improving lead generation engagement and...

Improving Lead Generation Engagement and Conversion with Interactivity & Usefulness

01Skyrocket Your

Results

03What is Interactive

Content?

04Lead Generation

Inspiration & Ideas

02Why Interactive Content Matters

Table of Contents

05Start Improving your Lead

Generation Results

www.ioninteractive.com 01 02 03 04 05

01You Need Leads

If so, then it’s likely you’ve been using one of the key tactics in the

unofficial lead-gen marketer’s playbook: Drive traffic into campaign landing

pages that include an offer and a form. For years, that’s about as complex

as it got when it came to scooping up lots of leads online. But with

competition for time, attention and hand-raisers heating up intensely with

each passing day, this old standby tactic is becoming less effective, and

leads are becoming harder & harder to capture.

If you are a marketer tasked with generating high quality, engaged leads,

you already know it’s hard enough to get a lead, let alone a great one.

Your visitors expect usefulness, relevancy, and interactivity from you, and

those expectations directly impact your ability to get those visitors to

complete your form. ‘Good enough’ lead-gen landing pages no longer

provide good enough results. Online visitors expect more.

http://www.ioninteractive.com/

High Quality

Interactivity

Engaging


As competition heats up and marketers seek strategies to generate

quality leads in the face of increased clutter and higher expectations,

interactive content provides new opportunities for more engagement and

higher conversion rates. Interactivity turns tired lead-gen campaigns into

modern high-performing lead-gen machines.

Adding interactive content to your lead-gen touchpoints — both within

your main website as well as within your landing pages — creates an

opportunity for higher conversion rates. Here are three ways interactive

content enhances lead-gen opportunities:


1 Interactive content provides value to your audience through

usefulness. For example, if you provide a custom configurator of

your product, that’s useful—and people will register in order to use the

configurator. That same content in a static PDF might not be perceived as

valuable, because it’s really just a piece of marketing collateral (and who

wants to fill out a form to get marketing collateral!?). The more perceived

value something has, the more likely you are to get people to complete a

form to access or use it.

2 Interactive content is easy to test, with bigger potential

outcomes. Just as you can test a headline on your landing page,

you can test the color, layout, copy and forms of interactive content. Heck,

you can even test two entirely different experiences against each other to

see which converts better. Interactive content should be tested, just like

any other online experience, and those tests should yield conversion lift

and learning. These types of tests can yield much bigger lifts than a simple

headline or button test.

3 Interactive content provides a wealth of insightful data.

All visitor behavior in an interative experience can be captured.

Leverage this data by appending it to the lead record and pass off a rich

lead record to your inside sales team showing all responses and clicks

that visitor took within the experience. And don’t stop there. Leverage this

data at the aggregate level by viewing trends in responses, drop off rates,

and outcomes and use this information to fuel new content and new tests

for higher conversion rates. Better yet, track and leverage user behavior

across all your interactive experiences to further personalize and target.


The old tactic of putting a form on a simple landing page with a white

paper offer is so over. And interactive content provides a powerful way

to engage and convert your traffic.

But we bet you are wondering how to get started. Have no fear!

Brainstorming ways to increase the interactivity of your lead generation

campaigns is easier than you think. You probably already have existing

content that can be transformed into an interactive experience.

• Turn your list of industry-specific best practices into assessments your

visitors can take to rate themselves for how well they are executing those

best practices.

• Take your best sales person, pick their brain on how they engage with

your best customers. Turn that into a product configurator that helps

your visitors determine which products are right for them.

• Leverage your internal pricing spreadsheets by turning them into

interactive calculators that let your buyers determine specific pricing

or price ranges for your products & solutions.

• Turn your audience segmentation messaging into conversion paths

that allow your visitors to easily segment themselves to quickly drill

down into the most relevant content you’ve got for them.

“A relationship exists between placing a high


priority on digital experience marketing and revenue growth. 76% of participants reporting revenue growth in the most recent fiscal year also put a high priority on digital experience creation. For organization that reports declining revenue growth, only 6% report digital experience creation as a high priority.”

~ Demand Metric, Digital Marketing Landscape, The Power of Digital Experiences in 2014

01www.ioninteractive.com 02 03 04 05

02Why Interactive Content?

Online visitors expect useful, meaningful digital experiences every time

they interact with your brand. Your digital touchpoints are critical

opportunities to meet (or exceed) visitor expectations through easy,

enjoyable, interactive experiences. Several trends are quickly converging

to radically raise the expectation of the average web visitor.

