7 Ways to Use Quiz Marketing to Engage Buyers and Convert Leads

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E-commerce gets trickier and trickier all the time. Whether you’re promoting acall recording systemor an ethical fashion brand, simply making an impression on consumers is becoming increasingly difficult. After all, consumers are constantly being bombarded with demands for their attention, and you can hardly blame them for zoning out from most of them.

Because today’s consumers are so savvy and alert to most of the tricks marketers throw at them, you need to go the extra mile if you’re going to make a truly positive impression.Converting leads into customersis a difficult business at the best of times, but it’s even harder in an environment where competition is so intense and there are so many competitors vying for the attentiveness of users.

That’s not to say it’s impossible, of course. Marketers have responded in recent years by demonstrating their flair and imagination in all sorts of different ways. 

The days when you could just stick up a banner ad and wait for the hits to come in are over. Now, consumers expect you to make a bit more effort if you’re going to get them to part with their money. So you need to resort to some new tactics. One that’s proven to be particularly effective is quiz marketing. You might not have encountered the term before, but you’ve no doubt come across the technique.

You’ve probably done lots of online quizzes in the past without realising that these were in fact a form of marketing. they’re not just beguiling and entertaining content: they’re great at generating leads and revenue as well.

We’ll take you through seven great ways to use quiz marketing to engage buyers and convert leads – but first, what exactly is it?

You’ve probably found yourself, midway through a long Friday afternoon, killing a bit of time (though not too much, in case anyone raises any eyebrows) completing funny online quizzes. They’re certainly an entertaining distraction and one that can be quite addictive.

What you might not have realized is that they’re also a form of marketing. This is quiz marketing; it involves creating fun online quizzes to cleverly guide consumers towards making purchases. As one of the most ubiquitous forms of online content out there, it makes sense to use quizzes as a tool for generating leads and revenue. More and more businesses are making use of it, and with good reason.

It’s important to note at this point that businesses really need to go the extra mile when it comes tocustomer-focused content. If you restrict yourself to a company website and a standard social media presence, you’re going to struggle to catch the attention of consumers. Remember what we said earlier about how their attention is constantly being vied for?

You should remember here that your company’s website is simply one aspect of your online presence. Of course, it’s vital that your website is well designed, user-friendly, visually engaging and well-optimized for SEO. But you shouldn’t put all your eggs in the one basket. Your online presence needs to cover many more bases than this.

Think about it this way. Driving people to your website to complete a transaction is the ultimate goal. But it’s the last link in the chain. Before they buy, they need to be engaged. It’s not just about selling them products but encouraging them to buy into and identify with the wider brand.

This is why so many businesses today place a lot of emphasis on providing users with a steady flow of entertaining and engaging content. It’s become an integral part of thecustomer journey. Quiz marketing has therefore come to occupy an important niche. Let’s take a closer look at why.

Whether you’re extolling the benefits of your unique beauty brand or plugging thebest call center software, you need to think very carefully about how you’re going to reach the people you need to reach.

For consumers, it can really brighten their day to come across a piece of content that’s genuinely entertaining. Something with real thought and creativity is far more likely to capture their attention than bland, stale content. It indicates to them there’s a genuine personality behind the brand, and helps to convey this. This increases their engagement – and your reputation.

But the benefits of quiz marketing aren’t just about entertaining consumers. Quizzes have a lot of potential upsides for businesses as well. In particular, it’s a very good way of extending your social reach. The importance of social media marketing is already widely acknowledged, and snappy content is the most effective method of success. Quizzes are very shareable, so they frequently perform very well on social channels.

They’re also good when it comes to building up your email list. Again, think of all theemail alternativesyour customers are peppered with, day after day. It can be very difficult to incentivize them to sign up to even more email lists, given they already ignore many of the emails they receive. 

But if you can promise them fun and relevant content, you’ll be in a much better position to encourage consumers to sign up. You might have the best on the market, but you have to do more than just hit people with the hard sell. It’s also about entertaining them, engaging with them and giving them a compelling reason to open those emails.

Quiz marketing also helps to drive sales – which is, after all, the bottom line. What many consumers don’t realize when they take online quizzes is that they’re helping to generate personalized product recommendations in return. Armed with the data quizzes provide, marketers can target users specifically with ads that are likely to be of interest to them. Tailoring is a big thing for consumers and can boost sales growth.

