91% of B2B buyers prefer interactive and visually engaging content over traditional ones. Giving more interactive experiences to the users adds value to their buyer journey and eventually helps you close more deals. The interactive content can get you 2x more conversions than passive content. An increase in pipeline conversion rates can actually have compelling impacts on sales revenue.
Over 45% of client-based professional service providers consider interactive content to be powerful, eye-catching, and engaging; plus, let’s face it, it looks way cooler than some flat PDF. Customers are more attracted to your business when they can interact with the content you present.
As microlearning is the new black, minicourses and interactivity concept are an inseparable duo. Creating mini-courses makes it possible to blend information with various interactivity elements like videos with questions, surveys, quizzes, ratings, images, and responsive messages.
Let’s cut to the chase and walk you through the fundamentals of interactive content creation with mini-courses!
These topics are included in this article!
What is Interactive Content?
The content prompts the users to interact with the content and helps them engage with the content piece. Interactive content, just as it suggests, is interactive, requiring participation from both sides.
If you really want to start the conversation with your leads and want to know how to warm cold leads, you should acknowledge the power of interactive content. Interactive content engages the user, which makes it compelling for them. The even brighter side to it is that the interactivity of the content starts the bonding instantly and keeps the audiences engaged for longer; plus it can be personalized to a great extent; you can even make it real-time to display conditional messages depending on user’s inputs through a micro-learning journey.
Do not go around thinking there is no point in creating interactive content just because it won’t serve an immediate and useful purpose since you would much rather be driving your potential customers away. Plus, it is so easy to add interactivity to your communication strategy with the help of mini-courses.
What is an example of interactive content?
Online Course Creators
There are various ways to earn residual income, and online course creation is a very popular choice. As it may seem like a one-way communication, building a successful online course business depend on the interactivity factor!
Many creators prefer to present interactive previews for their programs with videos, quizzes, and CTAs to increase conversion. Malcolm Dewey is one of them! Here is a mini-course Malcolm prepared with Mini Course Generator to promote his online business.
Some other mainstream examples that show the power of interactivity:
Netflix
Netflix has brought an evolution for content consumers; their service has developed into a tour de force in streaming content. Ever Wonder how they work around their marketing strategies? Highly based on user feedback! They base their every next step on what users prefer.
Their popular interactive survey featured in the brand’s e-mail marketing drive helped them gain insights needed to improve the streaming content.
The infographic stated analysis of The Beatles
An infographic about the Beatles is an incredible example of interactive content that engages people in both fun and educational aspect, irrespective of it if you are a fan of this iconic band.
That infographic called people to play around with the different elements and, at the same time, to learn about the band members and their contribution to writing the hit songs that made it The Beatles!
Types of interactive content
Interactive Mini-Courses (Far better than ebooks!)
A mini-course, a short lesson, a micro course or a short course is a microlearning journey that can be completed within 10-15 minutes. Mini-courses prepared with Mini Course Generator contain countless images, videos, quiz and survey questions, and conditional completions depending on users’ knowledge level. Hence, they are very interactive!
Besides, a minicourse shows the progress bar to the user, boosting the sense of achievement even further.
Ebooks are very common in lead generation and lead nurturing, but have you ever seen someone who proceeds further than a few pages into an ebook? An ebook creates a content burden on the audience and the communication is always one-sided. There is not enough materials which the user can engage with.
A mini-course is, on the other hand, totally interactive and bite-sized. Your clients can experience what your business is like without being intimidated with the content load. What’s more, presenting a mini-course is as easy as sharing a link or embedding on your landing pages.
Mini-courses prepared with Mini Course Generator could be shared with a custom link, or embedded in any webpage with js codes. If you are on WordPress, it is even easier to embed interactive content on your landing page with Mini Course Generator WP Plug-In.
Interactive infographics
Infographics were looked at as the most sharable form of content just a few years back; around 2017 and 5 years down the line, you see everyone creating infographic content, using them for their marketing strategies and attracting audiences. With all the popularity around, there is a lot of competition, so just publishing an infographic isn’t enough anymore. Now for your number to soar, you have to level up your game by engaging users with your infographics.
