1 Interactive content for education

We’ve recently talked about using content to drive customer engagement, but we’ve focused on smaller pieces of content that are interwoven into different parts of the buyer’s journey. Now, we’re exploring ways to tackle chunkier content that’s designed to deliver a large amount of information at once.

Lucidworks is an enterprise search technology company that offers AI-powered solutions. They needed an educational tool that would educate business executives on the depth and importance of data—a topic that is often perceived as dull and complicated. They created a stunning interactive infographic called The Data That Lies Beneath.

This infographic is a well-worn idea, but it’s still an aesthetic, informative, and engaging display of content creation and interactive design woven together with finesse. And it doesn’t take long to get through!

It presents a wealth of numbers and statistics in recognizable patterns, flowing from fact to fact seamlessly. When readers are presented with this interactive content pattern, several benefits come to life:

Time spent on page increases significantly as users are enticed to stay and explore

Share engagement skyrockets, bringing massive traffic to your website

Relevant backlinks are likely to multiply. (We only gave them two here!)

Brand recognition is enhanced, accelerating the path to brand recall

Trust is built and customer loyalty is strengthened

Webinars, podcasts, and interviews are another way to implement effective content for educational purposes. It can be considered interactive because the audience is often invited to participate in the conversation in one way or another. Even if the audience is not directly contributing, the presenter can be seen as the voice that is interacting with the brand on behalf of the wider audience.

Look for podcasts that cover topics in your paragon marketing industry and reach out if you’d like to be featured or even start your own channel! By doing this, you’ll discover more and more opportunities to connect with your audience through real-time, human conversations. If you put in the effort it deserves, you as a brand will be able to answer important questions with ease and freedom and dive into intricate details while exploring your listeners’ thoughts and feelings. It’s educational both ways!

Plus, these sessions are genuinely fun for both the speakers and the listeners. Not every piece of content you publish needs to be guided by a robust, rigid marketing plan. If you love what you do, it’s good to talk about it too.

You can listen to this episode here.

2 Interactive content for product demonstration

If you’re running an ecommerce store, this is probably the most important type of interactive content you need to address right now. Shopify recently announced that its product will eventually natively support video and 3D model assets, making it easier for all Shopify entrepreneurs to provide richer shopping experiences for their customers across devices. This feature is set to launch later this year and will bring a whole new experience to the forefront of online shopping.

We’ve been paying close attention to AR for our ecommerce clients, and we think you should too. Last month, our AR expert, Ben Douglas, wrote an in-depth article on how to bring the virtual to reality with AR on Shopify. He explores the entire process of bringing a product to life through 3D modeling by nj marketing agency and provides informative tips on how to perfect this technical design. You should check it out!

Implementing AR as interactive content has a unique set of benefits that sets it apart from alternative methods:

Allows shoppers to imagine and experience the product in their immediate environment

Increases purchasing confidence by giving a better sense of the product’s size, scale, details, and material. In turn, this minimizes conversion barriers

Creates realistic expectations by displaying the product from multiple angles and incorporating light and shadow

It provides important product specifications in an easy-to-digest manner so buyers can make more informed decisions.

3 Interactive content for entertainment

Video marketing has been with us forever and remains popular today because it keeps finding new and improved ways to change things up. Typically, its success comes from allowing viewers to sit back and take in information easily. But now, with the help of interactive content, it can also draw viewers back to their screens and convince them to engage with your creation. Its strategy is designed to immerse your audience and keep them entertained for longer – a very tactical way to create connections and build relationships. Viewers can interact with video in a number of ways:

Hotspot videos allow users to click on the video to trigger an action. It can be used to help viewers navigate to different parts of the video, allow them to retrieve information relevant to them, or prompt them to visit your website for a good intended reason.

Choose-your-own-adventure videos put viewers in the director’s seat, allowing them to decide the flow and outcome of the content. When viewers can choose what happens next, you’re giving them a desired sense of control and personalizing their experience in an unparalleled way. This can also provide fascinating insights and metrics into your viewers’ behaviors and choices.

Gamification-style videos bring maximum dynamism to entertainment and create a repeat audience – much less engaging. One of the most popular ways to gamify a short video is to include some sort of challenge, such as a quiz or a score-based outcome. This also reveals valuable, first-hand insights into the true thoughts and opinions of your consumers.

Human-centered videos use emotion to evoke engagement. Remember, not everything you do has to be measurable. Dancing, laughing, rewinding, and replaying are also forms of engagement, and the feelings and experiences they bring can be worth more than a comment or a click. This YouTube ad from Artlist is a great example of human-centered video design—at least to its target audience! The dialogue is concise, the beat is catchy, and the content is engaging. This is the kind of video content that can boost word-of-mouth marketing and increase the chance of potential customers converting into loyal customers.

No matter what type of interactive video content you decide to incorporate, rest assured that if done well, it will increase social shares, improve brand exposure, and attract new, targeted consumers.

4 Interactive content to obtain information

Data is the foundation of every marketing tactic we employ. Without it, our decisions are less informed and we don’t learn as many new things. The bigger your data, the deeper your insights. But don’t underestimate the powerful capabilities of smaller data!

Polls and surveys are interactive content methods that have stood the test of time. You’ll find them on all sorts of digital platforms. From Instagram and Facebook to website pop-ups and email surveys – entrepreneurs and marketers will continue to use them every day. There are three main reasons behind their popularity, which apply to all business owners – whether you run an e-commerce store or not.

It can provide data small enough for human comprehension. In other words, it reveals important information that helps you make decisions quickly when needed because you receive it in an accessible, informative, and actionable volume and format.

It provides first-hand information, directly from your audience. This means you’re working with relevant thoughts and opinions, rich in irreplaceable insights about the consumer as an individual. Sometimes you need to cut through the noise of the crowd and hear what you need to hear from just one person.

It keeps your platform’s engagement high and your traffic growing. This type of content doesn’t require a lot of your readers’ time or attention, so they’re more likely to keep participating in the quick activities you’re promoting. Make sure to give certain followers the attention they deserve when they show loyalty to your content – ​​after all, interactive means a two-way relationship!

Your ideas

According to the Content Marketing Institute, different types of interactive content are most effective at different stages of the buyer's journey.

This means you have a lot of creative room to explore and can experiment with different methods targeting different audience segments at different times. If you plan correctly and monitor your campaigns carefully, you’ll eventually find ways to integrate your efforts and soon you’ll be creating intuitively interactive instances that your audience will start participating in out of habit!

If you’ve taken the time to review all of the tips and tricks we’ve covered here, you’ve probably already started brainstorming your own creative ideas for leveraging interactive content on your online platforms. If so, now’s the time to reach out to us so we can help you turn your inspiration into action! No matter what methods and strategies you decide to try and test from here, our content marketing and technology team is ready to help you every step of the way.