Interactive marketing offers a modern approach to marketing by emphasizing engaging and interactive campaigns that promote two-way dialogue. Unlike traditional marketing, interactive marketing creates experiences that involve your audience in the marketing process. In this article, you’ll learn about what interactive marketing is, how it differs from traditional forms of marketing, and effective ways to employ it.
Interactive marketing defined
Interactive marketing is a strategy involving active participation from your audience. Instead of simply showcasing your products or services, you invite consumers to engage with your brand through two-way communication. Engaging your audience is achieved through online quizzes, surveys, contests, games, social media, collaborating with influencers, and other personalized experiences.
With interactive marketing, you create more engaging customer experiences, improving brand awareness, brand loyalty, and conversions. Interactive marketing strategies allow companies to gather insightful data on their target audience and use it to improve future marketing campaigns. As we progress through the digital age and have a wealth of information at our fingertips, consumers require personalized and engaging content to make a purchase.
Interactive marketing vs. traditional marketing
What separates interactive marketing from traditional strategies is the level of engagement between a consumer and the business. Traditional marketing is a form of one-way communication where companies push a message out to a consumer through mass media, such as commercials on the radio, TV, newspapers, and magazines. Traditional marketing focuses on reaching out to as many people as possible to catch the attention of potential customers.
Instead, interactive marketing offers conversational experiences with its audience, allowing customers to engage in the marketing process. Interactive marketing focuses on encouraging customers to interact with the brand. Offering a personalized experience to your audience encourages them to engage with your brand on their terms. Interactive marketing results in a more meaningful experience and allows you to collect meaningful data on their preferences, interests, and behaviors.
Interactive marketing strategies
Now that you know more about interactive marketing, let’s talk about ways your business can employ it in your marketing strategies.
Quizzes, polls, surveys
All these tactics have one thing in common; they require active participation from the audience. People love sharing their opinions, and offering a quiz, poll, or survey allows your business to collect valuable data to improve future marketing strategies. By tailoring your questionnaires to different groups of people within your audience, you create a more personalized and engaging experience for your customers. These forms of interactive marketing are also easily shareable, allowing you to reach a wider audience and offer educational value while building trust with your consumers.
Personalized emails
Email marketing isn’t new, but personalization of your campaigns can vastly improve their effectiveness. By personalizing emails to include your recipient’s name and past purchase history, you create more relevant and targeted messages leading to improved open rates. These personalized emails benefit your conversion rates by tailoring messages to your audience’s interests or need to create more compelling calls to action. Personalized emails allow you to build a stronger relationship between the customer and your brand, encouraging customer loyalty.
Calculators
Have you ever come across a specialized digital calculator offered by a business? These calculators aren’t just helpful but are powerful interactive tools to market a business. By creating calculators customized to a user’s specific needs, companies offer personalized experiences for their audience.
Calculators provide valuable services to users, such as calculating savings or estimating how much a puppy will grow. These calculators build brand authority and establish trust between the user and the company. Calculators are also highly shareable, which assists in widening your audience.
Interactive videos
Interactive video content is another powerful interactive marketing strategy. Working with content creators within your brand’s niche and requiring active participation from the viewer increases engagement and interest in your product. By tailoring your video content to your audience’s needs or interests, you form a stronger connection between them and your brand.
If your business intends to inform your audience, having them engage with the presented information and test their knowledge as they go, allows them to better understand your message. Interactive videos also exponentially improve shareability, further assisting in building brand awareness and reaching a broader audience.
User-generated content (UGC)
Utilizing UGC in your marketing campaigns encourages your audience to perceive your brand as more authentic and trustworthy when compared to branded content. Additionally, showing your audience you engage with the content they create around your brand encourages others to create and share their own content. This increases engagement and participation from the audience and builds a sense of community around your brand.
UGC is also a cost-effective marketing strategy because it relies on the content your audience creates rather than expensive production costs. The best people to endorse your brand are the customers who purchase and love your products. Sharing UGC is social proof of your brand’s quality and value and offers a more dynamic marketing campaign.
Chatbots
Chatbots are available 24/7 and provide your potential and current customers with immediate assistance, even outside business hours. If your business offers a complicated service or receives many inquiries to customer support, chatbots can free up the hands of your employees and improve engagement in the process.
In addition, chatbots can collect valuable data on the users who interact with them, including their preferences, needs, and frequently asked questions. Your business can use this information to improve future marketing strategies and product development.
Infographics
If you’re presenting complex information to your audience, infographics offer a visually appealing way to grab their attention. Infographics simplify complex information and demonstrate it clearly and concisely, making it easier for the viewer to understand. Infographics may also help to reinforce your business’s branding by incorporating your colors, logo, and other visual elements.
Additionally, infographics are easily adaptable to various marketing channels such as social media, email, and blog posts and are highly shareable.
Interacting with customers
Interactive marketing is a powerful tool in the modern marketing world. By engaging and building relationships with customers, you involve them in a two-way dialogue and increase engagement, build brand loyalty, and drive results for your business. From quizzes, infographics, calculators, user-generated content, and more, interactive marketing can increase the effectiveness of your marketing spend. As the marketing landscape continues to evolve, interactive marketing becomes an increasingly vital part of successful marketing campaigns.
Ashley Nielsen
Ashley Nielsen earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration Marketing at Point Loma Nazarene University. She is a freelance writer who loves to share knowledge about general business, marketing, lifestyle, wellness, and financial tips. During her free time, she enjoys being outside, staying active, reading a book, or diving deep into her favorite music.
