A lot has changed over the years when it comes to digital marketing.
While pages upon pages of textual content used to be the only option, the rise in what’s technically possible has made it easier than ever to create a highly rich experience that stands out.
Simply put, encouraging your audience to take part in your campaigns is highly crucial to getting a positive response.
And how do you do that? Interactive content, of course.
Videos, quizzes, slideshows, eBooks, and other similar methods all make it easier and more effective for your audience to engage with the information you’re presenting in a more personal way.
The end result is a:
- Better response rate.
- Increased level of understanding of your message.
- Improved user experience.
All things that any digital marketer would love to achieve.
In this guide, we’ll go over what interactivity is and why it is important to include interactive content when creating a marketing plan. Plus, we’ll offer a few tips on how to integrate it into your campaigns.
Ready to get started? Let’s go.
First of All, What is Interactivity?
Interactivity is the process of engaging with content in a way that goes beyond just reading text on a page.
A few good examples include calculators, quizzes, videos, slideshows, and downloadable content. And those are just a few short examples.
Even podcasts could be considered interactive, as they go beyond just taking in text on a screen.
But that doesn’t mean your interactive content has to be just online, either.
Many big brands have found success by giving their customers exciting engagement opportunities, like pop-up shops and limited brand experiences.
However, there is one key factor that makes interactive content unique — it gives companies the chance to collect data in real-time based on the various ways a user interacts with available options.
For brands, this can be a huge way to discover more about your ideal customer and adjust your buyer persona accordingly.
After all, if the interactive content you’re creating includes ways to collect additional data from your target market, then you’re able to use that information to improve and adjust future campaigns for a better response rate.
What are Some of the Benefits of Interactive Content?
Adding interactive content to your marketing campaigns is beneficial for a variety of reasons.
Not only does it make it easier for customers to feel more connected with your brand, but it also allows them to understand the overall message in a way that motivates them more on their unique buyer journey.
But that isn’t where the positives end. A few more benefits to consider include:
Increased Engagement
When the visitor has the opportunity to take part in the information they’re receiving, it increases the likelihood that they’ll absorb your message, instructions, or guidelines more quickly.
Further, interactive content breeds curiosity and excitement about your brand.
Increased Conversions
Value exchange is important in digital marketing.
For example, by asking customers to give you their email address in return for access to interactive content, you’re achieving this exchange.
In turn, this gives you the opportunity to increase your conversion rate and see better overall results.
Improved Consumer Education
Interactive content is an excellent way to present important details about your product or service in a manner that’s easy to understand, fun, and unique.
Better Data Analytics
As we briefly touched on above, the ability to collect data as the user makes certain decisions within their interactive content journey can make it much easier to understand likes, dislikes, preferences, etc.
Higher Market Differentiation
Interactive content comes in many forms.
By using it as part of your overall marketing strategy, you can ensure your business stands out from the competition.
Increased Sharing
Your customers like content that’s fun and unique.
In fact, they are much more likely to share interactive content than static content.
That means by simply adding this type of media to your approach, you can help improve your brand’s total audience reach.
Why Do You Need a Marketing Plan?
Creating a marketing plan is a crucial part of any brand’s success in digital marketing.
After all, you wouldn’t embark on a long road trip without a map, right?
Marketing plans offer far more than just ideas of what you hope to accomplish with your campaigns, too.
They give you the ability to keep your team on the same page in terms of goals and strategies.
In addition, they often include the why and how behind the method you’re using to achieve your goals.
Companies that do not use marketing plans often find themselves in a situation where they can’t effectively execute what is important to their strategy.
Think of it as your brand’s ultimate guideline as to:
- What you’re going to accomplish.
- How you’re going to get there
- And the steps your team will complete along the way.
When it comes to adding interactive content to your digital marketing strategy, your marketing plan is important for keeping on track with creation, launch, and analytics.
Without this guide to explain what you’re doing and how you’ll do it, it can be hard to keep focus.
And that’s why you’ll definitely want to have a marketing plan in place for your digital media campaigns.
Creating a Marketing Plan: 5 Steps to Follow
Now that we’ve discussed why your brand needs interactive content and that you’ll need a marketing plan to get there, let’s go into the process of what steps you need to follow.
While this is a good framework for any business, it is important to remember that some steps might not apply.
For example, if you already have a clear buyer persona in mind, then you might not need to spend as much time in that area.
Check it out:
1. Analyze Your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT)
When it comes to creating a marketing plan, you’ll want to start by formulating a SWOT analysis.
