How to Boost Lead Generation Through Interactive Content?

There is no denying that content marketing is still one of the most powerful strategies B2B and B2C marketers use to get more traffic and conversions. And, when we talk about content marketing, we can’t really skip interactive content, can we? 88% of marketers say interactive content differentiates them from their competitors. This makes interactive content an inherent part of content marketing, and hence lead generation through content marketing a big hit.

Moreover, Demand Metric estimates that content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing techniques, while it generates at least 3 times as many leads.

Let us show you what interactive content is and how you can create such content that’s engaging and acts as a lead magnet for your business.

Source – Hubspot

What Is Interactive Content?

Imagine you go to a bakery to buy cookies, and there’s no salesperson to assist you. Instead, you get a 20-page book to read about the store and its 100s of products. You’d decide to leave, right?

Now think, you enter the same store, still no salesperson, but you get to play a quiz that asks you a few questions and suggests you the right products as per your preference. Oh also, you get the directions for how to complete the purchase. Wouldn’t you like that?

Statistics prove that 80% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a company that offers personalized experiences.

Well, that’s the charm of Interactive Content!

Interactive content is any type of content – like quizzes, calculators, surveys, etc. – that promotes user’s active involvement rather than passive consumption of your message. This ensures customer engagement and at the same time provides value. And that, we think, is a win!

Why Interactive Content Helps in Generating Leads?

You might be wondering: sure, interactive experiences can be appealing, but how would it bring me those leads I am looking for?

If a prospect made it to the end of your quiz or calculator, he or she is probably eager to view the results and would be happy to share a name and email address in return. This is because of the value and satisfaction that interactive content offers. Let’s explain this to you!

Interactive Content is Fun and User-Friendly

Consumers and businesses are bombarded every day with constant online content. This results in reduced attention span and limited time allocation for specific content.

Hence, your content must attract and retain the prospects’ attention. This is where interactive experiences like quizzes or calculators play a revolutionary role. 81% of marketers think interactive content grabs readers’ attention because it’s FUN! It lets the customer use the creative side of their brain, and that makes it even more likely for them to try it, and more likely for you to get the lead.

Look at this quiz for example, wouldn’t you try it just for fun?

Adds value

Today, consumers are looking for content that adds value and keeps them engaged. Interactive content does just that.

Surfing a video company’s website, what would attract you the most: a simple contact form at the end of the page, a newsletter subscription after a long blog, or an interactive calculator that offers you insights on the costs of your next video campaign? The latter, of course. It’s valuable for the prospects and at the same time enables lead generation for the businesses.

Interactive content provides reasons for the customer to choose your product over others’ and makes your lead generation process easy. And the best part: it isn’t salesy at all!

Increases engagement

When we create content, our main objective is to entice the audience to take action. However, the audience will engage only if your content grabs their attention and adds value to them.

Interactive content marketing aims at being audience-friendly and boosting engagement. Look at this skincare quiz for example. Apart from its value proposition, the promise of suggesting personalized recommendations that suit “you” the best, draws prospects in.

In fact, not only will the users take the quiz, but they’ll also give you their contact details and who knows, they might even click on the product CTAs. Interactive content has been shown to generate twice as much conversion as static content does. This means more leads and more sales, and who wouldn’t want that for their lead generation marketing?

Educates the audience

93% of marketers already believe that interactive content is more effective than static content at educating potential buyers about a product or service. Consider a 20-page ebook vs. a 2 mins quiz on learning the SEO basics. We believe there’s no competition here!

And when you give them the knowledge they are looking for, they’ll happily provide you with the contact details you are looking for. Everyone loves a good barter. Hence, lead generation through interactive content becomes quite an easy deal.

Multiple Embedding Options

A very important aspect of content marketing for lead generation is to make your content available on every platform. If you want your audience to give you leads, you should be present where they are.

Unlike the traditional forms, interactive content can be embedded on various platforms such as social media, blogs, websites, ads, and basically, anywhere you’d want. Look at this quiz for example. It is strategically embedded on a pop-up that shows up as the readers go through a blog on content marketing.

Which Interactive Content for Lead Generation is Best for the Marketing Funnel?

