment of strategies. Should interactive content play a more important role in your company? After reading this post, you will see that the answer is: yes!
Rock Content Editor
Oct 15, 21 | 10 min read
marketing goals
Reading time: 8 minutes
Interactive content has been steadily growing in importance for brands and businesses of all sizes. However, many brands continue to believe that they do not have the resources to produce it consistently, so they give up and, consequently, diminish their value proposition. In this post, we will show you how interactive content can help you achieve your marketing goals. But, first, let's define our terms.
In the context of Digital Marketing , interactive content is any type of digital content that requires the active participation of your audience: clicking, dragging, responding , etc.
The term is a way of distinguishing interactive formats from passive or static content that users simply consume, such as text and images.
Interactive content is therefore an essential south africa email address element for developing a solid and successful Digital Marketing strategy.
Below, we will tell you 8 benefits of interactive content that can help you achieve your marketing goals:
1. They increase the time users spend on the page.
2. They increase your CTR.
3. They optimize lead generation.
4. They improve the customer experience.
5. They promote engagement and brand awareness.
6. Sales increase.
7. They help you collect source data.
8. They facilitate the collection of comments.
Conclusion: Marketing goals are easier to achieve with interactive content.
Keep reading!
1. They increase the time users spend on the page
An important metric that demonstrates the effectiveness of your website, and your marketing strategy as a whole, is the time spent on page .
Increasing this metric doesn't have a magic result, but the likelihood of a conversion or sale certainly increases when readers really consider what you have to say.
If people are leaving as quickly as they arrive, something is wrong. Your content may not be relevant, or you may simply not be interesting enough to catch their attention.
There is a paradox or contradiction and that is that we manage to attract a reader through an organic search, but once they get the answer to their question, they immediately leave .
By incorporating interactive content into your page, you give readers a reason to stick around. There's something else to do, play, learn, or otherwise interact with, so some readers will stick around and engage with that content.
Again, average time on page is not usually the ultimate goal, but it is very important to measure how well you are engaging readers. And, with the right interactive content, more time on page can mean an increase in conversions and/or sales.
2. They increase your CTR
Click-through rate , or CTR , is a crucial metric with which you can evaluate the success of your marketing plan. In fact, increasing CTR is often one of the permanent goals of a company's marketing.
CTR is essentially the number of visitors who click on a landing page (such as the CTA link at the end of a post) after first landing on the original page, compared to the total number who landed on the original page.
How do interactive contents increase CTR?
Let’s say you write a blog post that answers the search intent of a common question in your industry. You’re going to end that blog post with a CTA , right?
That's good practice, of course, but some readers will tune out long before they get there.
But what if your CTA wasn’t just a paragraph at the end of a text-based post? What if the CTA was actually linked to a piece of interactive content?
Reserve that CTA for another type of click until the reader has interacted with a valuable piece of interactive content. Once you demonstrate added value to them, it will usually lead to more clicks, which will increase your CTR.
3. They optimize lead generation
Interactive content can also optimize lead generation, especially those that start with paid or organic search. Let's say you want to attract leads through a blog post with a CTA at the end.
But this time, instead of asking readers to click, you'll ask them to sign up or provide an email address, or something like that.
It's common practice to offer some sort of incentive for that lead generation. If you sell retail products, it could be a pop-up that says: Sign up now and get a percentage off your first order!
In the B2B universe, a more common approach is: Download this whitepaper! , which offers readers deeper, more valuable content in exchange for a subscription.
Lead generation can be much more powerful and effective when you link it to interactive content.
If your goal is to collect email addresses, you can require an email registration so the user can access valuable interactive content, just as you would have done to obtain an eBook or whitepaper.
Or you can create some kind of quiz, like Find Your Ideal Apartment Type!, place it in place of the CTA, and save the actual CTA for the last step of the quiz, once you've captured users' curiosity and interest.
Whatever approach you take, almost any type of interactive content can have positive effects on your lead generation efforts.
