How To Use Interactive Content To Promote Events

Interactive Content – What And Why?

The marketing industry always has a trick or two up their sleeve. Long gone are the days of one-sided static content, that only seeks to speak to the customer, and not listen in return. In an age of short attention spans, customers wanted something that would engage them. Something that would educate them and aim to solve their problem. And thus, the marketing industry brought in their showstopper – interactive content. Interactive content refers to content types like calculators, quizzes, assessments, surveys, chatbots, etc. that take in customer input and offer valuable solutions.

Using such interactive content is a low cost, quick and efficient way of getting to know about your users and generating leads. In fact, 81% of marketers believe that interactive content grabs the reader’s attention. It can be used in any industry, by any business, and for any purpose. And one of those purposes is promoting an event. 

Event promotion can be tricky. And if not done right, will become the talk of the town the next day (and not in a good way). So let’s have a look at how interactive content can help you to promote events and make all our lives easier! 

Using Interactive Content To Promote Events

Interactive content is multi-faceted and can be used in different ways. When it comes to event promotion, interactive content can be your one-stop solution. From the minute you put out the news, till your last customer feedback, it’s all about engaging the customer. 

1. Before The Event – Creating The Hype! 

A promotion well begun is an event half done! This part of the event is as important as your main event. Because this is what will ensure that people turn up at your event in the first place! Suppose Adidas is holding a product launch event for its new line of women sportswear. Their main vision behind this is to promote sports among young and middle-aged women. And their target audience is women between the ages of 20 and 40. How can Adidas use interactive content to get them interested? A giveaway? An outcome quiz? An e-commerce recommendation? Maybe all of them! Here are some examples!

1. An outcome quiz for ‘Which International Sportswoman are you most like?’
2. An e-commerce recommendation for ‘Which Adidas Sports Shoes Series Suits Your Personality The Best?’. 
3. A poll for which footwear line they like best? 
4. A giveaway of the latest Adidas shoes! They can challenge participants to find the most creative ways of showcasing their Adidas footwear, and the winner gets an exclusive 15% discount coupon on your new product series at your event! You can use all these ways to talk about your event, as well as give sneak peeks into your upcoming product line! 

A lot of brands like Maybelline and Mercedes continue to use interactive content to promote their products. Thankfully, they can be used to promote events as well. In fact, they can be created in a matter of minutes through a quiz maker!

These interactive experiences can be shared via social media. They can be embedded on websites, landing pages, display ads, and much more. They can also be shared through newsletters and emails! 

Such interactive experiences will not only help you talk up your event but also help in boosting your brand as a whole. (Not to forget the crazy amount of leads you’ll be generating!) Depending upon what the event is about, one can also use chatbots and calculators and polls to drive more audience engagement.

2. Interact During The Event – Using Interactive Content! 

You’d think that since you’re right there with your audience, you don’t need to engage with them any further. But that’s where most mistakes happen! Can you hold your audience’s interest even with them there? Interactive content is what can make sure that your event doesn’t turn into a snooze fest. Whether you’re hosting a launch event or a speaker session, you can engage your audience with interactive content of various types! 

1. You can hold instant polls during your event to get your audience’s feedback. 
2. You can also hold instant assessments and offer prizes on the basis of how much one scores. 
3. You can set up product stalls and have people take e-commerce recommendation quizzes to help purchase. (And have a little bit of fun!) 

Here’s an example of a leadership conference by PwC where they used 13 live polls to get a viewpoint of what their audience was thinking. The polls included questions like ‘What is your main focus for the New Year?’ and ‘What are the most important client needs?’. 

Suppose if you were holding a marketing-related conference, you could use polls to find out your audience’s favorite speakers, strategies, etc. You could also create assessments on the event topics. Such things would not only grab everybody’s attention and engagement but also give you an idea about your audience. 

3. After The Event – Follow Up Using Interactive Content 

Your work doesn’t end with the event. An event is usually held to increase brand awareness, engage with customers, increase sales, etc. And following up is the only way to know whether you have succeeded or not. There are a bunch of interactive content types that you can use to get feedback from your audience. Surveys, forms, and polls seem to be the most obvious choices. You can use these to understand the perception of your brand in the minds of your audience. 

Suppose you are holding an event to launch a new line of Starbucks Drinks. Post the event, you can:

1. Hold a contest for people to post a picture with one of your new products. You can choose a winner for the most creative caption and give them a hamper! This kind of user-generated content can help you in brand awareness. Moreover, it will help increase customer trust through word of mouth.

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2. You can create an outcome quiz titled ‘Which Starbucks XYZ Beverage Suits Your Taste The Best?’. You can even create an e-commerce recommendation if you’re an e-commerce company! 
3. You can create surveys to find out customer pain points when it comes to your event, receive suggestions, and then develop further marketing strategies. 

Feedback is probably the most important part of any marketing communication and interactive content can help you ease the process. 

You can even host a contest for the best pictures from the event itself! If you’re holding a speaker session, you can ask your audience to share their favorite quote from the event, or a picture with their favorite speaker. This will not only make the event happening, but also keep the buzz alive once you’re done with it. 

Some Tips For Good Quality Interactive Content

There are a few ‘rule of thumbs’ that we believe are the keys to quality interactive content. And we’d like to share the secret with you! 

• Use Appealing Visuals

There’s no doubt that a good picture catches the eye! There are a great many tools that you can use to create interactive content. You can add pleasant and relevant images to your content and increase customer engagement even further. 

• Create Relevant Content

That’s the most important prerequisite for good content today – it needs to be relevant. The everyday customer is being bombarded with information today and it is really important for you to stand out. Make sure that your content can actually provide value to the user. 

• Create Shareable Content

There’s a lot of content out there. Not everything goes viral. Make sure that the interactive content that you create is enticing enough to be shared. It will help you establish an online, social media presence and reach a larger audience. 

• Keep It Short

Nobody wants to take a 50 question long quiz to find out which pizza topping suits their personality. Make sure that you create a concise interactive experience that manages to hold the user’s attention. 

Conclusion

And thus, we reach the end of it. Interactive content has proven itself time and again and promoting events is just one more on the long list of things it can do. We sure hope to see some really cool quizzes and calculators the next time you decide to hold your event!

About The Author

Antara Agarwal is a full-time marketing consultant at Outgrow. On her days off, she can be found packing her bags for her next trip, often to the mountains. And in one of those bags, you will find a half-read book she has been struggling with for months.