TJ Vasquez
The business world is constantly changing right along with the world around it. Technology evolves, audience habits and interests pivot, and businesses are expected to keep up with the world at large. Yet, these outcomes are only possible when companies reach their customer bases in innovative ways, such as interactive marketing.
Many consumers of today want their favorite brands to be approachable and responsive. As such, today’s audiences frequently favor companies that relate to and interact with them. An interactive, two-way relationship between customers and companies needs to happen if growing businesses want to distinguish themselves from every other business in their industry.
These mutually beneficial relationships can be fostered through the utilization of interactive marketing. If you’ve not yet heard of interactive marketing, or you’re fairly new to the concept, keep reading.
In this post, we go through the definition of interactive marketing and its various forms and technique. We’ll explore a few advantages and use cases too.
What is Interactive Marketing?
Interactive marketing refers to the practice of using visual materials to encourage audiences to engage with a company’s advertising content. This marketing type not only grabs an audience’s attention but also aims to entertain viewers and use creative outlets to offer products and services.
Interactive marketing also relies on customers to take action in order to generate a response from the advertising company. These companies evaluate which responses to promote based on information the customer offers, his or her preferences, and the customer’s habits. This may also be why interactive marketing is called “trigger-based marketing” or “event-driven marketing.”
Companies use interactive marketing methods to create engaging, meaningful interactions between the brand itself and individual customers.
Several factors come into play when implementing successful interactive marketing practices, including comprehensive data analysis.
Interactive marketing aims to follow a consumer’s cues rather than to lead them down a projected path. If a coffee shop patron orders a drink, the barista may ask if they want a biscotti or croissant too. Yet, if the customer only ordered a pastry and a bottle of water, the barista’s marketing prompt would likely change.
Interactive Marketing Benefits
As with any form of marketing, successful implementation of interactive marketing methods can produce several benefits for business owners and their marketing teams.
Audience Engagement
Keeping audiences interested and entertained is the key to maintaining or even enhancing audience engagement. Personalized marketing content, when targeted correctly, can work wonders for a growing business. Putting the right information in front of the right people gives audiences more to interact with than a static ad. This marketing method can effectively improve the relationship between the brand and its audience.
If your customers enjoy the content you publish, they’re more likely to stick with your company for their industry-related needs. They might even spread the word and recommend your organization to their friends and families.
Better Feedback
Interactive marketing makes it easier for marketing teams to determine how audiences respond to various forms of advertising. By promoting a quiz, poll, or other feedback collection method, reviews and customer opinions come through fast. Marketers can then use this customer data quicker than they could when analyzing an entire campaign’s performance.
Companies might pose questions like
- How can we improve our customer support process?
- Were you able to find everything you needed on our website?
- How do you feel about the product/service you purchased?
There’s little to no guesswork when it comes to direct feedback requests like these. Using them gives your customers the opportunity to be heard and understood.
More Conversions
Engaged, interested audiences are more likely to become customers. By using interactive marketing methods, companies are giving potential customers a way to make the purchasing process quicker and easier. A simple interactive call-to-action can enable a future customer to make a purchase in only a couple of clicks. Convenience is one of the most effective ways to increase your company’s conversion rates. Interactive marketing can most definitely add the conveniences your audience is looking for.
Types of Interactive Marketing Content
Interactive marketing takes on many forms. It’s fair to consider interactive marketing as any type of content that aims to interact with individual customers.
Some marketing techniques are better suited for specific industries. By researching the various types of marketing methods used in today’s market, business owners like you can determine which type or types of interactive marketing might serve your company’s needs. Work toward a new company growth strategy by trying one of these interactive marketing content types.
Calculators/Converters
By using calculators or conversion tools, customers can learn about the advantages of certain products. Visitors that utilize calculators gain insight into the costs associated with becoming your customer. By streamlining elements of the research process, you’re making the customer’s decision an easier one. For example, a lending company might have a calculator posted on their website that would enable loan applicants to determine how much loan they can afford, as well as what their monthly costs might be.