The marketing funnel can be made effective by boosting lead generation through interactive content. Every stage of the buyer’s journey needs to be personalized for the prospect, and haven’t we already talked about how interactive content is all about personalization? Check out which interactive content type is perfect for your lead generation strategies for every stage of the funnel:

Awareness Stage 

This is the stage where you need to tell your prospects about you. They are actually looking for someone who’d help them understand their problems. If you get the opportunity to tell them what they want, that can bring you brand awareness as well as leads.

For this stage, you can make use of these interactive content types to generate leads:

1. Quizzes & Personality Assessments

2. Interactive blogs

3. Interactive ebooks

4. Giveaways and contests

5. Interactive emails/newsletters

Consideration Stage

Now that you’ve helped your prospects understand their problem, offer a solution. But of course, don’t be salesy. Tell them how you can help instead of why you can help. Moreover, this is the stage where your competitors are equally in the scenario. So, play smart here by being the one to add maximum value through your content.

These are the types of interactive content that you can use for your lead generation process at the consideration stage:

1. Videos

2.Webinars

3.Calculators

4.Recommendation Quizzes

5.Infographics

Decision Stage

Your prospect is about to make their decision. What they need from you now is trust. Assure them about your performance in a subtle way. Convince them why you are better and boost lead generation through interactive content.

These are the interactive content types that you can use:

1. ROI/ Cost/ Savings calculators

2. Case Study blogs

3. Competitor comparison quizzes

Pro Tip: Take this Calculator to Find Out How Many More Leads Will Interactive Content Get You

Leveraging Interactive Content for Lead Generation

Creating high-quality, engaging content will generate more awareness and drive more traffic to your website. However, it will be fruitless if you do not convert your visitors into potential buyers. Depending on the platforms you use and the type of content you provide, there are different strategies that can be employed in order to capture these valuable leads. 

So, what kinds of content can you offer that does not go unnoticed? Let’s discuss some ingenious ways to use interactive content to capture leads!

Calculators

Interactive calculators are one of the most relevant content types as they provide the user with an estimate based on their inputs. It generates highly valuable data which in return convinces users to share their contact details. Moreover, with an interactive calculator, you make the buyer’s journey easier and gain their trust.

Look at this calculator for example. It gives you an estimate of the savings that you can make while working from home. It’s fun, intuitive, and generates leads. Ticks all the boxes!

Hence, make use of interactive calculators to educate your users, provide real-time value, and enable them to take decisions easily. Oh also, they boost leads!

Quizzes

We would totally give in if we see a quiz on “Which Avenger Are You?” These Buzzfeed-style quizzes are super fun and who wouldn’t give in?

Statistics prove that 96 percent of Buzzfeed’s users finish a quiz after starting one. Indeed, outcome quizzes are fun and that makes the user want to take them. And that means 3 things, leads, leads, and leads.

The best part about interactive quizzes is that they are totally personalized. You can then use it to benefit the customer and promote your services at the same time. Look at this quiz by The Professional Wingman for example. It tells you about your dating capabilities based on your answers and gives you the right relationship advice. Personally speaking, we’d love that! The Professional Wingman created this quiz with Outgrow and generated 3k+ leads! So, we can safely say that they were successful in boosting lead generation through interactive content.

Assessments

As much as your prospects like personalized outcomes, they love challenges too. Assessments or graded quizzes basically test your prospect’s knowledge of… well, anything, provide scores based on their answers, and allow the participants to know where they stand vis-a-vis other participants.

And, since most people love to know whether they are an expert at things, they won’t mind giving their contact information. Easy leads!

The above assessment tests your knowledge, gives insight, and (hear, hear) collects LEADS! Assessments can be a great tool to introduce your products indirectly to the prospects without looking salesy.

Polls

Your audience would want to tell you their preferences as much as you’d want to know them. That’s where polls come in. Polls are used to learn more about your customers. And when you care to understand your audience’s preferences and likings, they won’t mind giving you their contact information.

The best part about Outgrow polls is that they tell you how many people think like you. This makes the prospects feel involved and connected. Look at this poll for example. It gives the user a voice or opinion of their own making them feel valued. The leads generated from this poll can further be used to recommend different food products to the prospects. Win-win!

Chatbots

Chatbots are one of the best ways for lead generation through interactive content. When you are literally having a conversation with your prospects and giving them the answers they came looking for, scoring leads is just a cakewalk.