You can embed visuals in your mini-courses with iframe HTML codes and also ask questions related to them. So, if you’d like to present an infographic, make sure to add a quiz question or a survey under it to engage more with your audience.
Interactive Images, Interactive Videos, and Films
Images, when comparing two or more things, can be influential in your content marketing. In a mini-course, it is possible to use multiple images on the same slide and it is a perfect way to create a comparison. Adding an image gallery in your mini-course increases engagement and impact, and proves to be more beneficial for you as a brand.
Film and video content are only witnessing soaring high, they may not be budget-friendly formats of content, but they are top ROI-generating ones. If you wish to take your content to the next level and push its boundaries, the possibilities have started to emerge that give your audience content to allow them to be in complete control. For instance, Netflix released Black Mirror, the first interactive film for users that let them remain in total control of the outcome.
Even VR and AR open doors of opportunities for creators to experiment with and create an interactive film or video experience for their users. These were examples of how video interactivity has helped enhance an otherwise ‘standard’ format of content, a creation that not only stands out but also adds immense value to the user experience.
You can adapt this view to your minicourses, too. You can upload or embed videos easily to your mini-courses. You can add quiz questions just underneath the videos to encourage people to watch your video till the end and also interact with it.
It is even possible to direct your audience to different personalized paths depending on their answer.
Quizzes and Surveys
Quizzes and surveys are one of the most fun interactive content for your audiences; they allow you to collect information from your leads and also give them a chance to share opinions and connect with your brand personally.
Quizzes are wonderful tools to know your clients, understand your target audience, determine the customer profile in an effective way and keep your audience willing to participate at the same time.
Besides, they are wonderful for presenting recaps and reinforcements microlearning content. Hence, creating a mini-course with a quiz in it means creating an incredible lead magnet with a higher conversion of free to paid customers.
Quizzes add to the customers’ informational and entertainment value depending on the topic. You can even offer incentives to your users on the completion of the quiz and encourage them for more engagement.
Mini Course Generator allows you to display special messages depending on the score of a quiz. So, it is super easy to award a 100% correct result with a special offer, like a discount for your online store or a free consultation with your team. Give perks to create excitement! Quizzes let you do that.
It could just be asking people to test their knowledge or a survey in which they can fill in, rate, and choose multiple fields to express their thoughts or feelings on a subject.
Design interactive surveys in a span of a few minutes and start sharing the content on your website by embedding and email campaigns and social media channels with a link within minutes. Platforms like Mini Course Generator not only let you produce such quizzes, it even allows you to track the results of your users, and you can put those results to use! Benefit from the quiz results to start targeting your customers with offers that are more personalized to their benefit.
Lead Capture Forms
Lead Capture Forms are an easy and interactive way of collecting contact information from leads interested in staying connected with your brand or wanting to learn more about it. They can be small, brief, and simple with just an e-mail address section that wouldn’t take much time for the user.
If you want to defeat the hesitancy to leave contact information, you can give a reason! It is possible to add a form in your mini-course, at the beginning, end or in the midst. For example, use the engaging power of your interactive content, ask your audience to take a short quiz or a short, bite-sized microlearning journey, and include a lead capture form at the end. The user has to share their e-mail address to see their results.
Interactive Webinars
Streamed content consumption has been increasing over the last few years; hence you could put your best bet on video interactive content. The videos are not considered interactive content by default, but a live webinar can be counted as one. Host an engaging Webinar using Zoom, GoToWebinar, or any other live-streaming platform and accept live attendees’ questions.
To make things more interesting, you can start the interactivity even before the event and continue engaging with your audience after the event with minicourses.
Create and share a mini-course that will serve as an excitement booster for your event, just as a teaser. In this minicourse you can add a short video, small pieces of educational content, and maybe a survey to collect questions prior.
