9 Ways to Engage Your Audience with Interactive Marketing

Consumer engagement is as important as always, but one thing has certainly changed – people are now busier more than ever. With the market being highly competitive and people's expectations changing constantly, it takes significant effort to make a brand stand out.

One great way of achieving this today is through interactive marketing. People have shorter attention spans and hardly any time to read through traditional content on every page they visit. This is so effective that 93% of marketers report that interactive content is the most engaging tool at their disposal (compared to only 70% for static content).

If you want to create interactive content for your audience, you’ve come to the right place. But, before we get started, let’s see why you should be considering this for your brand.

Understanding interactive content marketing

Interactive content marketing revolves around content that prompts participation and engages the audience. Simply put, interactive content works more effectively than regular content because it boosts engagement and encourages people to compare, compete, fill out tests, achieve results, etc. For achieving the mentioned results and creating high quality interactive content you can always use additional online proofreading tools, like Essay Tigers or Grammarly. Basically, by using this type of marketing, experts and business owners can leverage customer pain points to improve revenue.

Take, for example, Facebook quizzes. They are arguably some of the most popular content on the internet right now. On BuzzFeed, 96% of consumers finish the contests they start, which means that they are engaged from start to finish. If you take a look at them, you’ll find that most are specific, perhaps a bit controversial, and sometimes even silly. But, people seem to be responding well to them, especially if you take into consideration that some get over 20 million views!

Some of the reasons why interactive content is as popular as it is these days include:

• More appealing to potential buyers
• Educate your audience in your niche or on your products
• Encouraging enough to convince people to share the content with their friends
• Increases loyalty and brand exposure
• Garners more page views and website traffic
• Appeals to human nature to compete

Ways to create and promote interactive content for your brand

Naturally, you shouldn’t entirely stray from creating original, top-notch written content for your blog and other pages. However, if you want to stand out from the competition, it’s time to add something else to your strategy – interactive content of different kinds, spread across different platforms. That being said, here are some great tips for this kind of marketing.

1. Real-time broadcasting

Live broadcasting is one of the most effective marketing methods today. Start with Netflix, which is used by millions, to FaceTime, which has changed the way we communicate, to live chat, that has entirely changed the way customer support works – this is definitely here to stay.

But, what is live broadcasting, really?

According to Whisbi, the most popular service for real-time broadcasting for brands, live broadcasting is described as: “the best way to gain attention from your audience and generate new customers.”

They couldn't be more right. With video being one of the favorite forms of media among consumers, overtaking both infographics and blogs right now, live broadcasting is certainly a must-use tool for your brand.

This refers to any type of online streaming media that is recorded in real-time. Vlogs, video-on-demand, and YouTube videos are online streams, but they aren’t live-streamed. On platforms like Instagram and Facebook, and even Youtube Live, you can now stream in real-time, communicate with your consumers in the process, and build a stronger relationship.

If you have little experience or aren’t very good at this, Whisbi is designed exactly for that purpose – to facilitate your conversational sales. Such tools can help you create interactive content with minimal effort and amazing results.

2. Polls and quizzes

When most people hear ‘interactive content,’ their brain instantly takes them to quizzes and polls. No wonder – these are some of the most engaging marketing methods nowadays. By presenting your consumers with a list of questions to answer, you are prompting them to interact – which takes you one step closer to them considering your brand.

When creating polls and quizzes, you can go one of two ways. You can either ask them brand-specific questions to gather useful insight such as: what do you love/hate about the product we offer? Or, you can ask broader questions that are related to your brand or its niche.

People love quizzes and the chances of them interacting with this type of content are high. When the questions in your quiz are interesting, and its title is engaging, they are highly likely to get to the very end just to see the results.

According to BuzzSumo’s research, quizzes are the best content type in terms of reach, activity, and participation.

Polls are even simpler to create these days. Many social media platforms offer simple poll creation with minimal effort and maximum exposure. People love to share their opinion on various topics, whether good or bad, so many will participate in your polls.

This doesn’t just keep them engaged, but it provides you with highly useful information based on the things they voted on. You can also further elaborate on people’s choices in corresponding comments to boost your customer relationships.

3. Ratings

Giving people an opportunity to rate your content shows them that you value their opinion and care about their experience. This brings value to your brand and strengthens your relationship with them. It’s also an amazing type of interactive marketing.

