What Marketers Can Accomplish With Interactive Content

TL;DR:

• Interactive content can help you enhance customer engagement, and the Wing Sauce Quiz that McCormick created with Jebbit illustrates how.
• You can also use interactive content to gather data — like REN Skincare did when they partnered with Jebbit to create a Routine Builder that delivered big on details about customer needs and preferences.
• With the right interactive content, you can unlock the kind of customer insights needed to reach new audiences or even develop new products — just like Howes did when they created a Farm/AG Survey to learn what their agricultural customers wanted most from fuel additives.
• Interactive content can also drive personalized marketing, similar to how Haleon’s Choose Your Centrum quiz not only delivers personalized recommendations on the spot but also gathers further data for use in future personalization efforts.
• To make the most of your interactive content initiative, make sure to keep it branded, design it to address customer needs or solve a problem for customers, and above all else, leverage the data you gather — even if data collection wasn’t your primary goal.

Newspaper advertisements, billboards, commercials, blog posts — no matter the format, passive content has been the standby for reaching target audiences and building brand awareness since the beginning. However, with modern advancements, interactive content stands poised to take your marketing efforts to the next level.

Why should you use interactive content? For one thing, since it asks users to actively participate in the experience, it’s a better way to build user engagement. Plus, it’s a powerful tool that you can leverage to gather data, unlock customer insights, or even drive personalization.

If you’re ready to learn about what you can do with interactive content, keep reading. We’ll show you some of the top ways to use interactive content — plus best practices to help you get the most from the experiences you create.

What You Can Do With Interactive Content

Interactive content comes with a lot of advantages over passive content. With it, you can supercharge data collection efforts to get a better understanding of your customer base — all while increasing conversions, engagement, and brand loyalty through an immersive user experience. Read below for examples of what you can do with interactive content. 

1. Enhance Customer Engagement

While static content is a necessary part of content marketing, when it comes to engagement, there isn’t much that viewers can actually do to interact with it. They can view it, like it, share it, or maybe even comment on it, but that’s about all.

This is what makes interactive content ideal for brands who want to build engagement. Interactivity boosts engagement by default because rather than simply viewing or scrolling, consumers can play with clickable elements, select options, or use fields to provide answers and leave feedback.

Even better, brands can tailor interactive content to customer needs and preferences in order to boost engagement even more. Try different content formats, like:

• A product finder to help people navigate large product lines
• Buzzfeed-style personality quizzes
• Interactive infographics
• Videos
• Maps
• Gamified experiences

It all depends on your audience’s tastes and what you need to accomplish with the experience.

Example: McCormick’s Wing Sauce Quiz

McCormick had engagement in mind when they used Jebbit to create a wing sauce quiz to engage their customers. In the past, they’d relied on static content like social media posts, but the brand wanted something that garnered more engagement beyond the ability to like, share, or comment. 

And as a sponsor at the M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens, they had an ideal opportunity to engage football fans with a fun quiz about wing sauces. In fact, to boost engagement even more, they paired this quiz with video content about different wing sauces created by favorite players.

The results were phenomenal. The 93% completion rate meant that nearly everyone who saw this quiz not only engaged with it but completed it. Close to half — 42% — of those who completed it went on to provide their email address. McCormick went on to add this contact information to their master email list, and now they have the ability to send out personalized product recommendations to quiz-takers who expressed preferences for particular flavor profiles.

2. Improve Data Collection

Interactive content can be a key way to collect both zero- and first-party data. Whether you launch interactive assets on your website, via social media, on your app, or elsewhere, it all comes with the potential to passively collect browsing information, location details, and other metrics.

On top of that, many pieces of interactive content can be designed to actively gather data from users. Surveys, quizzes, and virtually any type of content that requires user input can be leveraged to fill gaps in user data.

Example: The REN Skincare Routine Builder

When REN Skincare came to Jebbit to fulfill their interactive content needs, they had two major goals: 

1. To increase conversions
2. To get a better understanding of their customers through collected data

So they worked with Jebbit to create the Skin Finder Product Match Quiz. This experience asks questions about skin concerns, lifestyle habits, skin types, customer ages, and more. The quiz then converts this information into a custom skincare routine tailor-made for individual users.

With this experience, REN met both of their goals. The product finder has a 73% completion rate, and with a 55% lift in average order values, it definitely enhanced conversion rates. This experience also gathered 173,000 data points, which enabled REN to better understand customer preferences, needs, and lifestyles.

3. Capture Customer Insights

Data is a beautiful thing — and in marketing, it’s even better when you can leverage high-quality data to capture deep customer insights. Customer insights go beyond the basic metrics like browsing details or demographics to really zero in on the things that customers want and need. Gaining insights means learning about specific customer pain points, use cases for your products, or even what is on customers’ wish lists that you can add to your future product lineup.

Problem is, this kind of information doesn’t just manifest itself among your datasets. If you want it, you’ll need to ask for it — and the best way to do that is through carefully designed interactive experiences made to get customers talking about what they really want and need.

Example: The Howes Farm and AG Survey

Howes, a manufacturer of fuel additives for the agricultural industry, partnered with Jebbit to create their Farm and AG survey. They wanted to connect directly with the farmers and agricultural professionals who would be most interested in their products. The idea behind this initiative was to learn more about what their audience needs and wants, and what motivates them to make a purchase. 