Present another minicourse after the event to reinforce the knowledge you have presented on your webinar. A fun recap can be made with a mini-course with a quiz in it and maybe an award for the ones who score 100%.
How do you make content interactive, and why you should do it?
Competing with the endless stream of blog posts and lengthy webinars to connect with your audience can seem daunting, and your passive content marketing strategies won’t cut it. Adding interactive content to your strategy can make your brand stand out and grab your audience’s attention that has been attained to stay.
Besides, it takes only minutes to create an interactive minicourse. With Mini Course Generator, you can get aid from AI Assistant to create mini-courses even faster! The AI course generator will suggest you possible paths whenever you get stuck and allows you to create content with speed and ease.
Understand your target audience
The first step towards successful marketing is always understanding your target audience. It all starts with studying what your target audience is and what they like to consume; this will help you gain perspective and develop the right interactive pieces for any campaign.
For instance, if your target audience is Millennials, you know this troop wouldn’t mind spending a few minutes of their free time on a buzz quiz, so adding quizzes that are relevant to your industry or products in your marketing will gain their attention. This way, you produce such experiences for audiences they find, so they will be more likely to interact with those features and, eventually, your brand.
Furthermore, quizzes and surveys provide you more information about your clients and give you a chance to update your strategy in time, getting more quality leads.
Do a content audit
When it comes to creating interactive content for your brand, you don’t have to start from scratch! You can reach halfway in the game by adding your interactive elements to your existing extensive database of blogs and articles. Think about how you can make your ebooks more fun to navigate; repurpose them as a mini-course and give your readers a quiz to take or recommend an article related to their interests.
A mini-course is just like an interactive ebook, but easier to prepare and even more easier to complete!
The old content can also inspire you to form brand-new ones. Let’s say you have a blog post that adds value to your overall traffic and benefits the readers, but its popularity is dwindling; try converting that blog into an interactive infographic and adding this to a mini-course. The information will feel fresh and updated to engage with, so it is likely to attract a larger audience than before.
Remember, you can embed mini-courses anywhere on your webpages and increase the user activity on your blog posts tremendously.
Analyze your data and refine
Even your interactive content requires some tracking, just like your traditional content. Review data and metrics to see how the audience responds to your produced pieces. If your content seems to perform fine, you will get opportunities to explore how to incorporate the same interactive elements with some underperforming content that will boost it. If your content is not generating enough traffic or viewership that you expected, you can research some from tracking your data and revise your approach.
You can keep mini-course analytics to analyze your clients’ responses and what your leads think about your business. This feature allows you to develop your marketing strategy further and communicate better with them in the future.
Add Well-placed calls to action
CTAs have, time and again, proven to convert more customers than anything else; it works like a charm, to say the least. With CTAs, you can push your audience forward to the integral step of your marketing strategy. CTAs are an upfront redirection for your audience to take another action; without that, they will go haywire and eventually leave your website without converting. Say, for instance, at the end of your interactive content (quiz); you might want to provide a link and a call to read more content on the quiz topic. Or you can ask the audience for feedback after interacting with your lead capture form that will explain their experience with your brand.
Audiences are of all kinds; some users will move forward and convert without any CTAs, while some may need a gentle reminder or a little push to make that decision. Just like the one below!
Best tools to generate interactive content
Catching the audience’s attention has become a greater challenge with time, and people’s reduced attention span adds to the problem. This is when interactive content tools can be a perk in this everyday dispute. Everything is so dynamic on the internet; even businesses with good engagement with audiences try to look for new ways to engage prospects. And interactive content is one of the best bets companies make to stay ahead of the game. Hence, seeking new ways of creating quality interactive content is now a must in the industry.
Interactive tools help produce these materials with ease for you; you do the marketing while these tools take care of all the programming that needs to be done.
Some tools are designed exclusively for interaction, while others are more versatile and would require some adjustments to create your ideal interactive content. Read on to learn briefly about them so you can pick what best suits your needs.