• Mobility: Users are increasingly conditioned to interact with mobile apps,

which provide an instant feedback loop. Book an appointment. Play a

game and see your stats. Transfer funds between accounts. Put in data,

get a result. There is an inherent interactivity in a mobile app that users

have come to expect with their browser-based experiences as well.

• Utility: It’s no longer enough to pitch your wares and win the sale.

Consumers expect useful experiences from the brands they do business

with. A helpful experience will always win over a self-serving experience

that simply overloads the visitor with information.

• Content Overload: With the explosion of content available at every

turn, web users are increasingly feeling overwhelmed. Visitors now either

stockpile content to read ‘at a later date’, or they surf & skim, ‘snacking’

on content rather than dining.


Mobility

Youtility

Content Overload


Digital touchpoints can drive revenue, lower costs, build brands, and engender customer loyalty. But to achieve these potential benefits, companies must deliver digital interactions that meet their customers’ needs in easy and enjoyable ways.

~ Forrester Research, Top 10 Ways To Improve Digital Experiences


Transform static content into interactive, useful digital experiences.

Forrester Research identifies 3 types of customer perceptions that a

digital experience must align with:

Enjoyable — How enjoyable were they to do business with?

Easy — How easy were they to do business with?

Useful — How effective were they at meeting your needs?

“The degree of sophistication of the digital experience that is created is a clear predictor of brand perception.”

~ Demand Metric, Digital Marketing Landscape, The Power of Digital Experiences in 2014


03What is Interactive Content?

An interactive content experience is a browser-based marketing experi-

ence designed for user engagement. It’s not a mobile app that runs on a

mobile operating system as an installed application. Rather, it’s an inter-

active, engaging experience that’s lives within the browser, regardless of

device. It’s desktop, mobile, tablet—it’s any device, any time. Interactive

content can take the form of:

• Quizzes

• Assessments

• Surveys

• Contests

• Conversion Paths

• Calculators

• eBooks

• Wizards

• Configurators

• eCatalogs

• Interactive White Papers

• Lookbooks

Interactive content typically includes some sort of feedback loop where

the outcome is directly impacted by the interaction of the visitor. In this

way, even a sophisticated, logic-based landing page or microsite can be

categorized as interactive content.



04Lead Generation Inspiration & Ideas

Ready to drive way more leads with interactive experiences? Here are

some ideas and examples to get your ideas flowing!

Content Wizard


Content wizards let visitors drill down to their favorite content while

enabling you to learn who’s on your site and what interests your visitors

have. Rather than showing long lists of white papers and webinars to

wade through, content wizards provide a more enjoyable and personal

user experience and allow you as the marketer to gain specific knowledge

about your leads. Ask your visitors about their interests or how they like to

consume content, and serve up the most relevant stuff you’ve got.

Lead-Gen Options:

• Allow visitors to go through the wizard, and insert a form before they access or

download the resulting content.

• At the end of the wizard, reveal only long excerpts from the content, and have visitors

register to get full access to the content.

• Try a lead generation form at the start of the wizard and have visitors register first.

Real-Time Testing Ideas:

• Try varying the number of steps in the wizard to see how increasing or reducing

the pre-conversion steps impacts conversion rate.

• Test where you insert the form to determine where visitors are most likely to bail

or convert.

• Test content (copy, images, buttons) at the start of the wizard to decrease bounce rate.

Testing Lab


Conversion Path

Do you have specific messaging for verticals, roles, or business need and

struggle with getting the right content into the right hands? A conversion

path will help visitors step themselves through a series of simple choices

to quickly get to the most relevant and targeted information. The post-

choice page is then more specific to the visitor’s interest and more likely to

convert their initial engagement into conversion. And, conversion paths are

mutually beneficial—giving marketers valuable segmentation data tied to

the resulting lead record and tied back to the referring source of traffic.


Lead-Gen Options:

• After visitors have stepped through the choice(s), have a lead generation form

before providing the relevant asset or information.

• After visitors have completed a short lead form in your conversion path, use your

‘thank you’ page to upsell a “contact sales now” option, helping you get the most

interested leads into your sales team’s hands instantly.

• Pass all conversion path choices into your CRM or marketing automation along

with the lead record, so you can use that segmentation information for future

nurture tracks.


• Try testing different segment labels and calls-to-action to minimize bounce rate.

• Try testing different page layouts, visually emphasizing the most important

segments first.

• Track your tests to see how the various segment labels impact bounce rate

and/or conversion.

Testing Lab


Quiz / Assessment

Turn your best practices into an online self-assessment or quiz. Based on

visitor responses to questions, you can deliver personalized recommen-

dations for improvements. You can use the data that you gain from the

answers to drive targeted marketing automation programs and to surface

warmer leads to sales with pre-fab insight into pains. For quizzes to work

well, they must offer valuable information.


