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Why Interactive Marketing is the Way Forward for Businesses

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Interactive bilateral exchange is always better than passive one-way communication.

Indeed, customers are likely to have a more satisfactory experience if they engage with brands through interactive experience instead of passively receiving information from them.

In a report by the Content Marketing Institute, 81 percent of a survey’s respondents agreed that interactive content is “more effective” than static content in attracting the audience’s attention.

This preference is a key factor that encourages many companies to shift from traditional to interactive marketing.

So what is interactive marketing? The definition of interactive marketing may vary, but basically, it is about establishing an effective two-way exchange with consumers through various formats. They may include videos, audio, quizzes, visuals, infographics, social media, blogs, and even games.

Why Interactive Marketing?

Interactive marketing has risen to become one of the most important concepts in today’s corporate world. Now let’s take a closer look at key driving forces that push the development of interactive marketing.

Traditional marketing no longer works

Decades ago, traditional advertising was a common practice for brands to promote their products and expand branding awareness.

In the old good days of traditional marketing, brands often marketed their products on print, billboards, TV, and radio, or cold calling and handouts.

Time has changed and so has marketing tactics. Nowadays, a variety of social media platforms have been made available and Artificial Intelligence has been increasingly used in content creation. Modern audiences now prefer engaging, interactive, and personalized content and are too busy for generic advertisements.

With this changing preference and rise of technologies, companies can’t be an outlier in the race to use interactive marketing.

New technologies emerge

It’s not exaggerating to say the Internet and technologies have shaken the marketing world to its core. In the last few decades, there has been a massive expansion of interactive marketing thanks to the availability of powerful tools enabled by technological advancements.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) along with Augmented Reality (AR) are among examples of advanced technologies.

Another notable technology is the Big Data system. This enables marketers to implement personalized marketing activities, especially in recommending content for the audience.With very strong advantages, new technologies have encouraged the development of interactive marketing.

Social media proliferates

Many studies agree that social media has dramatically changed the dynamics of consumer engagement in interactive marketing. With social media, users are now offered multiple shopping options and shoppable posts via external links.

It is also very interesting to see that interactivity is one of the most visible characteristics of social media itself. Apps like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter make users feel the great need to engage by like, sharing, or tagging a friend for particular products. This pushes interactive marketers to flow with the trend to accommodate the needs of tech-savvy customers.

all channels of interactive marketing image

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Audiences prefer the bilateral interactive exchange to one-way passive communication
Interactive marketing is about establishing an effective two-way exchange with consumers through various formats including videos, audio, quizzes, visuals, infographics, social media, blogs, and even games.
Interactive marketing helps to improve conversion rate and audience engagement.
Professionals working in the interactive marketing field need to constantly update themselves with new skills. They may vary from data analysis to multimedia skills like video, audio, and design.

Benefits of Interactive Marketing

Let’s explore three main advantages of interactive marketing that really matter to businesses:

Higher conversion rate

With interactive marketing, calls-to-action messages become clearer as well as more compelling. Interactive marketing makes it easy for them to find and click buttons like “Add to list”, “Buy now” and “Sign up for a free trial” as well as “Subscribe to a newsletter”. This results in a seamless journey to conversion, avoiding potential customers being stuck at some points before completing a purchase. Therefore, customers are more likely to make a purchase or try a service.

Better audience engagement

According to Forbes, interactive content is the best way to captivate millennial and Generation Z audiences for its “ideal mix of authenticity and audience participation”.

It cited a poll as saying that 81 percent of North American content marketers agreed that interactive content is better than static at capturing the attention of audiences.

Interactive content also has the potential for virality. When users find an experience or content enjoyable or useful, they will share it with their friends, colleagues, and relatives. This helps brands reach a massive amount of audience.

Real-time feedback

Through a variety of interactive content, such as quizzes and polls, brands can get feedback on how customers feel about the business.

Those questions might include:

At which level of satisfaction do you have with the experience?
How can brands further improve their products or services?
What else do customers want to try that you haven’t provided them?

From these answers, brands understand the areas where they should improve. They can make prompt adjustments to ensure the needs and preferences of customers are accommodated.