Mini Course Generator
Mini Course Generator is the only tool specialized for online course creators, coaches, consultants, and trainers to create and share easily accessible, bite-sized interactive content without dealing with the complexities of macro course builders. It is a freemium tool with lots of features and versatile nature.
Creating a mini course is extremely easy and quick with Mini Course Generator. The user interfaces are pretty simple, and there is no learning curve. It is simply plug-and-play! The content you create will be easily manageable and can be repurposed for your email newsletter campaigns, landing pages, and social media.
If you want to boost landing page interactivity, embedding a mini-course would be a wonderful idea! Just like the embedded mini-course below.
In a mini-course you can add countless videos and images, embed calendars, and podcasts, make quizzes, ask survey questions, collect emails, and even get paid.
Another helpful feature is the AI course generator assistant. You can use it whenever you get stuck to complete slides for you.
Mini courses could be reached by your audience without any login barrier, thus starting immediate engagement and interaction without dealing with the hesitancy to contribute to something big. If you have many short lessons, you can present them together and in an ordered way in a collection like this.
H5P
H5P is a wonderful tool for creating and presenting HTML5 interactive content! You can create more than 30 content types, including maps, image sliders, video quizzes, and fill-in-the-blanks questions and reuse your production for your blogs, landing pages, and LMS-built online courses. It has a freemium version, too.
You can embed your content easily and use it in your mini-courses to increase interactivity even further.
Contenttools
Contenttools is a renowned interactive content-creating tool in the market with the kind of materials it provides as they aim to generate only leads. It allows you to create both static and dynamic content. You get to create several materials in different formats in the creative content section; such content includes quizzes, calculators, maps, infographics, and landing pages.
Apester
Apester is one such tool that focuses on maintaining user engagement. Once the user interacts with a piece of your interactive content, the tools will offer new articles that could interest the users; with that, it even allows users to share the same on their social media accounts, eventually increasing your brand’s reach. And it ultimately facilitates organic traffic generation on your website. With Apester, you can create interactive materials like tests, questionnaires, polls, and surveys.
With the help of this interactive content creation tool, Lay’s french fries expanded the reach of their social media publications by creating contests where people voted for their favorite flavors and could access the content related to their responses.
Qzzr
Qzzr is one such interactive content creation tool used to create interactive quizzes. It gives you a free section that lets you test your quiz even with the restricted functions. It is an excellent tool for those who have just started and want to test their strategies using interactive content. Apart from that, it also works with three types of quiz creation; it allows the application of different ideas. You get to create quizzes for lists, score tests, personality tests, and more.
Pointerpro
Pointerpro, formerly known as SurveyAnyplace, is one such tool focused on interactive content creation that recommends new ideas based on the user’s answers.
Playbuzz
Playbuzz can be your go-to free platform for creating interactive content for your website. It also provides useful data and metrics for you. It is a place where many people show their ideas and produce creations as a community, which eventually generates a virtuous circle of creativity for you always to stay inspired.
ThingLink
Another well-known interactive content creation tool is Thinglink; it is known for its versatility and ease in creating diverse interactive content. Thinking makes it possible for you to create 360 degrees videos and add additional information, audio, attachments, internet links, and more.
How to apply these tools to your content marketing strategies?
Interactive content generator tools allow businesses to create top-notch interactive content and apply it in a well-structured and well-planned content marketing strategy. A well-prepared and well-served interactive enables client-based professionals to attain positive results; all you have to do is ensure that some factors have been aligned, which include:
- Your services
- Market niche
- Client persona
- Design and usability
- Type of interactive content
- The promise of the content.
Testing your interactive content is essential to generating perfect interactive content for your website; avoiding errors like broken links or CTAs that do not lead the users astray is crucial.
For example, if you are preparing a mini-course, you can easily preview it before sharing it with your audience.
Interactive tools help construct interactive content that engages the user and turns them into customers. You can increase free to paid customer conversion easily with interactive content.
Benefits of interactive content that suggest why it is important to invest in them
Increased engagement rate
The nature of interactive content is such that it asks people to engage with it, so it automatically shows you typically higher engagement rate levels than traditional content. Users like to be in the driver’s seat, and interactive content hands them the steering wheel to drive the interaction.