Lead-Gen Options:

• Try gating the quiz results at the very end. After completing the assessment, the

visitor is highly curious to see their results and will be more likely to convert.

• Let visitors take the quiz or assessment without any registration, including the results

and offer to send personalized recommendations as an option.

• Try the old standby—if your content is of very high value, require visitors to complete

a form before providing them access to the quiz or assessment.


• Test radically different versions of your first page to see which version reduces

bounce rates and increases engagement with the quiz.

• Test where you insert the lead generation form—try requiring sign-up before taking

the quiz versus before getting the recommendations versus only if the respondent

wants to receive the recommendations via email.

• Test different number of questions and or answers to optimize for quiz completion

and conversion.

Testing Lab


Calculator

Turn your internal pricing spreadsheet into an online calculator. Even

complex pricing can be converted into a pricing range estimator. Most

organizations have something that can be calculated using an engaging

app-like experience. This provides the immediate gratification that B2B

buyers crave while allowing sales to continue to build value prior to

delivering a specific price quote by providing them with highly price-

qualified leads.


Lead-Gen Options:

• Offer to send pricing results from the calculator to the prospect instantly via email,

rather than displaying the pricing results in the calculator itself.

• Display pricing in the calculator with a prominently featured form to contact sales.


• Try varying form fields to determine optimal form length.

• A calculator is a great place to test different headlines, images and calls to action

around the calculator itself.

• Test different forms of calculators (sliders versus text inputs, for example)

Testing Lab


Configurator

Do your products or services require complex configurations to

determine the right personalized solution? Configurators allow visitors to

assemble or package your product or service to what they specifically

are looking for. This provides a valuable service to the visitor while

providing marketing with even more valuable packaging data on what

visitors need and want. This insight can be used in marketing automation

programs as well as in personal selling to cater messages and offers,

which makes sales and marketing smarter, more likely to satisfy visitor

expectations, and more likely to convert traffic into leads.


Lead-Gen Options:

• Use a lead generation form at the end before giving the visitor the configuration results.

• Share a summary of the configuration, but offer to send complete configuration

results via email.


• Experiment with the number of steps and questions in your configurator to optimize

for engagement & completion.

• There is often reluctance to divulge information deemed too personal or specific,

so experimenting with varying degrees of specificity can reveal the sweet spots at

which information gathering and conversion optimization are in alignment.

• Test layout and copy on the first screen of the configurator to decrease bounce rate

and get more visitors engaged with the experience.

Testing Lab


Game

Games are entertaining ways to engage, educate and convert

prospects. For example, rather than answering survey questions for

themselves, visitors can guess which answers were most popular

amongst their peers. In answering, they are exposed to shared

pains, problems, and solutions that drive demand. Simple guessing

games provide another way to communicate strategically compelling

information. Not only does it provide knowledge, but gives your

brand that standout attention to draw in qualified leads.


Lead-Gen Options:

• Allow visitors to play the game and insert the form before receiving score.

• Reveal the game score and insert the form to reveal where they stack up against

others that have played.

• Try a lead generation form at the start of the game and have visitors register

before playing.


• Game incentives are great to experiment with. Try monetary incentives versus

social recognition versus an asset offer to stimulate engagement and conversion.

• Test different conversion points —pre-game versus post-game —to see which

delivers the most conversions.

Testing Lab


Voting / Survey

Voting and surveys for preferences can be an easy-to-tap motive for

visitors. Extending the experience to show how the visitor’s answer

compared to the votes of others can further deepen interest and desire.

When the reveal of results shows shared pain that can be solved by the

brand, engagement can turn into persuasion. While it can be difficult to

use a voting app for lead-generation, they are often used to collect data

that can be used in sales enablement or useful information for other

marketing apps. However, surveys in a marketing context can be more

persuasive than ordinary research surveys.


Lead-Gen Options:

• Give visitors the opportunity to share their vote or survey results. Have inside

sales team follow those visitors on Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. It’s a soft social lead,

but an engaged one!

• Offer to send updates on how the poll continues to trend, or to send total

survey results, to those respondents who provide their email address.


• Polls and surveys are a great place to promote a simple subscribe form for people

to sign up for your newsletter. Test different ways to promote your “subscribe” call

to action.

• Polls and surveys are also a great place to promote social engagement. Rather than

asking visitors to complete a form, ask for a follow, a tweet, a like, etc. Test different

placement of your social icons.