Moreover, making your chatbots conversational and personalized in nature is no more a daunting task today, thanks to no-code chatbot builders.

This chatbot is a great example of using interactive content for lead generation. It gives customized recommendations to users for their next travel plans while fetching their contact details to send them the plan. That’s how easy it is to boost lead generation through interactive content. How about creating interactive chatbots now?

E-Commerce Recommendations

Ecommerce quizzes provide instant gratification and deliver personalized results to your prospects. Searching for products online is a hectic task and product recommendation quizzes make the task a lot easier. And, if you make your audience’s task easy, they’d happily become a lead.

Besides, they have an amazing sharing and virality potential, which also makes them ideal content material for social media channels.

This product quiz gives the user personalized recommendations for work-from-home equipment. A quiz like this is customized, valuable, and lead boosting. Your prospects will be as happy with the recommendations as you’ll be with leads!

Giveaways and Contests

Free stuff? We are coming!! Giveaways and contests are considered to be a great lead generation marketing technique. You reward your customers, and they won’t mind sharing their contact information in return.

In fact, these interactive content types generate more leads because their social sharing capabilities are high. Wouldn’t you want to tell your friends about the chance to score a free hamper?

This giveaway is a perfect representation of how you can reward your prospects and boost engagement (leads, as well :p).

Surveys and Forms

Surveys and forms are a great way to evaluate how you are doing. Moreover, they provide your customers with an opportunity to give feedback.

Surveys not only tell you where you need to improve, but they also bring you leads. You can target these leads by telling them that you are implementing their preferences. They’ll value you when they know that you value them too.

Look at this survey we created for our clients. It’s designed in a way that the user does not have to make any extra effort, and they get a discount if they fill the lead generation form. Using this interactive content for lead generation is a win because we are getting leads who are genuinely interested in our product!

Video

Interactive videos are the new thing! These videos provide you hotspots or clickable areas that perform an action when you click on them. Not only do they boost engagement, but they also speed up leads. 35% of marketers using interactive video extensively saw increased conversions, and 25% saw increased sales.

Tinder recently organized a Swipe Night event. It was a series of 3 interactive videos where users made decisions for the characters, and these decisions were then visible on their profiles. This attracted new users to their platform, and yep, that’s more leads!

Interactive Ebooks

Interactive ebooks are a great way to boost customer engagement through a content form that was once static, time-consuming, and often boring. How? Any ebook can be made interactive by adding clickable links for better readability and by adding multimedia, images, maps, and much more.

In return, you can win your prospect’s information. A good interactive ebook should offer value to the users while making the process less daunting and information more accessible.

Check out IBM’s Think City. It’s supposed to be an ebook, but we’ll say that it’s a whole experience. It gives the user a personalized experience by making them choose whatever they want to see. We’ll just say, it’s AMAZING!

Interactive Webinars

Interactive webinars are a way through which you can interact with your customers proactively. They can include elements like giveaways, surveys, polls, and quizzes to make the session interactive in nature.

This boosts engagement and helps you increase lead generation through interactive content. Interactive webinars are a great way to provide educational content to prospects and can act as a powerful lead magnet for your business.

Here’s an example of how asking questions during a webinar through interactive content increases value.

Final Words

The content strategy you select to generate leads will depend on the channels you currently use and your target audience. An interactive contest or a quiz might be more suited for the B2C field. A webinar or a sales presentation would be more suited for a B2B case.

Experimenting and combining different strategies will help you find the ideal one for your company. The best of it all is that you will be generating leads automatically through your content.

However, you must keep the information request on a lead generation form to a minimum. The more questions you ask, the more likely they are to abandon the form. Furthermore, if you design your quiz cleverly, the answers provided by the prospects can help you better segment and classify your acquired leads. And don’t forget to nurture your leads once they have provided their contact data; a simple thank you email with their results can be the first step. Just make sure your content focuses specifically on your prospects, is responsive, and not too intrusive. The results will then speak for themselves. Happy prospecting!

About the Author

Michael Steinberg is the Head of Business Development at Beamium, a platform to capture leads and smart statistics through online presentations. Graduated from the Master in Business Administration and Technology at the Technical University in Munich, he has worked with various start-ups in Germany and Latin America focusing on the business development, online marketing and social entrepreneurship fields.