How to Create Interactive Content for Your Content Strategy

Content marketers in 2022 need to know how to create interactive content and why it matters, or else risk falling behind the competition. The days of writing a blog, posting it, and waiting for the engagement to show up are long gone.  Prospects will simply spend less time and retain less information from static content as compared to interactive content. As customers’ expectations rise across the board, content must be made interactive to hold onto their attention for longer and increase the likelihood of conversions.  We’ve created today’s guide to help marketers understand what interactive content is and why it’s so important for any modern content strategy.

What is Interactive Content?

Encouraging user interaction is the key behind interactive content. The core idea is simple: someone who is actively participating in a discussion or activity will simply get more out of it than someone who is passively absorbing information. The former is an opportunity for social interaction, is exciting, and more fun. The latter can feel like homework depending on the topic. In theory, this means content should be crafted with the goal of getting an immediate response from the user. For example, a poll or quiz is interactive because it makes engagement almost too easy to pass up. A simple question followed by some simple answers nearly demands a response, especially if the question is well crafted and gets an emotional response from the reader. In practice, interactive content can be much simpler and more subtle. A video with well-defined chapters that users can easily navigate through is also interactive, especially if the video’s presenter encourages users to do so.

Why is Interactive Content Valuable?

Interactive content matters for the same reasons that passive content is valuable. Namely, content is the best way to educate people about your product while getting them interested in buying it. Interactive content doesn’t fulfill any unique function in this regard – it simply is more effective than passive content at achieving the goals of content marketing.

Interactive Content Increases Conversions

For those who love the hard numbers, here are some key stats about interactive content that will convince you it’s the way to go:

• Interactive content is better than non-interactive content at educating buyers (93% vs 70%), differentiating from competitors (88% vs 55%), and being shared (38% vs 17%).
• 70% of interactive content generates conversions moderately or very well, compared to only 36% of passive content.
• Interactive content will decrease your bounce rate: Outgrow.co notices a dip of nearly 40% in bounce rate when switching from passive to interactive content. 

6 Interactive Content Examples to Inspire You

How to create interactive content that inspires

To start your interactive content journey, consider a few of our examples to spark your creativity.

1. Quizzes

A quiz about your product is a good way to get customers who are engaged with your product on a regular basis to think about it further. It can also be a way to point out features of your product that aren’t frequently used.

2. Games

Like a quiz, a game can be used to train users on new features or simply reward them for checking in with it. Also, similar to loyalty programs, games can be used to keep users thinking about how using your product will benefit them in non-immediate ways.

3. Infographics

Infographics are some of the most efficient ways to share information quickly. A well-designed infographic combines artistic flow with information. The main benefit of an infographic is how easy it is to brand and share.

4. Surveys and Polls

Customer feedback is of prime importance when it comes to interactive content since it’s all about getting customers to engage with you. Use well-designed survey and poll questions to probe to the heart of what customers like about your product, or what they might like to see changed.

5. Videos

How to create interactive content with videos: As mentioned earlier, videos are interactive when they allow (and even encourage) users to jump around the video and find sections most relevant to them.

6. Follower Features

Finally, consider featuring your company’s most loyal or interesting followers. This rewards them for being so invested in your product and will put up the bat signal for other highly invested users that you can share and reward as well.

The Best Online Interactive Content Creation Tools

1. Guides.co

A free website that you can use to create a guide on any subject you want. These guides can be shared with the link or embedded into your website directly.  Guides.co functions similar to a blog hub or content aggregator. Their interface makes it easy to click between chapters and sections of your guide, and their formatting tool allows you to select a header image and keep your guide easy to read.  Like in other social media sites, posts can be shared, liked, and commented on by others who find your guide helpful. It takes just a few seconds to sign into Guides.co with your Google account and start making free interactive guides.

2. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is an easy-to-use survey and poll builder. You can create a free account on SurveyMonkey’s website or choose to sign in with Google’s SSO. SurveyMonkey has a paid service in which they will target responders and send your survey on your behalf. Their premium services also include upgraded survey customization options.  However, their free service is more than adequate to craft any kind of interactive poll or survey you need.  SurveyMonkey’s many customization options make their tool powerful and versatile. Enjoy the ability to customize, add, or remove dozens of options like text and comment boxes, maps and images, matrices and dropdown boxes, and much more.

3. Outgrow

Outgrow is a website which is dedicated to creating interactive content because they know the value that it represents over traditional static content. Outgrow is a premium software service that offers free trials to those with corporate email addresses. They have pricing options available for individuals as well as enterprises. Outgrow has thousands of optimized interactive content creation templates. Their software can help you create calculators, quizzes, surveys, and even chatbots and assessments. Embedding is easy with Outgrow – you can use their tool to create popups, greeting bars, and floating embeds among many other options.

Interacting Users Become Closing Customers

Content marketing’s key insight was to turn storytelling into sales opportunities. The next phase of that process is interactive content which is designed to keep people’s attention by leveraging the digital tools available today. Customers want to feel like they’re engaged, educated, and entertained all at once when they’re dealing with the sales process. A robust interactive strategy will be key to any business that plans to use content marketing to grow their business. Contact us today to see how E29 can use interactive content to help grow your business.