Why interactive content is a vital marketing tool during economic uncertainty

That’s tough news for a marketer. It doesn’t mean that the need to communicate with the customer has disappeared. Instead, it requires a greater focus on the customers you already have, building relationships and trust, rather than wasting too much effort and resources chasing new prospects. The key focus has to be on building loyalty so that when the customer does choose to spend, that purchase is more likely to be with your brand.

Interactive content can help you to stand out from your competitors by giving you visibility when you need it most.

How interactive content provides marketers a competitive advantage

Consider for a moment the sheer volume of marketing your customers are seeing daily. It’s at least 5,000 ads, the majority of which will be static content that does little to entice them to interact with the brand involved in any great depth. It’s overwhelming and, thanks to its sheer scale, can have the opposite effect to engaging the consumer. They disengage and turn off.

That’s not because it’s bad content; it’s simply because, like most of the other marketing messages they receive, effort is required to watch or read it, and they get nothing in return. Their time is limited, and they need convincing reasons to spend time with your brand at the best of times. When their purse strings are also under pressure, marketing efforts need to be even more persuasive.

So how do you turn consumers back on again and ensure that it’s your content they choose to engage with more deeply? Interactive content works because it’s the opposite of static content. By its very nature it demands greater involvement and so drives more intense engagement. It becomes a two-way interaction, rather than a one-sided approach, and it’s this that means the customer takes more notice.

The power of playable experiences in marketing— and what it can mean for you

Interactive content can comprise several forms, from calculators and tools to quizzes and games and much more, but essentially the umbrella definition is simple – it’s content that your audience can participate in. And it’s becoming more popular than ever, with nearly two-thirds of B2B marketers already incorporating interactive content as part of their marketing strategies. As the battle for attention intensifies, this figure will only rise further.

Playable experiences, delivered through the use of gamification within your marketing, allow you to use interactive content such as quizzes and games to help draw your customers into deeper involvement with your brand. And they’re more likely to be engaged with: research from Playable and YouGov found that consumers are 56% more likely to click on a gamified ad.

They provide familiar content that your customers literally love to play with – with games concepts they are already familiar with or have played before such as spin the wheel for example. And they tap into the primal instinct of humans to want to play.

Interactive content that delivers playable experiences not only drives initial engagement but also encourages more time spent with brand. For example, when rewards club Virgin Red decided to use games as part of its rewards strategy it chose Playable as its partner.

Virgin Red uses games to help their audience do more of what they love. With the Playable platform, Virgin Red now offers at least five games weekly to its members. In addition to engaging its members, Virgin Red is also able to work with other companies within the Virgin family to drive sign ups to the rewards club.

This included a successful collaboration between Virgin Red and Virgin Voyages where Virgin Red club members could potentially win places on a Virgin Voyages cruise. The results were impressive: five million views with no marketing spend, 131,000 competition entries, and 3,500 new Virgin Red members. This supported Virgin Red’s strategy to ‘make play a serious business’.

Photo: Virgin Voyages

We know that consumers love to play, and we know that marketing is more powerful when they are more engaged. Combining the two through the use of experiences created in Playable’s gamification platform drives greater engagement and interaction. Ultimately that will lead to the loyalty your brand needs to secure revenue and customers or members now, and in the future.

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