Ratings can be placed everywhere for people to make use of. You can set them at the end of your content page, in the middle, on a landing page, etc. As long as it is not too intrusive, it will be well-received and prompt people to share their opinion about your brand.

Not only will you engage them with this, but you’ll also learn what’s good and bad about your current marketing and other operations.

4. Live Q&A

Live Q&A sessions are part of live broadcasting. Because of their highly interactive nature, they are very popular across different niches and industries. These make for a great way to converse with the audience, and an excellent opportunity for them to ask you questions in real-time.

Basically, Q&A sessions are live-streamed conversations you hold with prospective and existing consumers. For your audience, this is a chance to get to know the people behind the brand, while for you, it’s a chance to establish the brand as a leader in the industry.

5. Sneak peeks

Reveals or sneak peeks combined with statistics or icons are a great way to entice and engage an audience. One picture, or icon, in this case, can tell a thousand words. More specifically, it can build interest by sharing the data you want to share.

Giving your audience a sneak peek at your soon-to-be offered product or service is a great way to hook them. So, next time you have something in the works, why not go live and give them a bit of a peak to let them know that something 'is cooking.'

6. User-generated content

As the name tells you, this kind of content is created by the people and not by you or your content writers. People value others' opinions and even require them before they purchase something from a brand. This is why testimonials and reviews are so widespread across the web.  Word-of-mouth is the customer's best tool for evaluating companies and services.There’s no reason why you shouldn’t leverage this for your benefit. 

How is this done?

This can be done by using user-generated content on your social accounts to invite interaction with other viewers. It’s a perfect way to create more organic traffic and convince people that your brand has what they need.

Instead of waiting around for people to talk about your brand, prompt them to share their thoughts on social media. Use their content to give your brand a more personal touch (with their permission, of course). This will ultimately increase brand loyalty and trust for your company and is a great way to prompt a conversation between your consumers.

7. Gamification

Games are interactive activities that people love. It's not only children that love participating in games, and we have all that gamification on social media to show for it. In fact, games on social channels take all sorts of forms. They can be as simple as it gets or full-scale, arcade-style depending on your budget and preference.

Unlike content that people need focus and time to read, games are a means of entertainment and a bit of a diversion from their busy lives. If you mix in a promotion, too, offering your consumers a promotional code or discount they can win, this is even more engaging to them.

Take, for example, Applebee’s Grill and Bar. Seemingly a very simple brand, this company attracted many people by making a game based on their menu. This game enabled consumers to name and create their own drinks, and it also rewarded them with a coupon prompting them to visit.

This offered them two incentives – one to visit the store to spend the coupon and another to go there to try out the drink.

8. Engagement marketing

Have you ever heard of experiential or engagement marketing? This type of marketing allows audiences and brands to interact physically. These are immersive installations that range from VR experiences to conference booths.

The world today is highly focused on technology, maybe even too much.  People are missing physical contact, so this might be a great way to stand out. Consumers will be glad to hear that your brand reaches beyond the traditional, online, and digital spheres.

Experiential campaigns can do wonders with boosting brand loyalty and customer relationships.

9. Repurposed content

Why invest endless hours and tons of money on creating new content all the time, when you already have some great content ready to be shared? Content repurposing has been popular for a long time. There’s no reason why the great articles or videos you had a few months back should be forgotten. If they share an important message, you can find a way to repurpose them and provide them to a new audience.

Content doesn’t have to be original at all times, not when you have something amazing that you’ve already used. With many new types of content available today, your options are limitless. It just takes a bit of creativity and you can turn your blog posts or e-books into quizzes and polls, turn written content into video, and live stream on your most popular topics.

This way, not only will you spend less time creating the new content, but you’ll also know that it works. How? Well, if you use the e-book that’s yielded great results in the past and turn it into a quiz, you already know that your audience is interested in it, so they are more likely to participate. Also, if you use blog posts that are trending and turn them into live Q&A sections, you know that your audience loves the topic and might be willing to discuss it in greater detail.

Final thoughts

The interests and requirements of your brand’s audience change all the time. As new trends emerge, especially in social media, so do the expectations of your customers. People don’t have forever to spend chasing brands with good ideas. They need something that stands out to notice your brand, which is where interactive marketing comes into the picture.

With live streaming, polls, quizzes, engagement marketing, and user-generated content, businesses can better engage their audience and put the focus on their brand. This is an excellent way to boost your brand's recognition and strengthen customer relationships. However, it takes some effort to get there, so you should get started as soon as possible.