Why you should include interactive content to your digital marketing strategy?

What is Interactive Content 

Nowadays, the development of the IT industry and the ongoing progress of information tools make the production of content easier and faster but also accelerate and toughen competition among brands for the attention of customers. The content used by brands in their marketing strategies is becoming increasingly complicated. 

Digital marketing has become an essential element of the common marketing strategy. However, the mere use of digital instruments does not guarantee the success of marketing communication anymore since the expectations of consumers are growing as well. It is becoming harder for brands to distinguish from others in customers’ minds and it requires more effort to keep the marketing messaging effective. 

Advantages of Digital Marketing Interactive Tools

Bilateral Communication with the Audience

Interactive content has become the next step in digital marketing interaction with a customer. “Normal” or traditional marketing content implies a unilateral flow of information from its producer, a company, to a customer. In this case, it is hard to estimate to what extent customers get involved in marketing communication and how the information affects their preferences and actions. 

As for interactive content, it allows customers to get information about brands and interact with companies in a larger number of ways. Customers can continue to passively consume information, but they have also an opportunity to provide feedback, participate in the company’s digital marketing activities and exchange opinions with other customers. That is, when interactive content is employed, it is easier to use call-to-action strategies and lure customers to undertake a deeper interaction with a brand.

The arsenal of interactive marketing tools is wider than that of normal marketing and besides texts, sounds and images include scenario games, quizzes, animation and videos, surveys and feedback forms, and interactive infographics among others. 

Easier to Receive Feedback from the Audience

While traditional marketing methods implied that a company had to convey information to customers, the advantage of interactive marketing instruments is that customers provide feedback on marketing information by themselves. 

Quizzes, polls and similar instruments collect the required information much easier than formal questionnaires. The analysis of customer actions and preferences about particular products and most employed tools allow for creating data profiles which predict customer behaviour with a high degree of accuracy. 

By estimating the feedback and the intensiveness of customer actions in particular tools or events, a company can understand what information is the most interesting for customers and what forms of interaction they prefer. This also allows for comparing patterns of reaction to information in different dimensions such as gender, region and age.  

Deeper Perception and Understanding of Information

Moreover, the use of interactive technologies in digital marketing changes the perception of information. When a user receives normal content, the consumption is more passive as it only employs a limited number of sense organs. Feedback is not required and a consumer of this type of information is less inclined to act.

Meanwhile, interactive content employs the same feelings as the normal one, but also excites customer curiosity and stimulates more active participation in communication with a brand. A more active way of information consumption creates a deeper imprint in a customer’s mind so that they better remember and perceive the marketing message.  

Inform about Your Products in a More Attractive Way

Another advantage of interactive content is that it allows you to inform your customers in a more interesting way than simply texts, images and videos. Gamification is a new trend in digital marketing which turns the process of informing customers into an exciting game with elements of the contest and rewards. 

Boring texts and monotonous videos are replaced by memorable images such as game characters and animals. This builds favourable associations between these images and the information you want to deliver to your customers. After that, when a customer sees similar images that may be even not connected with your brand, the associative thinking will remind them about the brand as well. 

Differentiating Your Brand from Information Noise

The world is overloaded with information and it is becoming increasingly harder for companies to deliver marketing messages to customers since the latter simply ignore typical messages. Interactive content not only attracts customer attention but also welcomes them to make the next step and further involve the customer in communication with a brand. 

It will take some effort to create really memorable and original content that would induce customers to participate. However, interactive content is more attractive and creates more associations in the customer’s mind compared to “static” tools. Once the interaction occurs, the customer will likely get involved in actions stipulated by the interactive tool mechanics. As a result, customers will associate your brand with something original and distinctive from other brands. 

Personalisation Opportunities

Interactive tools help to receive customer feedback easier and faster compared to traditional instruments. Once this data is obtained, a company can adjust the marketing messages to customer preferences in terms of the type of desired information, frequency and options of interaction with the brand. 

Marketing does not have to beat the squares anymore as precise messaging is available. Since the messages will be based on customer preferences, it will not be annoying and thus will reach its goal, namely not only informing but also involving customers in bilateral communication. 

Higher Conversion Rates

Interactive content helps to increase the conversion rates of your business. If a customer invested their time in filling out the forms and interacting with your content, they are more involved in brand communication. Such customers will likely provide contact information such as phone numbers, e-mail addresses and links to social network profiles and create warm leads for your business. This in turn implies that the probability of preferring the company’s products rather than those of competitors is higher. 

Author Bio

Ellie Richards is an online Marketing Manager for Original PhD, specialising in PhD thesis writing. She is passionate about researching and writing on various topics, including Education, Marketing, and Technology.