Interactive Marketing challenges and solutions

Now that we understand the benefits of interactive marketing, what about challenges? Here are two main challenges interactive marketers may encounter. We also provide suggestions on how they can cope with these difficulties:

Lack of understanding of customers’ behavior

Knowing the audience is very important in marketing. However, we must admit that human behavior is very dynamic. It is shaped mainly by psychological characteristics and at the same time, can vary from person to person.

Therefore, one might feel it like an uphill battle to seek a full understanding of the audience, who they are, what their preferences are, and how they change over time.

For example, nowadays audiences prefer such video trends as explainer videos, social media videos, and presentation videos. However, who knows they may shift to a completely different direction in the next few months or a few years due to their own preference or external factors?

Suggestion

A great amount of data is now available and this is especially helpful in the marketing world. Good interactive marketers should make the best use of data to gain insights into the target audience.

There are 3 main types of customer data that a professional should consider for their analysis:

Identity data

This includes customers’ names, email addresses, gender, phone number, age, or race.

This is crucial to developing customer personas. It can be collected through forms that they fill out on the company website, for example, newsletter subscription, contact forms, account sign-up, and purchase.

Identity data gives businesses a clear sense of the people who engage with them. Thanks to this, they can create content, messages, and campaigns that are suitable, compelling as well as relevant to their audience segments.

Behavioral data

Behavioral data can include purchase history, abandoned carts, subscriptions, and order values. This type of data shows how your customers directly engage with your brand.

Companies can develop content and product recommendations as well as offers based on data about customers' interactions and behavior.

Engagement data

It includes website visits, click-through rates, bounce rates, conversions, ad engagement, social post engagement, and email engagement. The data can help interactive marketers understand the habits and preferences of potential customers. From here they are better aware of which types of interactive marketing campaigns may work for the audience.

This type of data is available on your website’s analytics page, marketing, and social media campaigns.

Insufficient skills in interactive marketing

The second challenge an interactive marketer might have is the lack of skills.

Though interactive marketing has been developing for a few decades now, this is still a relatively new form of marketing and it has been constantly evolving.

Traditional marketers might feel overwhelmed by the diverse range of content types they need to work on. They have to learn to take photos, create quizzes, or produce videos or even make podcasts, among many others.

Suggestion

Working as an interactive marketer, one must continuously update themselves with new skills. They can range from data analysis, content development, and SEO to social media and multimedia skills.

One can find the niche that they want to focus on, for example, SEO, social media, or multimedia. By doing this they can narrow down the learning objectives, select the target audience, and utilize the most relevant resources.

And it's such good news that there are now so many ways to acquire a new skill or hone existing ones. You can either follow an expert, participate in industry workshops, or take online courses or just do all of them.

Learn from experts

This is, for sure, one of the best ways to learn from others. Let’s say you follow a renowned expert in marketing.

You can learn a lot from their opinions, mindset, and advice in person, or online (through blogs, interviews, webinars, books, and training courses).

You can also follow them on the platforms that they often share including Blog, Twitter, Linkedin, or Facebook.

Take online courses

Taking part in online courses is also a great way for interactive marketers to upskill. Attending these courses helps busy marketers save time and money.

On the other hand, they are still able to have access to a structured and systematic approach. They can learn so many things, from skills, and tools to strategies in interactive marketing.

Plus, there are many options to choose from: free or paid, self-paced or instructor-led, course or program.

Attend industry events

Last but not least, don’t hesitate to attend industry events. Here you can not only learn from experts but also update your knowledge with the latest trends, and network with so many amazing people.

You can go for offline or online events, whichever suits you. These events cover many aspects and concepts of interactive marketing. Some of them will wow you, and in some others, you can take away many lessons and apply them to your own company.

Conclusion

In summary, interactive marketing simply is about developing an interactive relationship with consumers through videos, quizzes, visuals, infographics, and social media as well as games, among many others.

A marketer might encounter some challenges as this field is still pretty new and has been constantly evolving. But don’t worry, with the suggestions we share above, you will thrive as a professional interactive marketer.

Here at Consultport, we have the expertise of many consultants who can help companies implement inspiring marketing campaigns. If you want to become part of this pool of talents or need consultation from them, don’t hesitate to contact us.

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