As customers, we know what it’s like to have our inboxes flooded with emails that we don’t need or don’t resonate with. But, as marketers, we tend to overlook that experience because we also understand the importance of email marketing. In fact, U.S. companies actually push out more emails than any other country! So, how do you balance flooded email inboxes with wanting to leverage the successes of email marketing? We focus on emails that people care about, that they value, and that they want to engage with. Here’s where interactive content comes in.
What is Interactive Content?
According to Uplers, interactive content is “content that calls for participants’ active engagement rather than passively reading or watching. It generates relevant lead info. And in return, participants receive real-time, hyper-personalized results they care about.”
Interactive content includes content like quizzes, polls, or GIFs, and according to Martech Advisor, interactive content can actually increase your email’s open rate by 73%!
Interactivity in emails is an incredible way to engage your leads and email lists because it accomplishes one key aspect of relationship building: it encourages your prospects to start a conversation with you. This only helps your marketing strategy by encouraging brand loyalty and making your customers feel like a part of your company.
How Can you Use Interactive Content?
Interactive content has the power to impact your customers, promote the enjoyment, and subsequently improve your email engagement. Incorporating interactive content provides value to your readers, encouraging them to further engage with your brand and even share more information with you. In fact, the Content Marketing Institute conducted a survey revealing that 81% of marketers notice that interactive content performs better than static content.
Now, based on what we know and understand about interactive content, here are 7 easy ways to incorporate interactive content in your email marketing endeavors.
7 Ways to Make your Emails Interactive
1. Play with Quizzes
Creating quizzes is super fun and easy, especially if you take advantage of modern, no-code quiz makers like Typeform or SurveyMonkey. Once your quiz is created, you can simply embed your quiz in your email newsletter or campaign so that your customers can complete the quiz right in the email.
2. Research with Polls, Surveys, and Reviews
Polls, surveys, and reviews aren’t new in the world of interactive content, but they still aren’t regularly implemented. This type of interactive content solves multiple purposes for brands: opinions for new launches, feedback on customer service, product reviews, and more.
But why would customers bother interacting with polls or surveys? Well, to put it simply, customers appreciate brands who appreciate them. It always feels good to know that the brands you support care about your thoughts and opinions, doesn’t it?
Try your hand at this type of interactive content by embedding a single-question poll or multi-question survey in your email template. There are survey and form builders that let you do that with a single click.
Nokia implemented a survey in their emails soliciting feedback for their new Body+ gadget. They clearly mention that the survey only takes 2 minutes, making it more likely for busy users to click on it.
3. Surprise with Image Rollover & Scratch Cards
Interactive content works because of the strong psychological triggers it evokes from your readers. Emotions like curiosity propel users to react and interact with your content rather than just passively consuming and scrolling through it.
By using interactive content like an image rollover or scratch cards, you can pique curiosity quite effectively. A rollover effect is when you reveal hidden details of the product when a customer rolls the pointer over an image.
Scratch cards need no introduction. Because of the mystery factor, this marketing technique did incredibly well; many users clicked just to see which prize they would get.
4. Humor with GIFs
GIFS are probably the most popular type of interactive content in email marketing. They instantly catch attention, you can further link to your intended web pages, and videos are a common way to boost interactivity.
Including long videos can bog your email down, making it difficult for some subscribers to open, and long videos are not good for people’s increasingly short attention spans; you only have a few seconds to hook your reader, so GIFs are a better, faster, and crisper choice.
5. Personalize with Recommendations
Adding personalized recommendations to your email is another great way to boost your engagement. Pair it with interactivity, and you’ll experience remarkable results.
Sending your customers a personalized email based on their previous interactions with your business is a great way to engage them. For example, if your potential customer has spent time browsing the sunglass collection on your website, it presents a great opportunity to send them a product recommendation email.
You can send personalized emails like this for abandoned shopping carts, too. Personalization is a great opportunity to drive both engagement and sales.
6. Win with Contests
To help stand out among the hundreds of similar emails piling up in your inbox, you need something to stand out. Giveaways and contests can give you the power to turn your email into customer magnets… after all, who can turn a contest down?
Giveaways and contests can include anything from winning a free subscription to a copy of an e-book, as well as discount coupons or gift cards.
7. Get Clicks with Buttons
We all know the power of CTA buttons, so why not use interactive buttons in emails too? Interactive buttons can draw viewers’ attention and adds a layer of gamification to your marketing strategy.
A button has higher engagement compared to a pure text email simply informing customers about the new products.
Wrap Up
That’s a wrap on the different ways you can optimize email marketing with interactive content. Interactive content doesn’t just boost engagement, but can also generate leads, and they’re pretty easy to create, too.