On top of that, they also wanted insights into the specific types of agricultural customers that made up their audience. This meant asking questions about the types of farms people were running, the climate in their area, how they consumed fuel or used fuel additives, and more.

Once Howes created and launched their survey on their website, they went on to create custom audiences on social media for retargeting. The quiz consisted of 10 questions — and it delivered fantastic results. Just over half (51%) of users who clicked on the quiz engaged with it, and that led to Howes collecting more than 12 million attributes. 

These were not just basic details like demographic metrics or location data. Instead, through carefully designed questions, Howes learned what types of agricultural professionals were using their fuel additives, how they were using those additives, the types of fuel being used, and much more. The details collected through this interactive experience represent a goldmine of insights that Howes can use for both marketing and product development.

4. Drive Personalized Marketing

Seventy-one percent of people expect today’s brands to deliver personalized interactions — and even more (76%) become frustrated when brands don’t offer any sort of personalization. That’s one big reason why marketers are starting to turn to interactive experiences. Because through them, brands can deliver a personalized experience that gives customers exactly what they want.

Product finders are one of the major ways that you can leverage personalized marketing within an interactive experience. Usually, these assets are styled after a quiz, asking users about the things they’re looking for in a particular product. Based on the answers provided, the product finder can go on to make recommendations that are the right fit for each individual. 

For customers, this type of experience can really streamline the decision-making and purchasing process — and any time you can make these portions of the customer journey easy and engaging, you’re going a long way toward building the kind of loyalty that keeps customers coming back. 

For brands, one of the biggest advantages apart from increased conversions is the ability to gather data based on consumers’ answers. This is information that you can add to customer profiles for future personalization. 

For example, if a customer uses a haircare product finder, you now have details about their hair type, haircare goals, and product preferences, and you can use that information in the future to craft personalized marketing emails with additional products that may interest this customer.

Example: Haleon’s Choose Your Centrum Quiz

These were the exact goals in mind when Haleon partnered with Jebbit. The brand recognized how difficult it can be to choose from among a sea of options when shopping for vitamins and supplements. They wanted to increase customer engagement and provide personalized recommendations for vitamins.

Thus, the “Choose Your Centrum” quiz was born. Through a handful of questions, this product finder learns more about each individual’s needs, preferences, and lifestyle — then uses that information to recommend the ideal vitamin from among a plethora of options. 

Customers were thrilled. Sixty-five percent of people who engaged with this quiz went on to complete it to get their recommendations. It also had a 43% website redirect rate, which indicated a high level of purchase intent among quiz takers. On top of that, Haleon was able to gather an average of 8.9 data points per customer — all details that can be added to customer profiles for future personalization.

Best Practices for Interactive Marketing

Ready to get started with interactive content creation? It can be a great way to enrich your overall marketing strategy — but you’ll also need to make sure that each piece of content follows a few crucial best practices. 

Follow Your Company’s Branding

No matter what types of interactive content you create, make sure that each asset matches your company’s branding. Copy should use your brand’s voice, and the design should use fonts, graphics, logos, interactive elements, and other details in accordance with your brand’s style guide.

Use Interactive Features to Solve Problems

Create content experiences that align with customer needs and pain points. Here are some ideas:

• If you have a large product range, you can create a better customer experience with a product finder. 
• Calculators are useful interactive tools when customers need to figure out costs, dimensions, or other mathematical problems.
• Market research surveys give long-time customers a space to offer opinions on your product lineup and their overall experience with your brand.
• Holiday-themed games or interactive gift guides can boost engagement rates among seasonal shoppers.

Make the Most of Your Data

Most examples of interactive content are a two-way street: They engage customers by offering entertainment, information, or another advantage, and in exchange, the brand gathers data via responses.

Even if data collection isn’t one of the primary goals behind your interactive content initiative, you still shouldn’t let that data go to waste. It will contain valuable insights that you can use to optimize other parts of your marketing strategy. 

Invest in a customer data platform that allows you to do the following:

• Consolidate and unify collected data from across multiple platforms.
• Create data visualizations to make it easier to spot trends.
• Create customer profiles that you can use for personalized email marketing, real-time personalization, and dynamic content.

Take the First Steps on Your Interactive Content Journey With Jebbit

Interactive content can be a powerful tool that allows you to accomplish a variety of goals. First and foremost, interactive elements naturally enhance customer engagement above and beyond what you’d experience with static content. You can also use interactive content to gather data and unlock valuable customer insights that are useful for marketing, personalization, and even product development.

The creation process requires a bit of know-how. You’ll need to keep your interactive assets in line with your branding and ensure that they address particular customer needs or pain points. And, even if data collection isn’t one of your primary objectives, you should still be prepared to collect and unify the information that you gather so that you can maximize the value that you get from each piece of interactive content.

Fortunately, Jebbit is here to help you take the next steps. With our Experience Builder, you can easily design and launch a variety of experiences, from quizzes and surveys to lookbooks, interactive infographics, and more. To find out how you can get started, schedule a strategy call with one of our Experience Experts.