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Interactive content is the next step in the evolution of inbound marketing
Interactive Content –
In 2009, many marketers began to effectively generate leads and earn an expert image through educational and entertainment content distribution, which was the beginning of the rapid development of inbound marketing.
However, with the increasing popularity of the above practice, the quality of the materials distributed by the brands began to deteriorate, and the frequency of generation increased. Content creation has become a mechanical process, devoid of a creative aspect – the Internet started to fill up with tens of thousands of posts, webinars, e-books, and reports every day that were not of unique value and create solely to obtain the contact information of target customers.
Under the pressure of intense publishing schedules, marketers rush to create as much content as possible, working on quantity rather than quality. As a result, audiences receive low-quality content, and businesses receive poor inbound marketing performance.
However, even valuable content ceases to be effective. For example, the likelihood that a helpful post will stand out from a vast stream of other articles and receive due attention from the target audience is 3,720 to 1.
We get the following: dissatisfied consumers, low-quality content, and ineffective inbound marketing. What is the reason?
Attack of the clones: “one-time” and “passive” content
The ineffectiveness of today’s content marketing is due to two reasons:
“Disposable” value
The consumer only interacts with the content (such as reading a blog post) once in most cases. Therefore, marketers must quickly generate new content to keep the audience engaged. Sacrificing its uniqueness – the same content rewrite in different words. In extreme cases, the post fills with a set of incoherent thoughts that are of no use.
Passivity
Reading, viewing, or listening to content requires two limited resources – time and attention. With all our desire, we will not be able to watch, for example, 15 webinars per day: firstly, there may not be enough time for this, and secondly. Since acquaintance with the content is passive. Our attention will gradually dissipate, and we will not internalize the information presented.
These two problems are interconnected – content marketing loses effectiveness because the audience ceases to perceive the vast flow of “one-off” and “passive” content. Marketers, realizing the need to retain consumer attention, are creating more ineffective materials. The result is a vicious circle.
Interactive content
Interactive content is a tool that can return content marketing to its former efficiency and bring it to an entirely new level.
The effectiveness of interactive materials is that they involve the user in certain activities. Such as creating a complete set of a car using an interactive configurator.
Examples of interactive and multimedia content are quizzes, calculators, tests, polls. There are also interactive versions of traditional materials (e.g., infographics, catalogs, e-books) that allow users to change the presentation of information.
Interactivity is a creative and effective way to increase the attractiveness of content and improve its digestibility (as proven by many studies, people learn better by doing empirical exercises). This eliminates the problem of the limited value of classic materials in two ways:
First, interactivity makes it possible to create unique value for the audience through creative design and presentation of materials. However, we are not talking about a new way to present the old. But about a new format for teaching the audience and delivering content. Take, for example, an e-book about calculating ROI – this material back up with an interactive calculator. (Useful for quickly calculating profitability), an assessment tool (will evaluate the user’s ROI compared to other businesses). And a quiz (will help to understand the material better).
Second, interactive educational content has long-term value – most users will not read a blog post more than once. They will use the interactive ROI calculator frequently and over time. Consequently, interactivity not only restores the balance between the quantity and quality of content marketing. Assets but also increases the effectiveness of content as a lead generation tool.