When it comes to creating content for your audience, there is should never be any cutting corners and skimming on the quality. Your audience is everything, and if they don't find value in what you are offering, they will simply move on to the next site without hesitation.
With social media and mobile usage on the rise, it's now more important than ever before to create content that not only resonates with your audience, but relates with them as well. It's also not just about why and where the content is being delivered, but also how.
"Interactive content" is one of the fastest growing trends across top websites and blogs on the internet today. Not only is it one of the most effective ways to get your messaging and branding across to your audience, it's also one of the best ways to increase engagement and social shares in the process.
Based off valuable industry statistics and information provided through a new whitepaper from Designhill, we are going to take a look at some of the most effective ways top brands are using interactive content to grow their businesses and user engagement online.
It's not enough to simply know what's working in the industry today, you also need to know how to put these same marketing efforts into play for your business.
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Interactive Content is Driving Higher Conversions
Gone are the days when static text content is enough to get by. Now internet users have a shorter attention span than ever before and the idea of spending even just a few minutes on reading site content is enough to make them quickly close your site out and run for the hills.
However, with interactive content, top brands like Target, HomeDepot, Evernote and Coca-Cola are finding new and exciting ways to engage with their audience and increase conversions like never before.
Of the nearly 60 percent of brands using interactive content methods such as apps, assessments, quizzes and calculators, report seeing up to 70 percent more conversions compared to passive content at around 36 percent.
Social Media is Thriving with Interactive Content
Speaking of engagement, one of the best ways to get more attention and ROI out of your interactive content is to make sure you are using social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to engage with your audience.
However, just like with the common theme of this article—it's all about being out with the old and in with the new. If you aren't actively using images, unique creative and call to actions within your social messaging, you are missing out big time.
It's been reported that activity on Twitter drastically increases when images are incorporated in outgoing tweets. Such improvements show 18 percent more clicks, more favorites and nearly 150 percent more retweets versus that of normal text updates.
Passive and Interactive Content Must All Be Responsive
There is no question that mobile usage is going to continually rise over the next several years and may even overtake desktop usage sooner than expected.
With so many users relying on their mobile devices and tablets to access your site, it must be a top priority to make sure your content is viewable across all platforms.
On the flip side, it's not enough to 'just' create content that is viewable across all of these mobile platform -- you must create content 'for' these mobile users, specifically through the use of mobile apps and responsive site designs.
With over 1.2 billion people accessing the internet from their mobile devices, it's reported that 61 percent of these users will have a better opinion of a brand if they offer a high quality and valuable mobile experience.
The Impact of Interactive Content on Content Marketing
We can talk about interactive content all day and the many different ways to create and deliver it to your audience, but ultimately, this comes down to your content creation and marketing department. What we can leave you with are some of the many data points on how well interactive content is working for top marketing agencies, bloggers and brands.
- Articles with images receive 94 percent more views. (Source: Jeff Bullas)
- Customers who receive email newsletters spend 82 percent more when they buy from the company. (Source: iContact)
- Around 82 percent marketers who blog see positive ROI for their inbound marketing. (Source: HubSpot)
- Approximately 73 percent of B2B marketers are producing more content than they did in 2014. (Source: CMI)
- Over 32 percent marketers are producing significantly more content than they did in 2014. (Source: CMI)
- Website conversion rate is nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters (2.9 percent vs 0.5 percent). (Source: Aberdeen)
As you can see from the industry stats and reports above, it's not a matter of "if" a brand should be using interactive content in their marketing and branding efforts, it's simply a question of how soon.