Interactive Content And How To Implement It
We spend so much time and energy planning and creating content, but are we producing the right content? There are so many thoughts on content creation, what’s best to do, and what to avoid, and with new theories and techniques coming to the forefront every day, it can be hard to know what to do. Today we dissect interactive content, content that communicates messaging via user participation. Interactive content can take many forms, from quizzes and polls to interactive infographics and interactive emails, to name a few. Interactive content is a seamless way to connect with viewers and showcase brand personality and should be one of the content styles you include in your strategy.
Interactive content is not only great for entertaining viewers but also for getting feedback and further insights into how your customers think and their preferences, allowing for more effective personalisation. Interactive content is also a proven tool to improve brand loyalty and create higher levels of engagement. 88% of marketers say interactive content helps brands differentiate themselves, and 79% say combining interactive content with other content types improves message retention.
Below we go through some types of interactive content you can implement into your content strategy.
1. Quizzes.
Attaining and keeping viewers’ attention has never been more challenging. Customers are shelled with marketing 24/7, and according to Hubspot, user attention has dropped to eight seconds, so you need to get in fast. Break through the noise, entertain, inform, and understand your customers more through quizzes. This form of content can assist your brand in being top of mind and are a great way of interacting with viewers without selling to them.
Want to conduct a quiz for your brand? Here are some of the platforms you can use.
Instagram
Facebook
2. Polls.
Polls are a great way to educate viewers on new product releases, help get a product or brand top of mind and entertain. Like quizzes, polls are perfect for an audience with a lack of time and stretched attention as they offer an opportunity to gain quick interactions as the answers are in front of them. Pools also tap into people’s curiosity as their instinct is to know if they’re right. All these points add up to increased engagement and a deeper connection between brand and consumer. Retrosweat Home Video use polls to entertain their customers, tapping into their love of the 80s and linking into an upcoming Janet Jackson event by using the signer in their much love wear or tear poll.
Retrosweat Home Video entertain and interact with viewers through their tear or wear Instagram poll.
3. Interactive emails.
Email, if used correctly, can be a very powerful marketing tool. They can help you celebrate your customers, remind them of abandoned carts, and they can be entertaining and interactive. According to Earthweb, the average person receives 100 emails a day and given that it can be hard to stand out in a crowded inbox, this is where interactive emails come in. Depending on your audience and your product or brand, there are a few ways you can make your emails more interactive, such as including image carousels, embed videos, animated gifs or interactive forms.
Ways to include interactive content in your emails:
Share a message from the team or showcase products and services by including a video.
Tease an upcoming event or announcement through a gif, like the Adidas example below.
Engage and get feedback from recipients by including a poll.
Gain audience attention and gamify your emails through engagement, award, and completion.
4. Interactive infographics.
Do you have heavy data or facts to communicate to customers? Interactive infographics can be an effective way to share large pools of information in a visually appealing way. An interactive infographic is visually compelling content that uses graphic elements to convey hard data, paired with interactive features such as polls, heat maps and external links. Common infographics are effective, but adding in an interactive element can add sparkle to a presentation or post that can assist in standing out in a crowd by informing people in an entertaining and sharable way.
Want to make your own? Here are three platforms to assist you in making your interactive infographic.
BBC uses interactive infographics in their article about the future of jobs and automation. Click on the image to try.
5. Augmented reality overlays.
Augmented reality overlays a virtual element over a real-world situation, as seen in the above example of the collaboration between Snapchat and Prada. According to Statista, the market size of AR is forecast to hit $296.9 Billion in 2024. As it is, the forecast for 2022 is already a whopping 91.2 per cent year-over-year increase. This is set to more than double to $124.4 billion in 2023 before skyrocketing in 2024, showcasing the potential of the technology and its growth in the coming years.
Snapchat collaborates with Prada in augmented reality try-ons.
6. Calculators.
Though they don’t sound sexy, calculators can be a great addition to your online presence for products or services where people need to crunch the numbers, such as a mortgage broker, bank, or health service. A built-in calculator shows a level of care to the consumer, and their inclusion can stop the potential consumer from going to another source to do their calculation. Though they can crunch the numbers, they can also be used in an entertaining way, such as a love or friendship calculator for a Valentine’s Day promotion.
Six types of interactive calculators:
Roi interactive calculator
Service pricing calculator
Product finder with cost calculator
Savings calculator
Fitness calculator
Love or friendship calculator
Leading You Through The Digital World:
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