Testing Lab


Interactive White Paper / eBook

Do you have an in-depth white paper? Turn it into an interactive, ‘choose

your own adventure’ eBook. Chunking up the white paper content into

interactive, navigable sections can bring your content to life in a highly

engaging way. Instead of a visitor downloading a 12-page white paper

to quickly skim through then throw away, entertain them with something

useful that they want to share.


Lead-Gen Options:

• Offer visitors a glance at the eBook or interactive white paper. Allow them to see

the first page or so, then insert a form for them to receive the complete content.

• Add in forms within each smaller marketing app used inside the interactive

white paper.

• Add in forms at various points for an optional subscribe, or to have the PDF

version of the whitepaper emailed to them instantly.


• Test varying form lengths to optimize for maximum conversions.

• Test various placements of the form throughout the interactive white paper/eBook

to determine where visitors are most likely to convert.

• If you want to give your visitors easy access to the PDF version, try placement

of your form, whether it be in the side rail, or on the last page, or continuously

viewable while scrolling.

• Try testing the gate within one of the supplemental marketing apps inside the

interactive eBook.

Testing Lab


05It’s Your Turn to be Creative!

After taking a look at some ideas, it’s your turn to be creative. Grab

an existing content marketing asset and transform it into an engaging

interactive experience. It’s time to turn your content from “ho hum”

to exciting with useful, relevant, engaging interactivity. And once you

have your initial interactive experience, leverage the data you collect in

that one to personalize and target your second (and third, and fourth),

building deep visitor profiles that can be used to enhance your visitor

and customer experience even further.


Interactive Content Done Right

Commonly, interactive content is custom created by software

engineers or developers. While this provides the marketing department

with a high degree of customization for the final end-result, there are

some inherent inefficiencies with hard-coding. In addition to long lead

times & high costs for development, a coded experience is largely

inflexible and can’t be modified or changed without additional costs &

time. A modern marketing department needs an agile, flexible,

marketer-managed system for the creation and launch of interactive

content. An interactive content platform can drastically reduce the time &

cost associated with launching experiences, while providing

several significant benefits to marketing:

• Agile, flexible interactive content creation & launch—drag-and-drop

interface with simple rules-based logic give you tremendous power

without programmers

• Optimize both form & function—Rather than being restricted to just

one version of an experience, use built-in A/B testing to easily learn

which experiences & content are most effective at increasing engage-

ment & conversion rates

• Not one experience, but complete “interactive content capability”

throughout all your marketing—launch dozens or hundreds of different

experiences with no additional hard costs

• Share data across multiple experiences—every user interaction can

build behavioral and profile data that can be


leveraged for personalization & targeting across your entire portfolio

• Reusable components—reuse content and functionality across

interactive experiences.

• Centralized and decentralized control—centralize brand control and

consistent measurement; decentralize creation and deployment

to brands, teams, regions, etc

• Simplified integration—single integration point connects all your

experiences into your marketing technology ecosystem; seamlessly

share data with CRM, analytics, marketing automation, and customer

data platforms

Next Steps

Implement interactive content and see how they can improve your cam-

paign results.

It’s time to turn your static content into interactive, useful, enjoyable

experiences. It’s what your web visitors expect, and the technology

exists to enable you to rapidly deploy and test interactive content while

minimizing development time and costs. Change your campaign results

from “so-so” to “wow” by decreasing bounce rate, increasing visitor

consumption of your content, and ultimately delivering far more leads and

sales to your organization.


In a world where every prospective

customer is facing an invitation avalanche,

where every business is asking people to follow

their tweets, read their blog, or watch their videos,

you must resist the temptation to communicate

solely and endlessly about your company, hoping

for the quick sale. Helping can replace selling, or

at the very least reduce the friction within that

sales transaction. And you can do this. You |can

help your customers learn… You can help them

plan… You can help them enjoy.

Jay Baer, in his New York Times best selling book Youtility says,


More leads. More engagement. More revenue.Interactive content from ion interactive

ion interactive helps modern marketers produce engaging, interactive

content that stands out while generating leads and revenue. Launch

stunning user experiences across your content marketing, social

marketing, email marketing and advertising campaigns using our

scalable, agile interactive content platform. Powerfully creative, gorgeous

and highly interactive experiences can be created and tested without

developers. ion’s assessments, quizzes, lookbooks, ebooks, interactive

white papers, calculators and more are used to differentiate brands,

increase engagement, boost sales and improve conversions.

According to TechValidate: 73% of our customers double their conversions. 90% get positive ROI. And 95% would recommend us. Join them.

Get Started: meet.ioninteractive.com/getstarted or Call 1.888.ion.idea (466.4332) or

+1.561.235.7474 outside the US


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