4. They improve the customer experience
Marketers talk a lot about customer experience, and for good reason: no matter how good your product is, if the experience of buying or obtaining it is horrible, many consumers will turn away.
In other words, a great product that can only be purchased through a terrible, outdated, and unreliable website will have limited reach.
Apple understands this better than anyone. Its stores are not designed to just sell products, but to create experiences and relationships that naturally lead to product sales.
(Of course, it doesn't hurt to have quality products, and your conventional marketing efforts certainly play a role, too.)
So how does this relate to interactive content? Simple. Your customers like to discover things for themselves .
If your audience has the choice between static product images and a 360-degree model they can rotate, zoom and play with, which will they prefer?
Here's another example: if you sell a variety of similar products, you could certainly create a longer blog post describing which of your products is best suited for different types of consumers. Some customers would even read it and make a purchasing decision based on it.
But how much easier would it be (for the client, not necessarily for you) if that blog post was also an interactive quiz?
Your users love the idea of being in control of the experience. If they prefer to read it, let them. If they prefer to answer a series of questions (points you already mentioned in the blog post, by the way) and have a quiz tell them what to buy, that's great too!
Again, these are just two examples. The real-world possibilities for improving customer experience through interactive content are nearly endless.
5. They promote engagement and brand awareness
Engagement is another metric that can be difficult to define and, depending on how you define it, difficult to measure.
Definitions can vary, but generally, engagement refers to some type of visible public interaction, whether it's a comment on a post or an interaction via social media.
Not all companies rely equally on social engagement. It is much less important in B2B businesses than for direct-to-consumer brands, for example.
Engagement can be very difficult to develop naturally, and some companies simply aren't going to get much traction here.
We may be grateful for the local water treatment company or the construction company that built the office building we work in, but we have no reason to follow them on social media and would virtually never share a social post from either of them.
That said, if engagement is a relevant metric for your business, you should develop it, even if making it look natural seems almost impossible. Creating a highly engaging and socially valuable piece of interactive content is a great way to do that.
An interesting survey, a fun quiz, or an insightful infographic are all options that could make sense in that context.
Rock Content Editor
Oct 15, 21 | 10 min read
marketing goals
Reading time: 8 minutes
Interactive content has been steadily growing in importance for brands and businesses of all sizes. However, many brands continue to believe that they do not have the resources to produce it consistently, so they give up and, consequently, diminish their value proposition. In this post, we will show you how interactive content can help you achieve your marketing goals. But, first, let's define our terms.
In the context of Digital Marketing , interactive content is any type of digital content that requires the active participation of your audience: clicking, dragging, responding , etc.
The term is a way of distinguishing interactive formats from passive or static content that users simply consume, such as text and images.
Interactive content is therefore an essential south africa email address element for developing a solid and successful Digital Marketing strategy.
Below, we will tell you 8 benefits of interactive content that can help you achieve your marketing goals:
1. They increase the time users spend on the page.
2. They increase your CTR.
3. They optimize lead generation.
4. They improve the customer experience.
5. They promote engagement and brand awareness.
6. Sales increase.
7. They help you collect source data.
8. They facilitate the collection of comments.
Conclusion: Marketing goals are easier to achieve with interactive content.
Keep reading!
1. They increase the time users spend on the page
An important metric that demonstrates the effectiveness of your website, and your marketing strategy as a whole, is the time spent on page .
Increasing this metric doesn't have a magic result, but the likelihood of a conversion or sale certainly increases when readers really consider what you have to say.
If people are leaving as quickly as they arrive, something is wrong. Your content may not be relevant, or you may simply not be interesting enough to catch their attention.
There is a paradox or contradiction and that is that we manage to attract a reader through an organic search, but once they get the answer to their question, they immediately leave .
By incorporating interactive content into your page, you give readers a reason to stick around. There's something else to do, play, learn, or otherwise interact with, so some readers will stick around and engage with that content.
Again, average time on page is not usually the ultimate goal, but it is very important to measure how well you are engaging readers. And, with the right interactive content, more time on page can mean an increase in conversions and/or sales.
