With marketers able to access literally millions of potential customers through social media and email marketing, you might think that there’s never been a better time to generate leads. However, it also means that your competitors have the same opportunity to market to customers.
This means that generating leads still requires creativity and innovation—and one of the best ways to engage your potential customers and turn them into quality leads is by using interactive content as part of your marketing strategy.
In this article, we’ll explore the meaning of interactive content for marketers in 2024 and why it’s so beneficial for boosting lead generation. We’ll also explain some of the best practical tips for generating leads and increasing user engagement with interactive content.
Keep reading to find out more.
Understanding interactive content
When you’re looking through a B2B leads database, it’s likely that each lead will have been generated from a wide range of different practices. These practices can ultimately be divided into static content and interactive content.
Unlike static content, such as traditional email messages and blog posts, interactive content is more dynamic. It encourages potential content to engage with your content through quizzes, shareable social media content, or emails and blog posts that allow responses or comments.
The essential definition of interactive content is any content that allows users to share or respond to the content in some way—making it a great way to engage your target audience.
Benefits of interactive content for lead generation
Keeping this understanding of interactive content in mind, you might be wondering why interactive content is any better than static content. After all, simply churning out the same old static content might seem like it’s easier than trying to produce new and innovative forms of dynamic content marketing.
However, interactive content can be a very powerful tool for turning potential customers into qualified leads. Here are the main benefits of using interactive content tools to boost lead generation:
Better user engagement
If you’re anything like most social media users, you’ll understand that maintaining your attention online can sometimes be difficult. This means that traditional forms of content often leave users disengaged and unlikely to be truly responsive to the content.
On the other hand, interactive content encourages users to actively participate in some way with the content. Compare the differences between simply reading an Instagram post and commenting on it in order to enter a contest—the latter is far more likely to stay in your memory.
This increased user engagement will therefore boost your lead generation efforts, with more engaged users more likely to become high-quality leads.
More personalized customer experiences
Personalization is one of the most important themes in online marketing today. More and more customers are starting to expect fully personalized customer journeys that are tailored to their needs and interests. Interactive content can be a great way to bring personalization into your lead generation strategy.
This can be achieved by building your interactive elements around user choice. Allow customers to respond to your content, for instance by providing opportunities for users to vote in a poll. This will let you record and analyze their preferences for your future marketing campaigns.
As well as this, interactive content lends itself to integrating personalization into every aspect of content design. You could segment your lead lists according to key features such as demographic information, allowing you to produce content that is tailored to your user’s specific interests.
This works especially well with interactive content – quizzes and games are made even more engaging when they’re clearly relevant to your users!
Shareability across social media
One of the biggest benefits of interactive content is how shareable it is on social media. When users are genuinely engaged in your content, they are likely to share it with friends and family – essentially doing your PR work for you!
This can be developed by deliberately optimizing your content for social media. You can make posts that are designed to be shared, increasing the chances of your content going viral on social media. For some tips about making viral interactive content, keep on reading our next section.
This higher level of shareability of social media has a clear impact on your lead generation numbers – with more people viewing and engaging with your content, you’ll soon see higher levels of lead generation and conversion.
7 essential tips to generate leads through interactive content
Now that you know the obvious benefits of using interactive content, you’re probably wondering how you can start to create more engaging experiences in your content marketing strategy. Here are our best practical tips to generate leads with interactive content:
#1 Polls and surveys
Using polls and surveys to engage your audience is one of the most popular and widely established interactive content methods. A simple way to start using this method is by asking your audience a question on social media. While this doesn’t directly lead to lead generation, it makes your followers more likely to sign up to click through to your website.
As well as this, polls can be a great way to collect feedback and analyze valuable data about your customer base. With well-designed surveys, you can learn a lot of information about the preferences and needs of your customers. You could then use this data to design content that suits these preferences, boosting engagement rates in the long term.
#2 Webinars
While hosting online events such as webinars might seem like a lot of hard work, they are a brilliant way to get users truly engaged with your brand. This works when you have a clear industry focus, such as in the B2B sector, which will attract a range of different attendees. By registering attendees, you can then follow up with these leads after the event.
#3 Interactive infographics
You’ll already understand that visual content is especially important when you’re creating online marketing content. However, turning visual materials such as infographics into interactive content can make them even more powerful.
Let’s say that you’re marketing an IP-based phone system. Your infographic could visually demonstrate how it works, while also allowing customers to learn more about the product by clicking on certain parts of the infographic. It could also include a link for a signup page, directly helping your lead generation efforts.
#4 Customer testimonials
Case studies and testimonials are a longstanding part of the marketing process. However, they can be updated for 2024 by embedding them into interactive content. This could be done through live video calls with customers, where viewers can ask questions, or by allowing users to fill in a form that will give them a case study that is perfectly tailored to their needs.
#5 Interactive videos
One of the most engaging interactive content formats is in the world of video content. These are videos that include clickable prompts for viewers. This allows users to interact with the video content—perhaps allowing them to choose the next part to watch—as well as giving them a simple opportunity to click through to your product page, boosting lead generation.
#6 Social media conversations
If you want to make your social media marketing strategy as interactive as possible, you should start to think about social media as a way of having conversations with your customers. Ask genuine questions alongside polls in order to spark discussion and encourage interaction in the comments.
This should be done alongside an approach that prioritizes valuable content. Your social media accounts should be seen as genuinely useful and interesting, meaning that customers are motivated to engage with you on these platforms. This will help you to generate leads, by collecting email addresses of new loyal customers who then go on to your website.
#7 Quizzes and games
Many people have a competitive streak within them, and your customers are no different. Compelling content like quizzes and games can make the most of this by encouraging users to interact with fun content formats.
Of course, these quizzes and games can’t simply be about anything. You should carefully design them so that you’re making relevant content that is well-suited to both your target audience and your current marketing priorities. To turn this fun format into an effective tool for lead generation, you might want to ask people to sign up for an email list before they can access their scores.
Using interactive content to boost lead generation
Trying to generate leads without actually engaging or interesting your target audience is a very difficult task. That’s why traditional static content formats are becoming a thing of the past. Instead, it’s essential that you’re able to effectively use interactive content as we look to the future of marketing.
That’s why we put together our practical list of tips for using interactive content, with key examples such as using polls, quizzes, and interactive videos. With your competitors undoubtedly also implementing interactive content, there’s no time to lose – start designing interactive content in your business today!
