Business owners and marketers know the importance of a strong content marketing strategy. Your blog is the first thing many visitors see when they land on your site. Similarly, if you hope to keep your audience engaged, you have to promote high-quality content through your various marketing channels.
I don’t have a single doubt that content will continue to reign king in the coming years. However, the way we create and distribute content has changed dramatically. Instead of creating static posts, we need to start thinking more about interactive content.
Interactive content is a post, form, or video that encourages users to engage with your business. The more people interact with your content, the more opportunities you’ll have to turn visitors into subscribers while convincing subscribers to become customers.
Today, we will explore several essential tips you can use to create more interactive content.
Ready? Let’s get started!
Embrace Personalization
The best way to encourage more user interactions is to use personalization to send relevant content and offers. Research shows that 4 out of 5 consumers want more personalized posts and promotions from their favorite brands.
One way to make your content more relatable is by creating customer personas that align with the various people who visit your website. An online pet store would design segments around people who own specific animals.
The thought process behind this strategy is simple; people are more likely to interact with posts and offers that relate to the pet they own. Cat owners want to read and comment on cat-themed blog posts, and dog owners are interested in promotions specifically for dog food and toys.
Once you create your audience personas, you can use what you learned to add personalization to your on-site, social media, and email marketing strategy. If you’re not sure where existing customers fit into your personas, use on-site surveys and email outreach to ask users to tell you more about their interests so you can send them personalized content in the future.
Focus on Customer Loyalty
Another way to add an interactive touch to your content is to design your funnel with customer loyalty in mind. The eCommerce marketplace is fierce. If you’re not offering an incentive to keep visitors coming back for repeat orders, there’s a good chance they will experiment with multiple brands, which can damage your profit margin and customer relations.
There are several things you do to reward customers for their loyalty. One strategy that works well for us involves giving users promotions on our other products after their first order. We believe that this incentivizes users to stay loyal to our brand when plenty of other companies operate in our industry.
You can deliver these promotions through your mobile app, website, or email. If you use push notifications, you can create custom alerts to reward customers for their loyalty. These alerts work well because you can reach your audience even if they’re not on your website.
When you send users messages about their loyalty points, we’ve discovered that you can boost your conversion rate and add personalization by showing recommended products. Users are more likely to interact with your brand when they see products or services that resonate with their goals and pain points. Don’t forget to strategically include links back to your website to make redeeming their points as easy as possible.
Gamify Your Marketing Strategy
You can make your website and social media channels more interactive by adding gamification. Simply put, gamification is the process of adding game-like features to your marketing strategy. We use several different ways to keep our visitors engaged with this technique.
On a few of our sites, we use spin-to-win wheels to keep users who are getting close to leaving to stick around. When a visitor is navigating towards the X on their browser tab, we trigger a popup that shows a colorful wheel spinning with prizes that may convince them to stay. Some of the rewards we offer include:
– Free lead magnet
– 20% off their order
– 50% off their order
– Free annual license
These are all things our target audience would find valuable. If someone is genuinely interested in our products, this element of gamification could be the thing that turns them into a customer.
We are big fans of hosting giveaways on social media. Everyone loves a good raffle. Our team hosts giveaways during times that are important to us, like on our company’s birthday. There are times when we decide to create a contest so we can grow our lead list, social media followers, or sales.
When running a giveaway, it’s essential to determine how you want users to interact with your brand. Establish rules that will encourage them to take the specific action you’d like to see. For example, you could create a rule where visitors can enter by joining your email list. This strategy is an excellent way to generate new leads while interacting with your audience.
Post More Video Content
Did you know that 43% of consumers say they want more video content from their favorite businesses? One reason for this trend is video content is one of the best ways to interact with your audience.
The possibilities are endless. You could take your knowledge to social media and host interactive webinars. We like to create these types of events if we want to discuss a specific customer goal or pain point. You can appeal to most of your audience if you host a webinar that dives into one of these hot topics.
At the end of your presentation, give your audience a chance to ask questions and engage. You’ll find that these moments can help you build trust through direct interactions.
You could also create a YouTube channel for your video content. Globally, YouTube gets 2 billion visitors every month. You can safely assume that your target audience is out there, waiting to find your channel.
We suggest creating playlists tailored to your various audience segments. This step will make it easier for visitors to find the content they want to see. As a result, there’s a greater chance they will like, share, and leave comments on your videos.
Final Thoughts
It’s easy to see that interactive content is here to stay. The good news is there are plenty of tools and strategies you can use to keep your visitors engaged. The tips offered today will help you build a robust marketing framework that focuses on highly interactive content and promotions. As your brand grows, you’ll start to find new and inventive ways to keep your customers coming back for more.
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Syed Balkhi is an award-winning entrepreneur and online marketing expert. He is the co-founder of OptinMonster, WPBeginner, MonsterInsights, and WPForms.