2. They increase your CTR
Click-through rate , or CTR , is a crucial metric with which you can evaluate the success of your marketing plan. In fact, increasing CTR is often one of the permanent goals of a company's marketing.
CTR is essentially the number of visitors who click on a landing page (such as the CTA link at the end of a post) after first landing on the original page, compared to the total number who landed on the original page.
How do interactive contents increase CTR?
Let’s say you write a blog post that answers the search intent of a common question in your industry. You’re going to end that blog post with a CTA , right?
That's good practice, of course, but some readers will tune out long before they get there.
But what if your CTA wasn’t just a paragraph at the end of a text-based post? What if the CTA was actually linked to a piece of interactive content?
Reserve that CTA for another type of click until the reader has interacted with a valuable piece of interactive content. Once you demonstrate added value to them, it will usually lead to more clicks, which will increase your CTR.
3. They optimize lead generation
Interactive content can also optimize lead generation, especially those that start with paid or organic search. Let's say you want to attract leads through a blog post with a CTA at the end.
But this time, instead of asking readers to click, you'll ask them to sign up or provide an email address, or something like that.
It's common practice to offer some sort of incentive for that lead generation. If you sell retail products, it could be a pop-up that says: Sign up now and get a percentage off your first order!
In the B2B universe, a more common approach is: Download this whitepaper! , which offers readers deeper, more valuable content in exchange for a subscription.
Lead generation can be much more powerful and effective when you link it to interactive content.
If your goal is to collect email addresses, you can require an email registration so the user can access valuable interactive content, just as you would have done to obtain an eBook or whitepaper.
Or you can create some kind of quiz, like Find Your Ideal Apartment Type!, place it in place of the CTA, and save the actual CTA for the last step of the quiz, once you've captured users' curiosity and interest.
Whatever approach you take, almost any type of interactive content can have positive effects on your lead generation efforts.
4. They improve the customer experience
Marketers talk a lot about customer experience, and for good reason: no matter how good your product is, if the experience of buying or obtaining it is horrible, many consumers will turn away.
In other words, a great product that can only be purchased through a terrible, outdated, and unreliable website will have limited reach.
Apple understands this better than anyone. Its stores are not designed to just sell products, but to create experiences and relationships that naturally lead to product sales.
(Of course, it doesn't hurt to have quality products, and your conventional marketing efforts certainly play a role, too.)
So how does this relate to interactive content? Simple. Your customers like to discover things for themselves .
If your audience has the choice between static product images and a 360-degree model they can rotate, zoom and play with, which will they prefer?
Here's another example: if you sell a variety of similar products, you could certainly create a longer blog post describing which of your products is best suited for different types of consumers. Some customers would even read it and make a purchasing decision based on it.
But how much easier would it be (for the client, not necessarily for you) if that blog post was also an interactive quiz?
Your users love the idea of being in control of the experience. If they prefer to read it, let them. If they prefer to answer a series of questions (points you already mentioned in the blog post, by the way) and have a quiz tell them what to buy, that's great too!
Again, these are just two examples. The real-world possibilities for improving customer experience through interactive content are nearly endless.
5. They promote engagement and brand awareness
Engagement is another metric that can be difficult to define and, depending on how you define it, difficult to measure.
Definitions can vary, but generally, engagement refers to some type of visible public interaction, whether it's a comment on a post or an interaction via social media.
Not all companies rely equally on social engagement. It is much less important in B2B businesses than for direct-to-consumer brands, for example.
Engagement can be very difficult to develop naturally, and some companies simply aren't going to get much traction here.
We may be grateful for the local water treatment company or the construction company that built the office building we work in, but we have no reason to follow them on social media and would virtually never share a social post from either of them.
That said, if engagement is a relevant metric for your business, you should develop it, even if making it look natural seems almost impossible. Creating a highly engaging and socially valuable piece of interactive content is a great way to do that.
An interesting survey, a fun quiz, or an insightful infographic are all options that could make sense in that context.