How to Make Interactive Marketing Your Go-To Strategy

Savvy marketers are adopting an interactive approach to their campaigns and seeing great success. Often times, marketers can be intimidated by the idea of interactive marketing because it seems costly, hard to implement or track, and we fear it will require a lot of time and effort. However, all these worries couldn’t be further from the truth. Successful companies in industries ranging from non-profits to online retail have embraced interactive marketing as a staple of their campaign playbook.

Let’s examine three strategies companies use to keep their campaigns interactive and engaging. The beauty of interactive marketing lies in its ease of creation and implementation. These ideas are the perfect tool for your interactive marketing toolbelt and will increase the versatility of your campaign conception!

Invite your Audience to Participate:

One of the simplest ways to make interactive marketing your go-to strategy is to invite your audience to participate with your content in some way. Quizzes, polls, games, and calculators are all easy pieces of sticky content you can create quickly. Not only do they encourage audience participation, but readers love interactive content that invites them to interact. In fact, the most read article on the New York Times in 2013 wasn’t actually an article, but a quiz!

American Red Cross implements this strategy often with a variety of quizzes, like their Fire Safety Quiz. Not only do these quizzes invite interaction, but they are also attached to an accompanying readiness checklist, taking the Red Cross’s content off the digital screen and into the real world for implementation.

Personalize your Interactive Marketing:

Interactive marketing and personalization go hand in hand. Creating a strong customer base means understanding your customer’s preferences and adapting your marketing strategy accordingly. Personalization is a highly effective but underutilized strategy. In fact, 71% of companies fail to personalize their websites. Get ahead of the curve by adding in small touches of personalization and watch your interaction and engagement grow!

Apparel retailer BustedTees is a great example of how small changes in personalization can have huge effects on your bottom line. They were able to increase email revenue by 8% by simply personalizing their email send time based on time zone and past opening behaviors. This easy switch from the email “blast” method to a more nuanced approach tailored to the customer had a big effect on their interaction and boosted sales!

Offer Customers a Fun Interactive Incentive

Everyone loves when it feels like their favorite brands appreciate them! It’s nice to receive a little gift or reward from the companies that get our hard earned money. Some easy ways to incorporate this interactive marketing strategy include reaching out to customers on their birthday with a discount or gift and giving customers discounts based on loyalty programs. Boosting customer loyalty can have a huge effect on bottom line. In fact, the advisory firm Bain & Co found that increasing customer retention by just 5% boosts profits by 25-95%.

Companies like Prize Candle know that discounts coupled with interactive content create a winning solution for customer engagement and loyalty. A case study of one of Prize Candle’s flash sales showed that by incorporating Zembula’s interactive content they were able to create a 60% boost in revenue over previous static campaigns.

No matter the varieties you choose to implement, adding interactive marketing to your strategy playbook will help increase the success and concept of your campaigns. Use these three simple approaches to craft a campaign that won’t eat up too much time and effort, but will show the return on investment you’re looking for. Interactive marketing doesn’t have to be time consuming or expensive, but instead you can incorporate it as a go-to strategy for future campaigns!