Use Interactive Video to Amp Up Your Content Marketing

Traditionally, if you thought about content marketing as an immediate source of qualified sales leads, you were bound to be disappointed. A successful content marketing strategy was consistent and persistent, it was a long game, and it was often designed to create ‘above the funnel’ awareness of your business as a thought leader and source of unique or compelling industry knowledge. Success meant that when a prospect emerged, you were already a known and trusted entity and therefore at the top of the call (click) list.

With Interactive video though,  you have the opportunity to change this dynamic and get prospective prospects into your active cultivation and engagement funnel sooner because the content marketing itself engages and activates the audience beyond simple awareness.

So what are some approaches to leveraging interactive video in your content marketing strategy that could grab and keep the attention of your audience?.

1. Be a Content Curator

Even if you don’t have your own video content, there is plenty out there. Sometimes the best value you can deliver is curating that content into more digestible chunks. Using Mindstamp, it’s easy to take existing YouTube assets about any topic and add your own value on top. Add intelligent chapters to the video that make it easy for viewers to to search on and discover the parts of the video that is of the most interest, add your own searchable comments or notes that flag key points and reinforce critical topics, or layer on imagery such as infographics to drive home facts or stats or link to supporting materials, research or statistics.

2. Create the Connections‍

In addition to adding searchable or incremental value to individual videos, you can find a series of distinct assets and use Mindstamp to link them together in meaningful ‘choose your own adventure’ narratives that take viewers on their own journey of discovery. This is most powerful when the viewer’s action drives the next asset. Ask a question about topics of interest and then change to the video that’s most of interest to that particular viewer. At the end of a video add ‘pause until viewer action’ buttons that wait for your viewers to decide where they want to go next.

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3. Ask Questions to Drive Participation‍

Speaking of questions, you can use Mindstamp’s multiple choice or free response questions to create simple polls on your videos to gather feedback from your viewers while they’re watching the content. Is it interesting? What would they like to learn more about? Where in the video would they like to jump to or what area was too complex? People like to talk about themselves, and interactive video with Mindstamp makes it easy to encourage that.

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4. Smash that subscribe button‍

Once your viewers understand that the viewing experience is interactive, that the video itself is a participatory experience, you can go in for the kill. Turn your video content marketing into a prospect acquisition tool by collecting their email against a specific offer. For instance, drop three buttons onto the video offering more in depth content on a specific topic, and when they click use a Mindstamp Collect Response field to grab their email. Then pump that into your CRM system and kick off the workflow to send them direct links to the next set of content that matches their interest. Boom, your content marketing turned into lead acquisition.

5. Lists Lists Lists‍

People love lists! They share lists. Lists make everyone feel smart. Like this article. Or here are ‘4 tips for the future of video marketing’. Lists make people feel like they can quickly digest the content, understand the full structure, and take action. It’s easy to make a video INTO a list by adding simple navigation on the key topics and using buttons to let viewers jump to the topic they like.

No matter what, maintaining interest in your content takes time and effort. Retaining eyeballs is hard. Use these tips to increase the odds your video keeps the attention of your viewer. And with any content marketing strategy, you just have to keep on keeping on.

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