Viewers control the pace with interactive videos by clicking on-screen items, inquiring, and purchasing things within the video — creating an immersive experience. Consumers benefit from interactive videos because it talks directly to them and allows them more power. It's also incredibly effective in terms of consumer-led marketing. Viewers can engage with digital content by clicking, dragging, and scrolling, similar to how we interact with website content. Hotspots and video quizzes are some of the most popular interactive video elements. Although linear videos produce outstanding results, interactive videos are the next natural step in generating stunning video marketing campaigns. They offer another level of engagement with ease!
Are interactive videos effective?
It's no wonder that marketers are constantly looking for new ways to engage their audiences and persuade them to convert, allowing them to go through their sales funnel. Because so many brands are turning to clickable videos to reach new audiences, it's critical to understand all the commotion. According to Brightcove, 35 percent of interactive video marketers have seen a major boost in conversion, and 25 percent have seen a substantial rise in sales. Similarly, Raptmedia estimates that 34 percent of its video viewers desire to be able to browse different sections in a video.
Interactive videos succeed because they allow the audience to participate, making it simple to draw them in with highly engaging videos. Marketers benefit from the ability to track audience information when they use interactive videos in their campaigns. You obtain vital information about your audience's behavior and preferences with every button click. Incorporating interactive videos into your digital advertising allows you to keep track and connect with specific audiences while capturing value from your target customers.
Benefits of using interactive videos
Maintaining the audience's retention
It'sKeeping your target audience's attention is critical but retention is crucial. Viewers should remember your message or your call to action after they leave. Numerous studies show that people retain less than half of the information provided after an hour. To prevent this, actively engaging your audience in a video increases the likelihood that they will recall what they read or watched. Interactive videos are also created to capture their attention and persuade people to spend more time watching the video. When engaging with a video, the audience's attention is drawn to the material. It is not only successful in maintaining them but also in keeping them around. Furthermore, stimulating the brain while watching a video can aid memory retention.
Increase conversion
It's great to get many people to see your marketing videos, but the real goal is to turn them into paying clients. You want to act on their interests with your commercial once someone has finished watching your video. Don't leave it up to the audience to figure out what to do next; show them. A call to action (CTA) is a marketing tool that helps individuals move through the sales funnel and become customers. You can integrate clickable features that drive the required action, giving the consumer a simple, all-encompassing experience. Other entertaining interactive features, such as quizzes or branching, can create a sense of achievement for your audience, incentivizing conversion. Most marketing initiatives use conversion as a key metric, and interactive videos convert at over 11 percent instead of captions, which convert at 1 percent.
Increase audience participation
The active experience, which involves viewers directing the user journey, can lead to a 591 percent increase in user activity – a boost that can help any marketing campaign succeed. Marketers should aim for active visitors in general. We don't want people to skip through our videos or fall asleep while listening to what we're saying. We aim to motivate people to take action and convert them into customers. You're already in a better position to encourage engagement because consumers are participating in a clickable video – whether they need to create a series of decisions to advance the tale storyline or take periodic quizzes to advance to the next level.
Types of Interactive Videos
Interactive videos are an excellent medium for capturing attention, increasing engagement, and improving knowledge retention in various situations, including marketing, content development, and education.
Education
People learn differently, and interactive videos allow customers to choose their learning route based on their interests and learning rate. Viewers can take an active role in their learning by building a tailored experience to select the topics, pace, and direction. Interactive video is an important element in online education since it helps to increase engagement and retention. If they are not passive learners who just observe and sit, using interactive videos can increase the learner's problem-solving skills and ignite their creativity. The learner can interact with the interactive content such as branching situations, hotspots, and quizzes during their learning journey.
Recruitment
Employee onboarding is sped up using interactive films so that new hires may go to work as soon as possible. They can also provide an exceptional employee experience, resulting in a higher retention rate and a lower cost of staff turnover. In today's competitive business world, it's more critical than ever to attract and keep the proper employees. Top firms employ interactive videos to give personalized and relevant content to engage with leading candidates, reduce time-to-hire, and save money on hiring.
Marketing
To reduce the sales cycle and increase loyalty, use interactive films to provide digital experiences that please your customers. You may develop a highly personalized experience to enhance conversion by combining it with other marketing tools. Furthermore, interactive videos can create a compelling brand experience for clients by eliciting an emotional response. They can also provide pertinent product information to boost customer satisfaction while minimizing support expenses. Brands must also provide real-time interactions and individualized experiences to today's consumers. 80 percent of customers believe they are more inclined to buy a product or service from a company that gives them a tailored experience, and 40 percent say personalized recommendations have led them to purchase more expensive products than they had expected.
