3 Ways Interactive Content Converts New Visitors Into New Leads

6 minute read

Upland Admin

We all want better lead conversion rates. Even if you’re not directly involved with demand generation efforts on your particular team, it’s quite a feat to be able to report high conversions on any campaign.

But with all the content bombarding our visitors on a daily basis, how can we catch their attention and hold it long enough for a conversion? Can marketers do this at scale as part of their core strategy?

The countless hours and dollars we spend attracting visitors to our website demand we spend an equal amount of time figuring out how to best convert them when they arrive.

Producing high-quality, relevant content topics is the first step, but delivering them in a highly effective format is really where you can drive results. Interactive content like assessments, quizzes, interactive infographics, and calculators provides highly engaging user experiences that keep conversion rates high. For larger assets, layering in animations, graphic annotations, and questions to eBooks and white papers can also provide powerful results.

In this article, we’ll cover three reasons interactive content improves visitor conversions, including more clicks on calls to action, better completion rates, and more data delivery.

Irresistible Calls to Action

The trigger that keeps your audience engaged—a strong call to action (CTA)—is a vital part of all content channels, whether an email, blog, landing page, or social post. This small piece of language is often overlooked in the content creation process, and delivered as merely “Read More” or “Download Now,” buttons and links we’ve seen so much that start to be ignored.

Using interactive content in the form of quizzes, assessments, or surveys allows you to move past ordinary CTAs and offer a personal and active experience for the user. This gives your content some pop right from the start.

For a B2B example, we can look at HotSchedules, an employee management software solution. They created an interactive quiz, How Efficiently Are You Managing Labor?, and used an action-oriented CTA, “Take the Quiz,” for their promotion.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/NvbO2pJXLCxLYoh1Zzp-2dloz5SzKtSty562wDpxzMHKyi0xVLxMS6xmAsw0516uZNzuvHKFBEhakGTbLJldOiljharB5A40Z_AC-O22_d_Tsq_i31yl_6L2trMQ3ymk9vwLWZY1

For a B2C example, Dos Equis recently launched an interactive assessment that riffed on the theme of their “Most Interesting Man” campaign. The assessment flipped the focus to their audience by asking them how interesting they are, and to “prove it,” ranking them with other participants.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/8tteiELDm4Au__ir0lJqNQVUrnzNleMAfvUdAUxzJ16wov-yHt7c3d4srdBfp6FCU_fwExno3yKJbp5h56rUzgbJMif60BVefyAXCzn1FsgW2oXPYaDS1Mu2G_15LM5PiF3jKulP

Image source: impactbnd.com

Other CTAs that pique interest for content experiences like assessments, quizzes, or calculators are:

  • Discover Your Persona
  • Find Out Where You Stand
  • Test Your Knowledge
  • How Much Do You Know?
  • See How Much You Can Save

Active Content Experiences

According to a 2015 study by DemandGen Report, 91% of buyers prefer more interactive and visual content (up from 88% the year before). There’s no doubt publications like Buzzfeed have impacted how we experience digital content, and the popularity of quizzes and assessments is no new thing. Even the The New York Times boasts an interactive quiz, “How Ya’ll, Youse and You Guys Talk,” which was their most popular article in 2013.

What does all this mean for converting new visitors into leads? By providing an engaging, active experience for your audience, you can decrease bounce rate, and increase conversion and completion rate by 2-3x that of static content.

With the amount of content that flows across everyone’s screens these days, capturing your visitor’s attention through participation helps cut through the noise. Not only that; the value you deliver becomes more personal and individualized. Whether it’s to find out what spirit animal you are, or to assess and learn how on point your selling strategy is, the more individualized and user-focused your content is, the more engagement and clicks it will receive.

Providing Value Before and After the Lead Form

The popular practice of putting lead gates before your content assets is practical from a marketer’s perspective, but often a sigh-inducing experience for your audience. Though gathering information from interested visitors is a key part of offering inbound content, lead gates can have a roadblock effect on your prospects. Once you have someone interested, you want to keep that momentum going through the entire experience and into the next piece of content.

Where does interactive content come in? Three ways.

1. Lead form location

With more dynamic content, you can be flexible with the lead form location. By placing it in the middle instead of the start of, say, an eBook, you give more preview to the visitor and build momentum for that piece of content. Wistia, a B2B video platform, found their CTAs located in the middle of their customer’s videos converted the best at around 17%.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/NAgjqQCDJ0fqxh-2-zW3MPX6aO8kYoRvgD0zJrfFv7gY7kE5rV_7IKmAREQlqMD8hgSkShj5ISDgIqdxrBjKnJM6g-9QqK1Oj8r9EQLP1yQdg3aPEenFICw10uK0ZzLO1zLuqNEk

Image source: wistia.com

2. Gated results

By positioning a piece of content to deliver an end result like an assessment or a calculator, you can lead gate just the results page—establishing a greater investment from the user with the content before asking for anything in return.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/geN86wES_fumWxXP6IlguLQXacGI9eNoweDcpQpc-73FQFUEBXV2UywRLXSU_Lft5u5KRUX8jqun3qoeGZyEWZtGSZZ_Q14F2snY0yY7HGhn53B5HKtKbfykiXZ4mOfO72aCmBWU

The best part about this approach is you can still provide compelling information and messaging during the experience before the lead form, an opportunity not available if someone bounces at the initial lead gate.

C. Data without a lead form

This is the big bonus perk of creating savvy interactive content. Remember that seemingly casual, top-of-the-funnel assessment “what spirit animal you are,” from above? A closer look reveals that Prophix is actually gathering more data than meets the eye.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/9VV1TX6WsgOIxC7_54Ci87gYmwcYqSJJEx1XOCtg99LYQCHEbZpV2qr3oAGaYMeYX5gCroq1_QBjhFlANILu9oHXG8S_Y3WdTDrBUeYSFKOYlZHv4gRVNRDbrUBK1swR9LVdRbqf

As part of the assessment, prospect data was gathered about the individual’s role at their organization, and how they feel about the state of their financial data process. Similarly, lead form data can be gathered throughout the experience, spread out with casual questions that go along with your eBook or infographic. This approach not only gives the visitor more value before submitting their information, making them more likely to convert, but also fuels your database with better profile data.

Ready to Better Convert New Visitors Into New Leads?

When your goal is to increase conversion rates on your website, content assets, or email promotions, the initiative is largely the same: create engagement. The more participation and activity you can offer visitors, the more likely they’ll give your content a second glance instead of getting distracted by the next thing on their screen.

Prompting visitors with strong CTAs that promote a unique experience, and then delivering a more personal result based on their interaction, is a powerful way to boost lead conversion. The real plus is learning more about these visitors during the process, allowing you to sort out good leads from great leads, and focusing content and sales efforts more sharply.

Reliable products. Real results.

Every day, thousands of companies rely on Upland to get their jobs done simply and effectively. See how brands are putting Upland to work.

View Success Stories