Everyone and their mother is online these days, which means today’s consumers are more tech-savvy than ever before. The audience pool of potential customers has grown, but so has the competition. Therefore, simply having an online presence isn’t enough for businesses and service providers to compete in the digital age. That’s where interactive marketing comes in.
Benefits of Interactive Marketing
Interactive marketing refers to digital experiences, or “any online interaction that an individual has with a business or organization.” This can be as simple as a share button on social media or a chat bot on a website. According to Contentful, “Digital experience, sometimes referred to as DX, is a term that describes any online interaction that an individual has with a business or organization.“
The most obvious benefit of interactive marketing is its potential to reach customers through multiple channels. The modern consumer gets the majority of their information online, and many top brands have already shifted focus to meet this demand. Some specific benefits of interactive marketing are:
Improves Consumer Engagement
In this era of ever-shortening attention spans, it has become increasingly vital to grab and keep a customer’s interest. Content like videos, polls and pop-ups can be utilized to engage multiple senses and increase the user’s time spent on a webpage and other online platforms. With effective interactive marketing, many of those users will be successfully converted into paying customers.
Consumer Feedback
On the business end, digital experiences are an easy way to gather data about who the customer is and what they’re looking for. Examples include interactive polls or surveys, which provide a direct window into the customer experience. The data collected can then be put towards improving marketing strategy, targeting, and personalization, all of which improve the customer experience.
Strategies for Interactive Marketing
Calculators
Adding a calculator to your business website helps boost traffic and funnel sales. They are especially useful because the user actually wants and needs the calculator’s output, or else they wouldn’t be engaging with it. Some popular examples include calculators for estimating taxes, renting vs. buying, or overhead costs.
Social Media Contests
With all the time people spend on social media platforms, brands have begun to leverage their social media followers by hosting contests. The contest can be as simple as a “like-and-share for a chance to win” or as ambitious as a product redesign with customer submissions. Not only does this type of campaign boost engagement, it also has the potential to go viral as it is shared amongst the customers’ followers, the followers’ followers, and so on.
Gamification
Gamification describes the incorporation of gaming elements into traditionally non-gaming environments. In terms of marketing strategy, gamification serves the purpose of boosting customer engagement by leveraging their motivation to win. The most effective campaigns use a level-up system, which provides rewards for the customer’s actions depending on their level of engagement. A simple and popular form of gamification is the ubiquitous rewards points program utilized by many of our favorite brands.
A Digital Landscape in Flux
Not only is interactive marketing an effective tool to convert users into return customers, it’s just plain fun. Instead of aggressive ads and sales pitches, provide enjoyable, digital experiences to attract and grow your audience.