How to determine which type of campaign is right for your business
It is critical to be aware of these new video marketing options for those who wish to stay current and are concerned with always developing their marketing strategy. Content is a crucial component of creating a brand and interacting with customers, attracting qualified leads, and increasing the target audience's engagement and experience. According to a Forbes survey from 2018, videos were already the most efficient way to reach people. Given the economic trends and the benefits listed above, refusing to integrate them into your strategy could be a mistake. To assist you in making this decision and putting it into action, we've highlighted certain types of campaigns that you can incorporate into your marketing strategy.
Gamification
Gamification is gaining traction in the marketing industry, and many people have already embraced this method. And interactive video fits right in with this strategy! The market is already saturated with gamers, so an improved version of their favorite games in interactive technology will only enhance conversion.
Branding
Not only because the public places a high value on companies that embrace innovation but also because interacting with a brand — or a video of a particular brand — will almost surely boost the likelihood of it being recalled at an appropriate time.
Tips for making your interactive video campaigns more effective
Set your objectives
The first thing you should do is set goals for the video and promotion. Examine your business and creative pursuits. It's safe to assume that you want to increase viewing time, membership and subscription numbers, and shopping basket conversion rates. You should also consider whether you require it to work on all devices and in diverse dialects.
Create a strategy for coordinating the goals you have set
Place your interactive participation in your business at the top of your priority list. Your audience can choose which locations to visit in the interactive video, similar to a guided tour. However, it is still a controlled experience that the desired outcome should inform. Put yourself in the audience's shoes and consider whether they need to continue watching the video. If not, modify the plot to make it more attractive or helpful. You'll get a more engaged audience and greater business results if you put the viewer's feelings first.
Decide on your innovation strategy right away in the creation process
Unique interactive video innovations have a variety of capabilities. You must decide whether it is more critical for your clickable video to be appropriated in a Flash commercial format or whether you must engage your audience on all devices, including smartphones. It's a good idea to look at what specialized requirements are important to you at the start of the process. You can choose an innovation strategy and then create content that works with the functionalities available on that platform.
How to Measure the Success of Your Interactive Video Campaign
Interactions
The number of interactions – such as clicks on any links or calls to action inside your video – can reveal how viewers react to the content. For example, suppose they're clicking on a certain item featured in your video, such as a pencil, but not on anything else your company offers. In that case, it indicates that those users are more interested in the pencil. You can then fine-tune your campaign by sending more personalized material to individuals who clicked on the pencil while exposing your other products to a different demographic category.
Conversion rates
This helpful indicator shows how well your video converts views into sales, whether capturing leads, boosting traffic or closing purchases. Interactive technology makes it much easier to track leads or purchases generated because it allows you to integrate forms, links, and even a shopping cart immediately within a video. While the amount of form submissions or purchases is unquestionably a victory, comparing it to your engagement rate can reveal how many people are clicking on your content but not converting. This could indicate that you need to rethink your messaging and change your copy to increase conversions.
Bounce rates
Long load times, a lack of clear CTAs for visitors to interact with, or just a video that wasn't interesting enough to attract people are all reasons why a viewer could leave your video. If someone clicks away from your video, they didn't engage with it and didn't convert. Knowing the percentage of visitors who quit your video without any action might help you determine its effectiveness and alter it accordingly.
Successful interactive video campaigns
Deloitte
You may get to meet potential employees through interactive videos before hiring them. Deloitte New Zealand designed a recruitment video that allows applicants to experience what it's like to be a new hire. Viewers are allowed to make in-video decisions and are exposed to the Deloitte culture in a fun, light-hearted style that is far more effective than any written job description — by using a first-person perspective.
Maybelline New York
Maybelline collaborated with prominent fashion blogger Kelly Framel to star in a step-by-step interactive video lesson to promote the debut of their Big Eyes Falsies Mascara. With millennials accounting for a big chunk of Maybelline's customer base – who spend hours per day on their devices – the interactive video was an obvious choice. A visual tutorial that breaks down multiple cutting-edge days and night mascara looks makes perfect sense for a business that makes runway looks accessible.
The bottom line
After years of being labeled an emerging approach in video marketing efforts, interactive videos have finally become popular. The audience has a unique opportunity to participate with your material in such videos actively. This isn't something you'll find in a traditional video. As a result, incorporating interaction into your video content is now more important than ever, especially in this age of immediacy, when people's attention spans are shrinking.
