7 Content Types That Will Optimize Your Conversion Rate

You can create the most stellar content in the world, but if your means of communication aren’t effective and compelling, you’ll end up missing out on important opportunities that translate into real ROI for your marketing efforts.

You need strong, high-performing content that gives your audience a reason to engage. And while the standard blog post may be delivering okay results for you so far, the reality is that there are better options out there you should consider.

Let’s look at seven different content types that can optimize your conversion rate and deliver more Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs).

Interactive Quizzes / Trivia

Interactive tests that allow users to gauge their skills or knowledge are a fun, engaging way to help leads better understand a knowledge gap you can help fill. By teasing out a subtle realization that the users maybe don’t know as much as they thought they did, you’re priming them for a solution that you can follow up with.

For marketers, interactive quizzes and trivia help group users into one of several categories, thus making it easier to learn more about their unique needs and to deliver more personalized content later on.

How they optimize conversion rates: Providing a fun, non-salesy activity like this is an easy way to take the edges off a hard sell. Think about it: If you had to choose between clicking on a standard white paper or a quiz that tests your knowledge, which would you be more apt to choose? Likely the one that sounds more fun.

In the example from HotSchedules, you can see how working through an interactive piece of content like this one helps the user self-identify areas for improvement in a process.

Assessments

Like quizzes and trivia, assessments pull at a user’s curiosity to see how they compare with others or to learn something new about themselves in a fast, easy format. If you’ve ever been sucked into a “Which (television show/movie) Character Are You?” quiz, you know exactly why and how these work.

How they optimize conversion rates: Because these assessments are so engaging and interesting for the user, they’re great at driving clicks and collecting lead information, all while informing the user along the way. They’re proven to work, too: A report from DemandGen showed 20% of respondents used assessments to research B2B purchase decisions in the past year.

Take a look at this example from Prophix. In this quiz, users can not only learn more about themselves, but they also get a helpful piece of follow-up content after completion, too.

Interactive Infographics

Putting a large amount of sales enablement content (like stats, facts, and graphs) into a single, visually-pleasing format with an interactive component is another great way to optimize a call to action. And because they create a visual dialogue that engages, educates, and informs, they help transform an ordinary information dump into a two-way conversation.

How they optimize conversion rates: As viewers move through the interactive infographic, they’re sharing important information that can be integrated into your CRM. For the marketer, this means continuing a relevant conversation with leads becomes much easier, and touching on the right pain points becomes a cinch.

Not sure what this looks like in action? Check out this Ceridian example, which shows how users learn from the data in the infographic, but are also sharing important data at the same time.

Videos

More than ever, people are devoting time spent online to watching videos. In fact, data from eMarketer indicates that the average time adults spend per day watching video is about 5.5 hours. But what’s truly exciting about videos is that they can accomplish so many objectives – fast.

How they optimize conversion rates: Interactive videos incorporate a wide variety of interactive elements directly into the storyline, and help create a back-and-forth conversation with the audience. This deep engagement translates into problem-solving for the viewer (and rich data for the marketing and sales teams).

Want to see this content type at work? Watch this short video and study how leads can more quickly convert thanks to this engaging format.

Calculators

For leads who need to do some serious number-crunching before making a conversion, interactive calculators are highly effective means of presenting your content. They are highly successful, too: SilkRoad saw a 46% lead submission rate with an ROI calculator they deployed on their site.

How they optimize conversion rates: Whether it’s producing a hard stat like ROI, revenue, time savings, etc., interactive calculators generate real, tangible statistics that prove value for leads. This is highly effective for a simple reason: It’s hard to stare a number in the face and say, “I still don’t see the potential here.”

See it at work: Fonality uses a calculator to show leads how their current service pairs up with the solutions they can offer. The calculator shows the lead whether or not they can realistically move forward, and if not, explains what needs to happen in the meantime.

Surveys / Polls

Surveys and polls work by gathering feedback, opinions, and valuable insight from users in the form of a questionnaire with no right or wrong answers. And because they are so versatile, they work in almost any context.

And the conversions they produce are sometimes astounding. Marketing platform Bizo achieved a 79% click-through rate and a 56% lead form completion by deploying a weekly poll on its blog. Pretty impressive, right?

How they optimize conversion rates: People love to share their thoughts and opinions – they can’t help themselves. And providing a platform on which a lead can say, “Hey, this is what I think” is a win-win, because not only does it give the participant a voice, but it helps the marketing and sales team gather valuable customer sentiments.

In this poll example from Castlight, you can see how the user is not only sharing his or her personal opinion, but is also being provided some helpful insights along the way. And upon completion of a poll like this one, the marketing department will have a much more accurate picture of how they can better serve this potential customer.

Contests and Giveaways

Last but not least is the competitive spirit that a contest or giveaway can stir up. Some companies choose to further motivate participants to engage with any of the interactive content discussed above by adding a little frosting on top – the potential to win a prize.

Whether it’s a free trial period of a service or a stellar prize package, these extras can be motivation for participants to overcome their hesitations and to truly take action.

How they optimize conversion rates: Fear Of Missing Out, or FOMO, is an extremely powerful concept to utilize for conversions. When participants see a compelling contest that holds the promise of winning a great prize, they are more apt to take action so they don’t miss out on the opportunity to win.

Pairing a contest or giveaway prize package with interactive content is a great way to further motivate participants to follow through and convert.

Optimize Conversion Rate By Using Innovative Content Types

Using the tools we’ve discussed here, you can get on the path to higher conversion rates and more relevant leads that translate into sales for your business.

Think about which resources make the most sense for your objectives, and then start designing and deploying these conversion-driving pieces of marketing.

The only question that remains: Which one will you try first?