How to Use Interactive Content to Boost Your Sales

One of the greatest problems in the world of content marketing lies in the fact that it sometimes seems as if every topic has already been depleted. However, when you take into consideration the fact that 8 out of 10 people never actually read past the headline, you would be surprised just how much fresh information your creative pieces still have to offer to your target demographic.

In order to make it reach your audience, you need to find a more appealing format, making your content interactive. Here are several ideas you may want to resort to, as well as several tips on the general use of this trend.

Infographics are more mobile-friendly

When it comes to reading, in general, it is safe to assume that this form of information gathering isn’t exactly mobile-friendly. Phones are often used on the move and the screen sizes on these devices are significantly smaller than they should be in order to be reading-friendly. This is why infographics are particularly popular. While they are also somewhat text-dependent, they tend to send the majority of information through visual means. By using graphs and statistics, they are more mobile-friendly and in this way have a greater appeal to your mobile audience. As for your sales, this is especially important due to the fact that 78 per cent of all local mobile searches result in offline purchases.

Focusing on the most important

Another thing you need to know about the online audience is the fact that they have a limited amount of patience. In fact, it’s estimated that the attention span of a human might be lower than that of a goldfish. This means that the average visitor to your website has about 7 seconds to decide whether they should stay or leave. In theory, presenting them with your offer immediately might sound like a good idea, but doing so without first introducing yourself might backfire and lower your conversion rate. All that interactive content does is focus on the most important part, giving you a shortcut to show your audience the essence of your message right away.

The greatest problem with traditionally formatted content is the fact that it works like a one-way street. All it does is create a channel through which you can communicate with the other party without giving them a chance to express themselves back. Opposite to this, contests, quizzes and surveys tend to complement this shortcoming and give you something of value back. With the use of specialized interactive content formats like paid surveys online, you can maximize the efficiency of this trend by quite the margin. All in all, this course of action can be particularly useful when planning your next market research strategy.

More consistent at providing value

The next thing worth mentioning about interactive content is the fact that it has a much easier job at providing value to your audience, which is, at the end of the day, all that marketing should be about. For instance, a quiz entertains your audience, possibly even provides them with a valuable prize, while paid surveys give them a direct financial incentive. Apart from this, quizzes, surveys and infographics have a more entertaining form, which means that they are able to hold the attention of your audience for much longer. That being said, the quality of content is still more important than the format it is displayed in, which is something you shouldn’t lose from sight.

Personalised content

In the past, one of the greatest dilemmas of digital marketing was finding the balance between B2B and B2C marketing. Nowadays, both of these aspects are merged in a superior P2P outreach, which does have its downsides. The greatest one of them is the fact that it is much harder to pull off, seeing as how you have to personalize your content for every single one of your potential customers and visitors. On the other hand, by using interactive content, you can appeal to the emotions of your audience rather than their rational side (at least for a while). This allows your audience to find their own way to interpret your content.

Conclusion

The needs and expectations of the online audience are changing, which means that you have to adapt or perish. This is just one of the reasons why interactive content is crucial to your digital marketing efforts, as well as your sales. Aside from this, interactive content is able to help your audience reveal a thing or two about themselves, which might help set them up towards more engagement opportunities in the future.

About the Author

 Lauren Wiseman is marketing specialist, contributor to bizzmarkblog.com and entrepreneur. She helps clients grow their personal and professional brands in the fast-changing and demanding market, strongly believing in a holistic approach to business.