Video Content
Video content is a great way to pull in audience members who would otherwise be uninterested in your written content. Not everyone has the time to sit and read an article or a guide. When a person is explaining a concept or introducing a product on video, new possibilities arise. More people are likely to tune in. Because people tend to remember video content, the odds of your audience members becoming customers is higher than they might be if you used written advertisements alone.
Quizzes & Surveys
Marketing professionals can create engaging quizzes or surveys to supplement marketing efforts in practically any industry. Quizzes and surveys are a great way to get visitors more engaged with your website. Additionally, if they’re having fun, they’re more likely to come back later. For decades, newspapers have included crossword puzzles, word searches, horoscopes, or even personality quizzes. Each of these are examples of interactive marketing.
Personalization
By adding personal touches to the way your brand interacts with each customer, you’re fostering a direct connection between your company and the individual you’re communicating with. You might address the customer by their name, make product or service recommendations based on the customer’s purchase history, or direct targeted ad content toward this individual. Let’s say a customer forgets to check out after placing items in their online shopping cart. A personalized email might remind them to check out. You can also add a little convenience by offering the individual a coupon or discount code for free shipping.
Storytelling
Consumers enjoy being entertained. If you have a long-form story you want to tell, you can do it through interactive marketing. Instead of trying to get visitors to sit through a written blog post that will take them an hour to read, an interactive method like video posting presents the potential to put your brand’s voice and tone into the story.
Additionally, while telling your story, you can add gifs, links to other videos, maps, charts, infographics, and a plethora of other visual aids to enhance the storytelling experience.
Real-World Examples of Interactive Marketing
Interactive marketing isn’t a new advertising concept by any means. Businesses all over the globe have already adopted several interactive marketing strategies to enhance customer service and brand awareness.
Take a look at these examples of real-world interactive marketing that works.
Lancome’s Augmented Reality Shopping
Lancome’s new shopping feature allows customers to virtually test out products before making a purchase. For example, customers can apply various shades of makeup products via a photo/video filter, which makes it easy to see what they might look like wearing their desired shade.
Vimeo’s Virtual Courses
Vimeo offers studio playlist features, which helped businesses and customers alike create the spaces they need to thrive in. For example, one yoga studio used Vimeo’s virtual resources to provide detailed instructions for yoga practitioners to follow. The courses guided practitioners through the process of creating a home studio environment and enabled users to follow the studio’s playlist during class sessions.
Hubspot’s Conversational Marketing
Hubspot’s chatbot allows users to customize their site experience by creating conversational marketing tools on the site’s homepage. The tool prompts each visitor with a set of questions. Depending on the answers they provide, the experience they have on Hubspot aims to align with their preferences and intents.
Marriott’s Interactive Infographics
Marriott Hotels added an element of ease to vacation planning and enhanced the experiences of visitors staying at the company’s establishments. The interactive infographic available at the Scottsdale, AZ location enables tourists to create customized itineraries based on their age groups, interests, and other details.
By using the infographic’s features, visitors to the hotel can plot a unique tour of the city of Scottsdale based on what they actually want to see during their travels.
Staying relevant in your given niche depends greatly on your organization’s ability to meet customers where they are. Your marketing team needs to be able to identify with audience members, understand their wants and needs, and find ways to add convenience and ease to each customer’s journey along your pipeline.
Interactive marketing ventures are not easy to perfect, and because they’re often time-consuming, developing them may take time away from your traditional blogging efforts. If you’re looking for ways to increase your writing efficiency while still dedicating time to your new strategies, try Juno. This AI tool is ideal for business owners who don’t have a lot of time on their hands to invest in blogging.
By providing just a couple of pieces of information, Juno can generate an SEO strategy for you in seconds, and in only a few minutes, you’ll have ten completely free blog titles, outlines, and drafts ready for you to edit and post to your website.
