Content Marketing Will Grab Their Attention (And Won’t Let Go!).  

Creating interactive content is more than simply adding video to a web page of text. Learn what makes interactive content enticing to readers, and how to leverage it for your business in no time.  

Interactive content is one of the hottest topics in marketing today. Using interactive content can help to educate your prospect about your products and services, build brand awareness, and turn them into long-term customers.  It does this by requiring participants to interact with content in a real-time fashion. However, just like any other marketing tactic, it’s ineffective unless used properly.

Content Care and Feeding

There are any number of reasons to maintain a steady flow of content for your market audience, from improved SEO results and higher engagement rates, to potential for going viral on social media. It’s only a matter of time—If you regularly use high-quality content that resonates with your audience, eventually they’ll get it and share it—And suddenly your business is “Internet-famous.”

Creating content that works for your business takes much more than simply tossing a few sound bites together and hoping for the best. At the least, it requires being a dedicated thought-leader in your space. At best, it means using a full team of writers, editors, marketers and graphic designers who churn out high-quality, interactive content to get the response you want.

True Interactive Content

The right interactive content is thoughtful, engaging and sometimes provocative. Think about it—You’ve probably taken a survey, poll, or personality test—snapped a picture on Snapchat using a filter, or checked out an awesome infographic. This is all interactive content, and it’s taking the Internet by storm.

Plug-ins allow you to create graphics-heavy content without a deep knowledge of design. This means that appealing options are more accessible to organizations of all sizes. Not a programming whiz? No problem! The majority of interactive content creation tools don’t require coding, and are built using answers to questions regarding simple business logic.

Even videos are getting a makeover with embedded quizzes, interactive data features, engagement links, and hover buttons to keep viewers engaged throughout.

Keeping Readers Engaged

With all the different types of content you can produce, how do you know which interactive pieces to present at the right time to “grab” your audience? Try using various types of interactive content throughout your buyer’s journey, with each stage providing a different focus, and measure your results.

The distractions online are too numerous to count. Posting a simple article or piece of content is no longer enough to keep the attention of consumers. Instead, you need to offer experiential content that not only keeps customers interested, but prompts them to share it.

Think about using techniques like viral memes. While the quality of the graphics, language or message is not always the highest, the content is often highly-relatable. This makes them more interesting for users to share.

There are hundreds of options for creating your own quizzes or surveys, often at a low cost of entry.  You can add premium options as you grow your audience. Longer types of content, such as white papers, are another great way to encourage readers to engage more deeply with your brand, and take a step towards being a loyal customer.

Creating a Sales Funnel

One of the prime reasons for creating interactive content is to drive customers through your sales funnel. However, creating a funnel can be challenging if you’re not familiar with the concept.

The idea is to bring customers in with a light interaction, perhaps by taking a short quiz or answering a single question about your brand. Once you’ve introduced yourself to a prospect, then you can begin deepening the conversation through more interactive content.  Inform your audience about your products or services with whitepapers, drip email campaigns and more in-depth surveys or analytical tools, such as calculators for financial offerings like a mortgage or loan refinance.

Each time you interact with a potential customer, you gather additional information about their needs or requirements. Ultimately, this allows you to tailor the messaging to answer their needs and desires. While you’ll likely lose people at each stage of the sales funnel, the leads that make their way through your selling cycle will be armed with the knowledge they need to complete a sale, and begin a long-term relationship with your business.

Lead Scoring

All of this activity between you and your prospects can be tracked using marketing-automation software, and used to refine future conversations. One way that organizations target their best prospects with additional messaging is through lead scoring.  This is where you assign a numeric points value to various activities such as downloading a whitepaper, responding to an email, or clicking a link on a website. Each of these activities can send a message to a smart marketer to round up leads that are cooling off, and incentivize them to return into the fold.

Ready to get started with content marketing strategy? Contact {company} in {city} at {phone} or {email}. There’s no better way to kick-start your next marketing campaign, grab the attention of your audience, and keep them coming back for more!