The Undeniable Power of Interactive Leads (And How You Can Tap Into It)

Is your business trying to acquire leads online?Seeing as you’re reading this article, I would assume that digital is a focus for your marketing initiatives. Or, at least, it will be in the near future.

The problem with digital is that there are so many paths to take - paid ads, SEO, content marketing, social media marketing. What is going to be most effective for your business?

For many business owners, the growing number of choices available for acquiring leads online is overwhelming. Like a deer in the headlights, you get stunned and end up making little to no progress on your objectives.

Today, I’d like to throw something else into the mix…My intentions aren’t to complicate things even more, but instead, to validate your assumptions about a lead source that is more powerful than any other.I won’t be talking about followers, clicks, traffic, or any other jargon-heavy marketing metric that means very little to the bottom line of your business.Rather, let’s talk about what you care about most - high-quality leads that will turn into paying customers.More specifically, I want to discuss the concept of interactive leads.

What are interactive leads?

Interactive leads are leads you capture with the use of interactive marketing techniques. Interactive marketing is an online strategy that addresses the user as an individual. It gets them to respond and engage with certain stimuli, for example, taking a quiz, watching a video, or participating in a contest.

Why are interactive leads so powerful?

Interactive marketing campaigns optimize the user experience by creating a personalized dialogue with people. This engages the end user and gathers valuable data about their demographics, interests, and online behavior, which pre-qualifies them as a lead.Here are four reasons interactive leads are so powerful:

• Engagement - Interactive campaigns increase the time spent on your website by engaging multiple senses in unison, creating excitement, and responding to a user’s desire in real-time.
• Conversion - Once you have someone’s attention and interest, converting them into a lead is much easier.
• Trust - Due to the increased amount of time people spend engaging with interactive campaigns, they are exposed to your brand for longer periods. Sustained and repetitive brand exposure results in more trust which inevitably helps with closing deals.
• Quality - The quality of interactive leads is superior to just about any other lead source. Not only do interactive leads have more trust for your brand, as mentioned above, but you can also eliminate low-quality prospects with deliberate questions during the interactive experience. This quiz from Holiday Parks New Zealand uses targeted and specific questions which only their ideal customers would know, meaning that people they don’t want to work with won’t complete the quiz and enter the contest:

An example of a contest which qualifies leads with questions.

How do you get quality interactive leads?

Unfortunately, due to their highly engaging nature, interactive experiences not only attract qualified leads but they can also bring in tire kickers and time wasters. So, it’s not as easy as setting up a quiz, running a contest, or creating an interactive poll on your website and then watching the dollar bills roll in. You need to be strategic, deliberate, and meticulous about the creation and distribution of your interactive experience so that it attracts qualified and buy-ready leads.Here is a simple process you can follow to ensure your interactive leads are high-quality:

1. Identify your ideal customers and seek information about their preferences for interacting with content online.
2. Choose an interactive experience which complements your company, value proposition, and your customers' preferences.
3. Use ‘qualifiers’ in your interactive experiences, such as questions or choices. If you choose to ask questions, make sure you stick to general marketing questions that people feel comfortable answering; such as questions about demographics, shopping habits, and internet usage. Don’t scare them off with super-personal questions.

If, for example, you run a contest as your form of interactive marketing, here is how you could ensure all leads captured are high-quality...Pick a prize which is hyper-focused on attracting someone who is interested in what you are selling. This doesn’t necessarily mean you can only give away free versions of your product or service, however, your prizes should at least complement these things. For example, some brands partner with non-competing businesses who have a similar target audience to expand their reach when running a contest. Hair brand R + Co have done exactly this in the Instagram contest below, by partnering with fashion brands to put together a contest prize which aligns with their ideal customer profile:

An Instagram contest between two complementary brands.Another thing you can do when running a contest to make sure you attract quality interactive leads is to tailor the participation requirements so that you collect vital qualifying information and eliminate irrelevant parties. For example, the contest below from Mission Foods has a simple binary voting system for entering. Participants need to choose their favorite Mexican dish from two options.

An example of a contest which captures user preferences.While this may seem insignificant to a participant, the company is gathering interesting customer feedback about the products they like best.Another way of qualifying leads and capturing preference data is to let entrants pick a prize from a series of options, like this example from JBC Tire:

Another example of a contest which qualifies participants.

Conclusion

There is nothing simple about qualified lead generation, despite what many digital marketing ‘gurus’ might tell you.In the end, it comes down to consistency, testing, and optimization of the customer experience with your brand. The more you can know about your customers, the better the experience you can provide them, and the better you will be at finding more of those ideal prospects.Interactive experiences give you a leg up in this process, due to their compelling engagement levels and ability to subtly capture valuable data about your prospects which you can use to personalize future campaigns.Above you mention there is a simple process to making sure captured leads are high-quality. Maybe we say something like - with a few steps, you can go from capturing tire kickers to high-quality leads.

Try making a free contest or promotion to gather leads from your social media.

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