Interactive Content Marketing: Unlocking the Potential of Personalized User Experience

Interactive content marketing has come of age: the difference between leaders and laggards will be their ability to create differentiated content personalization through such experiences.

Content personalization might sound good in theory, but it is important to understand how it can help your business and the tools to create such an experience for your customers and prospects. What differentiates a company that uses content personalization from ones that don't is the robust user journey mapped according to personas.

Content personalization ensures dynamic content delivery to match user intent with the best possible "experience collection." Experiences can be intangible, but such efforts across a connected journey will help increase engagement and conversion rates among specific audience segments.

A key aspect of content personalization is audience segmentation. This involves breaking down your audience into smaller groups based on characteristics such as demographics, behavior, and interests. By understanding the unique needs and characteristics of each segment, you can create targeted content that speaks directly to them.

Once you have segmented your audience, you can begin to create personalized content that speaks directly to each group. This could include tailored email campaigns, personalized landing pages, and customized social media posts. By delivering relevant and engaging content to each segment, you can increase engagement and conversion rates among your target audience.

One way of personalizing content for audiences is to use interactive content marketing to good effect for omnichannel customer experiences. According to Econsultancy's Future of Marketing 2022 study, 72% of marketers predict video to become more important over the next two years.

With the rise of streaming services, brands will need to focus on creating visually stunning and engaging video content, both live and pre-recorded. With the proliferation of digital channels, it becomes important to connect different content formats for the best mix to cater to consumer problems with high search intent.

I spoke with Lucia Rahilly, Global Editorial Director & Deputy Publisher at McKinsey & Company on this interesting topic. "Our approach is to zero in on the best ideas and disseminate them in a variety of formats. We now have a “Chart of the Day” franchise that is incredibly popular, for example — an interesting chart, pulled from a longer article, that trains a spotlight on a particular insight that may have gotten missed in the longer-form context. We’ve got several podcast programs. We’ve developed a fun new franchise called “McKinsey for Kids.” So we look for our most distinctive ideas and bring them to market in ways that attract audiences with increasingly heterogeneous content-consumption preferences," Rahilly noted.

Here is an example of a McKinsey for Kids interactive designed in a simplistic and engaging way to educate the reader:

Interactive content is a powerful way to engage audiences and build relationships with potential customers. As technology continues to evolve, so do the ways in which marketers can create interactive experiences for their audiences.

Interactive content marketing formats

• Quizzes: Quizzes are a fun and interactive way to engage audiences and provide valuable information. They can be used to test knowledge, generate leads, and personalise content.

• Polls: Polls are a quick and easy way to gather feedback and engage audiences. They can be used to gather opinions on products, services, or topics of interest.

• Videos: Videos help connect with audiences and provide information in a visual format. They can be used to demonstrate products, provide tutorials, or share stories.

• Interactive infographics: Infographics present data and information in an easy-to-digest format. Interactive infographics allow users to explore and interact with the data, making it more engaging and memorable.

• Chatbots: Chatbots provide customer service and engage audiences. They can be used to answer frequently asked questions, provide recommendations, and gather feedback.

• Virtual and augmented reality: Virtual and augmented reality technologies are becoming more accessible and affordable, allowing businesses to create immersive, interactive experiences for their audiences.

• Interactive whitepapers and eBooks: Whitepapers and eBooks are a great way to provide in-depth information on a topic, but they can be dry and difficult to engage with. Interactive whitepapers and eBooks allow users to interact with the content and make it more engaging.

• Interactive landing pages: Landing pages convert visitors into leads, but they can be static and unengaging. Interactive landing pages allow users to interact with the content and make it more engaging.

What is your preferred interactive content marketing format? (multiple responses)

• Quizzes
• Polls
• Videos
• Interactive Infographics

See All Options

You can vote for more than one answer.

Static PDFs are making way for more interactive content experiences. Here is an example of an interactive content experience from Deloitte:

While working with interactive content experiences as with other kinds of formats, it is important to not to fall into the trap of viewership alone as this could turn out to be a vanity metric.

An interactive "content experience" builds the experience around the content; not vice versa.

I caught up with John Shumadine, former Managing Director, Deloitte Insights to delve deeper into this subject. “The problem with viewership as a metric is that a low quality report hurts the firm’s reputation the more its read. One of the signature reports we would create is the popular industry outlook series on future trends. This would be based on secondary research and didn’t qualify as thought leadership since all of our competitors were writing the same thing. While viewership was high because clients wanted to know what Deloitte sees as the future of tech and business trends, the work was not novel nor insightful. The focus on viewership should not distract from the desired thought leadership positioning of the firm. Low quality or conventional thought leadership about saturated topics can hurt your brand. ”

Building sustainable practices with interactive content marketing

Interactive content marketing can help build sustainability in several ways:

• Education and awareness: Quizzes, infographics, and virtual reality experiences can educate and raise awareness about environmental issues and sustainable practices.

• Engagement: Interactive content allows audiences to engage with sustainability-related topics in a more interactive and personalized way, which can increase their motivation and commitment to sustainable actions.

• Data collection: Chatbots and quizzes can be used to collect data about users' attitudes and behaviours related to sustainability, which can help companies and organizations better understand and target their sustainability efforts.

• Lead generation: Interactive landing pages can be used to generate leads for sustainable products and services and to guide users through the purchasing process.

• Brand reputation: Interactive content that promotes sustainable practices and products can help to enhance a company's reputation as an environmentally and socially responsible organization.

• Consumer behaviour change: Interactive content can be used as a means of making people conscious about their consumption behaviour and how it can impact the environment, and encouraging them to make more sustainable choices.

In conclusion, interactive content marketing is an effective way for companies to engage and educate their audiences while also gathering valuable data. It allows for a more personalized and interactive experience for the user and can be used to promote sustainable practices and products. Brands that can effectively leverage the power of interactive content will be well positioned to build stronger connections with their audiences and drive more meaningful engagement. It's an effective tool to build brand reputation, generate leads, and encourage consumer behaviour change.

The key to success with interactive content is to focus on creating valuable and engaging experiences that align with your overall marketing goals.

Want to dive deeper into the elements of interactive content marketing. Check out the author's content marketing masterclass here.

About the Author

Vishwas Anand is a world record holder and international multi-award-winning B2B marketing expert. He holds an MBA from IIM-Kozhikode, is a jury member for international awards, and keynote speaker for conferences. Connect with him on LinkedIn.