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Interactive content is buzzing around more and more in marketing departments and B2B marketers are eager to learn more about this topic and begin to see if it makes sense for them.
Often, that means we hear things like: “I’d really like to try a quiz”, or “I want to do a market survey”, or “My boss told me we should try an ROI calculator”.
The problem with these statements is that interactive content isn’t just a single piece content.
It’s part of a larger strategy to make your marketing more engaging to your audience and create a real value exchange that ultimately leads to more qualified leads.
So what does an interactive content strategy look like?
The word strategy means to have “a plan of action designed to achieve a major or overall aim,” so in order to get started with interactive content, you should have a purpose.
For many of our customers, this starts at the core: the ability to create pipeline through marketing.
How can marketers have a seat at the revenue table? By delivering quality leads to sales.
How do you get a lead to be qualified? By capturing important information and evaluating them as in or out. In order to get that information, marketers have long looked for tools to help achieve this strategy.
How do I get started?
Content that creates a dialogue with your audience is a powerful tool in your marketing mix, and can help address the needs above.
Yet, marketers wading into the space are often siloing the content creation process or limiting interactive content to single use case.
While I give kudos to those taking some action, it’s a shame not to reach the full potential of the medium. So I thought it would be good for me to layout a few ways to think about an interactive content strategy and how to get started:
1. By Core and Ongoing Campaigns
Which campaigns or programs do you run no matter what? For many B2B marketers, they are through channels like email, social, paid media, and your website.
These core pillars for any marketing campaign you run probably need a content lift. Why? Because every marketing team is using them and buyers are shrugging them off through repetition.
Imagine having better subject lines and CTAs for your email and paid media that challenged your audience or asked for their opinion on a subject. Or create dynamic content for your website, blog, and social.
Interactive as a strategy allows you to do that. By simply creating content experiences rather than static content, you automatically have a more sticky draw.
Another big core for B2B marketing is nurture streams. As you nurture your database and try and get them to raise their hand, you need more personalized content. Interactive content can amplify your current messaging and assets you already have, but also collect valuable information about the prospect along the way.
So instead of handing someone over to sales because they clicked on an email, send them over because they told you some qualifying information. Strategy means leveraging the work you’re already doing, so layer interactive content with your core and ongoing campaigns.
2. By The Buyer’s Journey
The Buyer’s Journey has evolved over the years as buyers take more control of the process but the motivation behind each stage hasn’t.
The above graph shows some traditional tactics B2B marketers use to drive the buyer forward and how interactive content can enhance those tactics to either attract, engage, or convert buyers.
Interactive content can be used at ANY stage of the buyer’s journey because the content types are flexible and mold to your objectives and initiatives.
An impactful interactive content strategy looks at all the stages, and helps you to plan content for any gaps you may discover, which leads us to our next point.
3. By Campaign Initiatives
Campaign initiatives are usually defined by a problem marketers are trying to solve and set forth a theme with corresponding goals.
Interactive content should be thought of as a tool that helps solve these problems, and, accordingly, layer into any campaign theme.
As you plan your campaign, you should think how carryover themes, designs, and core messages work with interactive assets, and proactively plan for content that engages the audience to help you reach your goals.
By developing a process, you can get more out of your interactive campaigns and enhance your strategy. And that’s what it’s really all about, right? Amplification of your marketing efforts.
Amplify, don’t silo.
At the end of the day, marketers are being asked to do more with less. By treating interactive content as a strategy rather than a one-off content solution, you combine and enhance your efforts to reach your marketing goals.
Source: B2C
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