With an overload of online content, attention has become the new oil for marketers. Businesses that manage to get the most time from customers and prospects win the game, especially if you are in a crowded market.

Given these, you need to stand out to ‘win the hearts’ of your target audience. Using interactive content is one of the most effective ways of doing it. In this article, we will explore how you can leverage interactive content to help your business grow. As usual, we will discuss a few familiar techniques and some you might not have heard of or tried before. I will also list the tools you can use to build interactive content across different channels.

What is interactive content?

I don’t know if there is a standard definition for interactive content. To me, any content type that encourages users to perform multiple actions with an aim to improve engagement and participation is interactive content.

Here are some of the interactive content examples that B2B businesses can use:

1. Spin wheels
2. Quizzes & assessments
3. Webinars and LinkedIn audio events
4. Calculators
5. Free tools
6. Polls
7. Games & contests
8. Interactive infographics

Diving deep into interactive content

As many think, success in using interactive content doesn’t depend on the type of content alone. Rather, it depends more on how you use it. Next, we will learn how to go about applying interactive content in your B2B marketing efforts with a combination of tools and techniques.

1. Spin wheels

Spin wheels are a great way to encourage participation from your website visitors. A spin wheel works like a lucky draw where users can click a button to spin the wheel and win gifts or coupons in return.

But how can you use spin wheels in B2B? Do they really work?

If you expect someone to spin a wheel, share their email ID, and immediately become a customer, that is unlikely to happen. This is true for almost all the interactive content types we discuss today.

Look at this more as an opportunity to bring a user or prospect into your system. Once you get a user’s email ID, you can use it to do different remarketing activities.

You can list coupons, ebooks, access to your courses, a ticket for an event, or anything you like as gifts on the spin wheel. If you don’t have many dollars to spend, think about giving a valuable piece of content in return for the email ID.

You can use a tool like Optinmonster to create a spin wheel easily. You can also custom-build it if you wish. But using a no-code tool makes the job easier. A no-code tool also offers intuitive reporting for you to view the data from the wheel.

Check out the below video from Optinmonster on how a spin wheel works:

2. Quizzes and assessments

Quizzes are one of the least used interactive content types in B2B. But they work. After all, we as humans love unique experiences.

We all would have taken those online IQ tests or general knowledge tests where we enjoy assessing our knowledge or intelligence. Quizzes and assessments in B2B work the same way.

The key to making it work is hiding your offer behind the results window of the quiz – meaning you deliver the gift alongside the results at the end of a quiz or assessment.

Here are a few tools using which you can create quizzes:

• LeadQuizzes
• Typeform Quiz Maker
• Outgrow Quiz Maker

Please watch the below video from LeadQuizzes on how quizzing works:

When it comes to the offer or gift you give at the end of the quiz, you can think of multiple options, such as:

• A discount price or code
• Extended access to your product
• A free online course
• A referral code
• An Amazon gift voucher
• A ticket to an event

Try to come up with more creative ways of doing it.

3. Webinars and LinkedIn audio events

Are webinars and LinkedIn audio events interactive content?

Well, that depends on how you use them.

In webinars, following are a few ways to make the session interactive:

• Create a poll
• Encourage people to ask questions (either as text or voice, depending on what you are comfortable with)
• Allow someone from the audience to speak

All major webinar platforms, including GoTo Webinar and Zoom, let you do these. Hence, if you need participation from your audience, consider using these tactics.

When it comes to LinkedIn audio events, you have the option to allow anyone from the audience to speak or ask questions. That’s a great way to make your audience feel a part of the conversation.

Also read:

Webinar Marketing – Everything You Need To Know

How To Create Content For LinkedIn Organic Marketing [With 10+ Examples And 5 Templates]

4. Calculators

These are not numerical calculators like the ones we use in school or college. I am referring to tools that help calculate the value of a specific metric. And this metric would change depending on the industry or task you wish to accomplish.

Let me explain.

Have a look at Clearbit’s TAM Calculator, for example. It lets you input your ACV (Annual Contract Value), industry, number of employees, country, etc. Based on the parameters and values you have entered, the calculator will estimate the value of your TAM (Total Addressable Market).

Another example is HubSpot’s ROAS Calculator. Here, you enter values such as projected monthly budget, expected CPC (Cost Per Click), target conversion rate, average sale price, etc., and the calculator will give you metrics such as the number of clicks, cost per lead, value per lead, expected revenue, etc., as output.

In addition to improving on-page engagement, calculators are an excellent way to generate traffic to your website since free tools tend to get a ton of traction through organic ranking and word of mouth.

You can custom-build a calculator or use a tool like Involve.me to do it without coding.

5. Free tools

This is more like an extension of what we discussed in the previous section. Rather, calculators are a subset of the free tools category. As the term suggests, the idea is to offer relevant tools in your industry for free. The more features you can add, the better.