By presenting interactive content to your audience, you immediately start a dialogue and it is hard to resist for them, too!
Increase data captured
It allows you to capture relevant data from the users, which can make your personalized marketing campaigns headstrong in the game; it lets the sales team speak to the biggest concerns of their prospects in one go. However, there’s one drawback: customers may feel cautious about sharing their personal information, like e-mail addresses, since they do not want to be flooded with regular marketing updates in their inboxes. And they are entitled to choose what makes its way into their mailbox.
With this in mind, interactive content creates a value exchange between you and your clients; it is a conventional pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It becomes easier for users to share their e-mail addresses with a company that has made an effort to create something truly engaging and familiarizes the users so that your relevant audiences will easily be drawn to you.
One of the wonderful ideas to build relationships with cold leads is to present them a content they can engage with. Once the bond is formed between you and them, lead generation will become easier.
Improve brand loyalty
A major benefit of interactive content is involving audiences in your story and making them a part of it. With engaging content, you create a shared experience for your users, whether it is through a minicourse, assessment, quiz, or any interactive infographic. It helps your audience develop a deeper loyalty towards your brand; once they interact with it, they will know what they are investing in.
If we consider it at the fundamental core level, interactive content is an exercise in trust-building. It gives consumers a chance to know your brand better and its positive experiences that shape their perception of who you are and what you have to offer them.
Interactive Content Statistics
Seeing how today’s audience loves dynamic and interactive content options that demand active participation in the experience, the demand for the same has increased. The content has to be more than just informational these days to keep the audience with you throughout the experience. Upgrading a simple piece of information to a participatory experience that has the power to resonate deeply with the audience.
If you are still not convinced about how powerful interactive content can be as your marketing strategy, then look at these statistics to change your mind.
- 88% of marketers claim that interactive content helps their brand stand out
- 96% of users start quizzes on Buzzfeed and finish them
- Way more online visitors will watch a video than reading content, and 43% of them prefer interactive video over standard video
In a mini-course, you can have a variety of interactive content. You can create a fusion of information and interaction with videos , quizzes, surveys, and personalized messages.
Interactivity is at the core of mini-courses. Now, let’s point to the importance of interactivity and the benefits you will get from it.
How to use interactive content, and how effective is it?
The flexibility of interactive content allows you to set different goals using your interactive content, and there are several ways to use it. You can use interactive content to draw traffic and generate leads in numerous ways. Let’s look through a few of them:
- Interactive ads
- Interactive social media posts
- Interactive landing pages
- Interactive e-mails
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last decade, you must have heard the phrase “content is king”. However, the rising problem here is the reduced attention span of the users over time. Finding a way to stand out in the sea of information is vital, and the answer is interactive content.
Interactive content helps you in numerous ways, which include:
– Grabbing users’ attention
– Providing instant value
– Delivering personalized answers
– Engaging your audience and keeping them entertained
What is interactive content on social media?
Engagement is the key to truly up your social media management game. Step further than likes, comments, and shares on social media and engage your audience well enough to take more interest in your brand. Give your audience a simple to immersive experience; the goal is to give them a reason to interact with your media beyond basic likes and shares.
Many creators on social media fall into the rut of creating content just for the sake of it and wonder why they do not see results anymore. Keeping interaction content forefront of your social media engagement game, you would be intentionally thinking about ways to involve your audience with you and keep them entertained for longer.
Use interactive memes to connect with your audience, use comparisons and let people comment on their POVs, and swoop in with the latest trending memes to come off all-updated. Take small risks but don’t go overboard and sabotage your efforts altogether.
Examples of social media interactive content:
- Facebook/Instagram polls
- Quizzes
- Contests and giveaways
- Surveys
Why does interactive content help in lead generation?
People always question the potential of interactive content; yes, they can be engaging for the audience and bring more traffic, but can it generate a lead? Let’s learn about the same in more detail.
