We’ve all been there. While designing a new marketing campaign, we are facing a choice: should we create static content or interactive marketing content? Which one will bring more engagement? Which one will make us stand out from the crowd?

According to the Content Marketing Institute’s research, 55% of marketers are using interactive content in their campaigns. But should marketers give up on static content? Both are used to raise more awareness, get more leads and grab the attention of the customer. Keep reading to know which one will give you the best results.

What’s static and interactive content?

For the sake of this article, let’s clarify what are static and interactive content.

Static content is everything that is delivered to an audience without being generated, modified or processed. For example: a landing page, an email, a blog post, an ebook or a white paper in pdf.

As for interactive content, we define it as a piece of content that requires the audience to engage and participate with it in order to have the full experience. For example: a wheel of fortune, a survey or a personality test, but also a dynamic landing page.

Grabbing the attention of your audience

According to Bruno Patino’s book, “La civilisation du poisson rouge“, the degree of attention of a goldfish is eight seconds. An average human in the digital age? Barely nine seconds.

Marketers know how difficult it is to grab the attention of an audience nowadays. We all seek attention, craving to stand out in front of our readership, our customers, our prospects.

Interactive content is 81% more effective at grabbing people’s attention.

Ion Interactive reports that interactive content is 81% more effective at grabbing people’s attention than static content. A quiz, a personality test or a swiper are more attractive to an audience, as it’s only taking a few minutes to understand what it is about. Remember: users’ time is precious. Static content is, of course, still relevant. However, it will take more time for a user to skim and scan. They will only truly read it if it clearly answers one of their questions if they are interested in the topic or be entertained.

Increasing brand awareness

What do you do when you’d like to increase your brand awareness? Or when you launch a new product or service? The majority of marketers will certainly send a few emails, create a couple of posts on social media and/or partner with a media or company to share the information to a bigger audience.

Interactive content will increase the retention of your messaging by 79%.

According to Ion Interactive, interactive content will increase the retention of your messaging by 79% compared to static content. The Content Marketing Institute added that games were rated most effective in the early stage of the buyer’s journey (awareness/discovery). Not only it will be shared more often than static content, but it will also help you reach out to a new audience at the same time.

Because it’s fun, interesting or engaging for the user, they will pay more attention to the message you’re trying to spread. Have a look at how Dogofriends and Purina increased the awareness of a new product, and get inspired!

Turning leads into customers

Data collection is at the heart of your lead generation campaigns. To gather leads, you’ll probably ask your audience’s personal data, such as an email address and a name. Companies will usually add a form on their contact page or a newsletter subscription box at the end of a blog post. Would it surprise you to know that interactive content can do it better and faster?

Interactive content could increase your submission rate up to 80%.

Ion Interactive states in its research that interactive content could increase your submission rate up to 80%. By making it more engaging and rewarding for the user, interactive content is more likely to collect more data than any other type of content. It’s up to you then to analyse the data collected and turn your prospects into customers.

Do we have a winner? Interactive content is certainly getting better results than static content in all those three goals:

  • 81% more effective at attracting people’s attention;
  • 79% increase in the retention of your messages;
  • 80% increase in your submission rate.

If you’re not yet convinced that interactive content will drive better results than static content, or if you’d like to know more about it, don’t hesitate to download our ebook on gamification!