It also helps to provide a more detailed understanding of consumers in general, and what they might be looking for. This allows businesses to adjust their website content, their social content, or maybe even the services and products they offer in order to capitalize on where the demand is. After all, if you want to persuade people to care about something like thebenefits of a warehouse management system, it helps to know what problems they need help solving.

Finally, quiz marketing can do a lot to drive traffic to your website. If you’ve got fun quizzes and other entertaining content on your site, it’s likely to give users an incentive to stick around for longer. This means not only will they be more likely to check out other parts of your site, but also it’ll reduce your site’s bounce rate, potentially boosting its performance in search engine rankings.

Capturing customers requires the ability to create the kind of content that entertains and amuses consumers – while also subtly encourages them to proceed to the point of completing a sale. 

It’s obvious enough why quiz marketing strikes such a chord among consumers. People love interactive content. It helps them pass the time and keep them amused, plus if they really like it, they’ll share it with their friends and on their social media accounts. They offer users the chance to learn something new about themselves while having fun doing it.

However, quizzes can also be used to build credibility and authority as well as providing a bit of fun. You can use quizzes to ask a set of informed, topical questions and thereby prove your own expertise in your field. This is likely to resonate with consumers, as it helps to build trust and goes to show that your business knows what it’s talking about. This can make it a great asset in addition to your aspects of e-commerce such as a personalizedsales territory planand other geolocation-based marketing strategies.

They’re also a great way to suggest a particular solution if you offer a range of services. Let’s say you provide avirtual PBXsystem. Rather than having to find their way around a site, weigh up numerous options, and figure out what works for them, customers can go through a tailored quiz. Some questions you could come up with include:

By answering questions based on their needs, you can provide them with the best option – making it much easier for them to make a decision.

Here are seven top tips to help you get the most out of quiz marketing.

1. Use quizzes as a virtual sales representative.When you’re drawing up a quiz, consider following the general script you’d expect a sales representative or live chat operator to follow.  You can even tap information from services like anauto attendant phone system, to give you a better idea of how customers like to interact with your brand. This will help customers find the products and services they’re looking for, guiding them along theconversion funnel, while also providing you with detailed information about what users are looking for on your site.

2. Psychology counts.It’s important to remember this when you’re drawing up your quiz. People love to learn, and they particularly enjoy learning new things about themselves. Understanding this psychology is important; it can help you in your efforts to draw up a quiz that people really enjoy and want to complete.

3. Understand the purpose of your quiz.What do you want to achieve with this quiz? It’s important to think about this before you do anything else. Determine a purpose and goal for each quiz in advance. Think about how you want your audience to respond, and what you’re seeking from them.

4. Know your audience.Following on from the previous point, it’s vital that you know who you’re targeting with your quizzes. Think about how tochoose the right questionsfor your audience. If you put a quiz together without any clear idea of who might be completing it (and why it might be useful to them), the chances are that it won’t make any distinctive impression.

5. Create a lead capture form.If you want your quiz to produce leads (and, of course, you do) then a lead capture form will be necessary. This will help you gather data that you can use to expand your email list. Offer users incentives to sign up – exclusive content, for example – but only ask for information you’ll genuinely need.

6. Repurpose quiz content.If your quiz generates interesting findings and data, why not make use of this and create additional content to publicize it? For example, you could create a video or an infographic to illustrate key data points. This isn’t just great content in its own right; it’s also a good way of generating more interest in the quiz.

7. End with a strong call to action.Everyone knows that a strong call to action makes a big difference, and it applies to quiz marketing as well. You need to ensure that once a user completes a quiz, they go on to visit other parts of your site. A compelling call to action can give them the nudge they need.

In today’s ultra-competitive online marketplace, it’s important to gain an advantage wherever you can. It could be expanding your product range, cutting your prices or even shaving a bit off yourwebsite loading time– it all counts. But content is of the utmost importance. Consumers today are looking for brands to provide them with content that’s not only relevant and interesting but engaging and fun as well.

Richard Conn is the Senior Director, Search Marketing for RingCentral, a global leader in unified communications andVoIP provider. 

He is passionate about connecting businesses and customers and has experience working with Fortune 500 companies such as Google, Experian, Target, Nordstrom, Kayak, Hilton, and Kia.