Interactive content is user-friendly and fun.
Everybody is bombarded with constant information they are receiving online, which reduces attention span and less time allocated for specific content. And interactive content’s job is to hold users’ attention for longer with experiences like quizzes, polls, and more, or calculators to solve problems on their behalf then and there.
Customers enjoy consuming content that invokes them to use the creative side of their brain, making it more likely for them to try it and even more likely for you to get the lead.
Which interactive content works best for the marketing funnel?
Enhance your marketing funnel by boosting lead generation with the help of interactive content. For prospects, a good marketer must personalize every stage of the buyer’s journey, and haven’t we already discussed how interactive content is all about personalization?
Now let’s find out which type of interactive content is right for your lead generation strategies in the marketing funnel at every stage:
Awareness stage
At this stage, you tell your prospects about you and promote your brand awareness.
Here you can use the below-mentioned type of interactive content to generate leads:
- Giveaways and contests
- Interactive blogs
- Quizzes and personality tests
- Interactive e-mails and newsletters
It is no surprise that all types mentioned above can be achieved by a single mini-course! Simply create a mini-course with videos and quizzes, share in your emails and newsletters or embed it on your landing pages or blogs.
Consideration stage
The awareness stage enlightens prospects of their problems; now is the right time to offer a solution without actually being all salesy. Explain how you can be of help rather than convincing them to take your help regardless.
Here you can use the below-mentioned types of interactive content to generate leads:
- Infographics
- Recommendation quizzes
- Videos
- Webinars
Sometimes asking is the best way of teaching! You can prove your expertise on a subject with a mini-course. Make sure to add quizzes in this mini-course and allow people to test their knowledge before they are convinced to accept what you have to offer.
Decision stage
This is the stage where your prospect is about to make a decision, and here’s where they need your trust the most. Assure them of your performance but do so subtly; convince them you are what they are looking for, and that is how you boost lead generation through interactive content.
Here are the types of interactive content you can use:
- Case study blogs
- ROI/Cost/Savings calculators
- Competitor comparison quizzes
Interactive content ideas to boost lead generation with Mini Course Generator
If you aim to generate leads from interactive content, make it fun, engaging, and high-quality. Your efforts will be fruitless if your interactive content ideas do not convert your visitors into potential buyers. So there are different strategies that you can employ to capture those valuable leads.
Let’s look at how your interactive content can help you capture leads and customers.
Mini-Courses
You can create microcontent easily with Mini Course Generator. Create a mini-course with helpful information that you think your audience will find useful. Make sure to add a social share button to your mini-course. This way, your audience will be able to reshare your content and allow new leads to find you.
Needless to say, you can collect emails from them by promising to send more useful content through your email newsletter. Bingo!
Quizzes
As we have mentioned multiple times earlier, quizzes can be super fun and sometimes too irresistible not to give in; I mean, why would one not wanna know “How well do you know the basics of social media?”
Even statistics prove that 96% of BuzzFeed’s users finish the quizzes after starting them. That way, you can engage your users more closely and take them wherever you want. This would mean getting loads and loads of leads.
When quizzes are personalized, you can promote your services with a personalized experience for your prospects.
Prepare a quiz with Mini Course Generator and award your audience, depending on their score, with specialized offers.
Mini-Course Collections
If you are not quite sure in which specific topic your leads will be interested in, the best solution is to make them choose from a menu ready to be explored!
You can easily create a mini-course collection with Mini Course Generator. This way, you can present content in an ordered way and together as a bundle.
Your audience is free to explore while jumping back and forth between the mini-courses without leaving the index pages.
A mini-course collection is actually a multi-funnel, and your leads are free to proceed further in the one they like the most.
All in all…
The versatile nature of mini-courses got your back when it comes to building strong relationships with your clients at first sight with the help of interactive content! Several use cases are possible, including those presented in this article. Discover several more ideas on our blog.
So go ahead and create a mini-course with Mini Course Generator to achieve more with ease and speed!