As an acronym, the document includes sections for considering your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Designed to help brands analyze where they currently stand in the market and identify any potential areas of improvement, this information makes it easier to see where you might need to adjust your brand message or increase a specific level of focus.
In addition, don’t be afraid to do two different SWOT analysis reports: one for your brand as a whole and one specific to a campaign or audience.
2. Establish Clear Goals
Next, you’ll want to establish goals for your marketing efforts.
These should be both attainable and clear — not just that you want to increase conversions or get new customers.
Your SWOT analysis should make it easy to identify areas that need the most attention and priority within your marketing campaigns.
From there, decide on a final goal and any smaller goals you hope to achieve along the way.
Then map out the process of how your brand is going to get there, starting with the current status and working through each logical step until finally reaching the end result.
Now, it is important to remember that your goals will likely be a fluid part of your overall marketing campaign.
As you start to get more feedback and data from results, you’ll be able to adjust things accordingly.
3. Define Your Target Buyer Persona
Once you know what you want to achieve and how you plan on getting there, you’ll need to clearly identify your target buyer persona.
No, this is not just your ideal customer. A buyer persona is a fictional representation of what your actual customers might think, act, or say about a specific subject.
Create a small scenario that describes the buyer’s thoughts on your product or service, how it meets their needs, and other related lifestyle bits that would be pertinent to your team’s content creation.
You can even give this fictional buyer a name to keep track and add additional details. The more, the better!
In fact, you’ll likely have three or more different buyer personas when you’re done with this step.
Why? The better you can clarify who you’re directing your content and message to, the easier it is to hone in on a message and voice that resonates with them.
4. Define Your Content Marketing Strategy
Up to this point in the process, you’ve been determining where your company currently stands, the goals you want to achieve, and who you want to buy from you.
Now, it is time to start defining your content marketing strategy.
By this, we mean that you should be thinking about the:
- Types of content you want to create
- Message you want to send
- Channels you plan to use.
When it comes to interactive content, this is where you start to decide what medium you’re going to use and how you’re going to create it.
For example, let’s say you want to create three interactive videos to promote buyer education, an online quiz for better personalization, and an offline experience that cohesively ties in with the rest of the campaign.
This is the part of your marketing plan that should include these details, plus even more.
Add in elements like who you plan on having complete the work, such as an in-house team or an outside creative agency.
You should also add proposed launch dates, an editorial calendar, and how you plan on promoting the content.
And spending extra time on this part of the process is not a bad idea, either.
After all, this is going to be the glue that holds your whole campaign together, so you want to make sure it is as detailed as possible.
5. Post-Launch Results and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
The last part of your marketing plan is really the one that you need to track how well things are working with your campaigns.
But it isn’t something you want to wait to do until you’ve already launched your campaign.
Instead, have a clear plan in place as to what tools you’re going to use to track analytics and what key performance indicators (KPIs) are most important to you.
This can be anything from a percentage increase in conversions or even an uptick in traffic.
Maybe your goals entail getting a set number of leads from a specific source or seeing an increase in visitors from a local area.
What’s included in this section of your marketing plan is going to be highly dependent on your niche, industry, content creation, and overall goals.
However, your main focus should still be what you want to accomplish, how you’re going to get there, and what data you need to analyze to see how well it is all working.
How Can Interactivity Benefit a Marketing Plan?
There are numerous ways including interactive content in your marketing plan can benefit your overall results.
Here are a few important ones to consider:
Increased Personalization & Testing
After you know who your buyer personas are and your overall goals, you can use interactive content to craft a message that is personal and resonates more directly.
The neat part about this is that it enables you to create multiple forms of the same interactive content, then A/B test them to see which works best.
Better Results
When you’ve added interactive content to your marketing plan, you can execute creation easier and with fewer issues.
The end result is better results and an increased response from your customers.
Improved Feedback in Real-Time
Certain forms of interactive content also help you measure the results of your marketing plan more efficiently.
When you have access to feedback from your audience in real-time, it is easier to make little adjustments along the way that can add up to big results.
Wrap Up: Creating a Marketing Plan and Using Interactive Content for Improved Results
When it all comes down to it, creating a marketing plan is crucial for your success as a brand.
Adding in the element of interactive content only makes it easier for you to connect with your target audience and get better results.
Are you interested in learning more about the various types of interactive content available?
Check out our Interactive Content guide for more information!
Start creating interactive content with Ion and increase your marketing results!
Start creating interactive content with Ion and increase your marketing results!