This works really well for SaaS products where you offer a free version of the tool – accelerating user acquisition. But you can offer a standalone tool also for free, as long as it is relevant to what you do as a business.

There are many examples of companies offering free tools in the B2B space. If we exclude the ones that offer limited free trials, there are those which give limited platform features free for the lifetime.

Here are a few such examples:

• SparkToro: you get 50 searches per month free
• Copy AI: you get 2000 words free per month with 1 user
• Trello: with a limited number of cards and storage

I can easily add more to the list. But you get the point here.

Now, how can you build a tool on your own?

As in the other cases, you can build one from scratch. But that takes time and effort. There is a workaround.

Have you heard about a website called CodeCanyon? It is a marketplace where you can find tools for almost as little as a few tens of dollars. You can buy one, whitelabel it, and offer it for free on your website.

Another option is to find tools that let you whitelabel them by paying them a subscription fee. An example of this is HighLevel, which is an all-in-one marketing platform focused on agencies and small businesses. You can purchase the tool, add your branding, and offer it as your own to your clients or users.

Check out the below video that shows how HighLevel works:

If you are able to find such a tool in your space, you can leverage the same to make your content and website interactive. This tactic could very well be one of the best growth levers of your business.

Also read: 70+ B2B Content Marketing Tools You Should Know

6. Polls

Polls are a content type you can use across multiple platforms and campaigns. Here are some ways you can do it:

• In webinars (we discussed this in the webinar section above)
• LinkedIn polls: You can use your company page or employees’ profiles to post a poll by asking a relevant question. Polls tend to get more impressions compared to other content types.
• Research surveys: You can use polls to find market insights from your customers and prospects.
• NPS or CSAT surveys: Even those surveys and polls used to measure customer satisfaction are examples of interactive content.

To make polls more interactive and visually appealing, you can use a poll maker like Mentimeter. The tool offers multiple features that make the overall poll creation and voting experience fun for creators and users. It also comes with integrations with the common apps we use, such as MS Powerpoint, MS Teams, Zoom, etc.

7. Games and contests

Gamification is not that popular yet in the B2B space. But it is picking up because businesses are looking for more ways to stand out with content. These are interactive content items that give a game-like experience to users.

In that sense, some of the types we mentioned above, such as quizzes, calculators, and polls, can be brought under the category of games. Here are a few other ways in which you can use games in the B2B world:

• Conduct a contest or hackathon among your customers to demonstrate how they use your products. This works best if you are a mature organization with many customers.
• Gamify the product onboarding experience. If you have a self-serve product, you can make customized offers and plans depending on the options customers choose during onboarding. This can be done using a simple form, a spin wheel, or an image slider.
• Employee engagement games and contests. You can conduct games and contests internally to increase employee participation and engagement. You can promote this as a company, and with employees’ participation, they will be encouraged to talk about the gaming experience online.
• Create a wall of fame for contributors. If your company is open to having external content creators contribute to your website, you can gamify that experience. For example, if you are creating an article on a particular topic where you add thoughts from external experts, you can offer an interactive interface for them to share their thoughts.

The next obvious question that comes to many of our minds is how do we develop games for the purposes mentioned above?

One of the best ways to do it is to hire a company to build custom games for you. This might or might not be required depending on the type of gamification experience you wish to build. Another method is to use WordPress plugins like Rafflepress to create an online contest.

Note: You need to choose a method or tool based on the type of game you wish to build. Not every tool or plugin will meet all your needs. Do a thorough research and evaluation before you finalize an approach.

8. Interactive infographics

Have you heard about a tool called Ceros? It helps you build different types of interactive content on your website. And infographics are one of them. The below video explains what the platform is and how it works:

Ceros is one of many tools that can help you create interactive infographics and content in general. More than the tool, the idea of making infographics interactive is what I wanted to emphasize here.

Since everyone is making their visuals attractive, making yours interactive helps you stand out.

Given below are a few examples of interactive infographics:

• The sustainability advantage by ServiceNow
• Emissions infographic by Eidsiva
• Year in review by Oxfam Ireland

Final words about interactive content

Making your content interactive is a great way to attract participation from your prospects and customers. Compared to B2C, not many B2B companies create interactive content. This gives you a relatively easier opportunity to stand out.

One of the key things to note while creating interactive content is that the design or interactivity is not more important than the content itself. If the latter is of poor quality, no amount of creative design is going to help you. So, please keep that in mind.

That’s all I wanted to cover today. If you have more questions or are looking for help in taking your marketing game to the next level, please feel free to reach out to us at info@skalegrow.com.

Skalegrow – B2B content marketing agency

With marketing getting tougher and tougher, every wrong foot you make might hamper your growth. What you need is the right guidance and a helping hand. This is where Skalegrow can make a sea of difference.

Skalegrow helps IT, tech, SaaS, and embedded systems companies leverage new-age marketing tactics to grow their business. Check out the below intro video to learn more about what Skalegrow brings to the table: