Reinvigorate your audience engagement with interactive content

You’ve poured your heart and soul into your latest campaign for the last two months. You just launched it this morning. And… crickets. Hardly anyone is engaging with it. What’s wrong? Why are they ignoring it?

Perhaps it’s because your messaging has become boringly predictable. They feel like they’ve seen it all before. It’s become easy for them to ignore.

Perhaps it’s time to shake up your audience with interactive content – which is designed to move them from passive consumption to sitting on the edge of their seat, actively involved with your content.

From calculators and worksheets to multimedia articles, infographics and emails, interactive content is commanding the attention of today’s B2B buyers and savvy marketers. Why? Because it does an awesome job of breaking through the clutter and positioning your brand in their minds.

Why is interactive content so popular?

The number one reason is that it puts visitors in control. Buyers today want to connect with your content – on their own terms. Interactive content enables them to do just that.

They can click or tap to decide which content they want to view. If they want to follow the path you’ve laid out through your story, they can do that. Or they can jump around and “cherry-pick” the parts they’re interested in. It’s up to them!

Buyers love that kind of freedom: According to DemandGen, interactive content commands two times more engagement than static content.

Here’s the part that savvy marketers love: As your audience explores your interactive content, you can capture detailed data about their needs and interests. Much more than you can from a click-through from an email message.

You can also craft customized experiences for each segment of your audience. What’s possible? You name it, from tailored messaging, images, statistics and collateral to pricing models and detailed advice that is specific to each potential buyer.

Is it any wonder that 62% of B2B marketers are already using interactive content, according to DemandGen?

Ultimately, interactive content helps you to deliver an experience that is far superior to anything your competitors offer. Plus, it builds trust with the key prospects you really want to influence. To paraphrase the Terminator, “they’ll be back!”

Examples of interactive content

Here are three examples of interactive content to inspire you to create your own amazing experience for your audience:

#1 Interactive infographic - Twilio

This type of interactive content is relatively easy to create and can have a big impact. As the visitor scrolls down the page, animated data and other elements slide, grow and transform before their eyes, bringing data to life and creating a uniquely engaging experience.

This “infobrief” from Twilio highlights the state of cellular technology for IoT (Internet of Things) applications – in other words, smart, connected devices that can communicate with other devices, systems and applications. Not only does it use animation in some visually striking ways, but it also enables visitors to drill down to a deeper level of information using tabs. It even contains several quiz questions to test visitors’ knowledge of this rapidly developing space.

At the end of this cellular IoT adventure, visitors are asked to fill out a form to download the full infobrief. By providing its target audience with an engaging, interactive experience, we have no doubt that Twilio gets a significant number of form completions from this landing page.

How you can use it: Interactive infographics are an excellent first step to up your interactive content game. Today’s HTML5 standards make it easier than ever to create rich, animated experiences like this that play equally well on the desktop, on a tablet or a mobile device. If you’re planning to publish an infographic, why not make it interactive like Twilio did? Visit the Twilio cellular IoT interactive infographic.

#2 Advertising ROI calculator – HubSpot

Often, launching a paid ad campaign online feels like putting on a blindfold and trying to hit a bullseye on a dartboard. It’s almost impossible to do. But when it comes to ad spend, you need more than blind luck to guide your way. This advertising ROI calculator enables you to plug in several key metrics. It crunches this data to estimate your return on ad spend.

How you can use it: Calculators are an excellent way to provide your audience with advice, quantifiable feedback or a rough estimate based on their input. This could be anything from configuring and pricing a product to educating them about some aspect of your product, service or industry. Visit the HubSpot advertising ROI calculator here.

#3 Interactive slide show – The New Media Message

The message of this interactive presentation is all about resetting visitors’ expectations about what a new media message can be – much bigger, much bolder and much more impactful than what audiences have come to expect. That’s why it starts like a boring old Slideshare presentation – and then proceeds to “blow the walls off of it.” It’s a powerful example of dramatically showing what you’re trying to say. If you’re promoting innovation, then you need an equally innovative way to present your message!

How you can use it: Your over-messaged audience is tired of stale PowerPoint presentations. Zzzzz... Consider how you can provide a more visual, dynamic presentation of your message. The idea of a linear presentation of a series of ideas isn’t necessarily broken. What’s needed is a way to take the visual presentation of it to the next level. View The New Media Message here.

Examples of interactive email content

Most marketers believe email is a static medium – words and pictures only. That’s what we’ve been told for years. Why? Because until recently, anything interactive required code to launch it – which tended to get blocked by corporate network spam filters.

How things have changed! It’s now possible to incorporate “safe” interactive HTML 5 elements into your messages to hide or show content, embed videos and much more. Here are two examples of interactive email content:

#1 Interactive email - retailer

Intrigue your readers: This email incorporates rollover images that provide hints on what’s next from this retailer. Who doesn’t like discovering a clue? The downward-pointing carat at the bottom of the image directs the eye toward these buttons – an excellent design touch that makes this message work even harder!

How you can use it: Don’t just use emails to share your company’s latest content or sell its products and services. If you get creative, you can use a similar approach to build anticipation for whatever is next from your organization.

#2 Interactive email - BBC

Deliver more information – but in a compact format: This email from the BBC utilizes an accordion format to initially hide information that’s divided into five categories. Clicking on a colorful bar “opens” it to reveal additional text and images. It’s up to the recipient to decide which one(s) they want to drill down into. It’s a really smart way to deliver more information – without overwhelming your readers.

How you can use it: Think about the information you need to deliver to your audience. If you have many details to communicate – which could become a very LONG email – consider breaking it up into sections and utilizing this type of interactive layout to make it more manageable for your readers.

See it in action

Talking about interactive content and showing you static images of it only gives you a limited understanding of it. That’s why we created the video below – so you can fully appreciate it in all of its glorious action: