Use A Quiz to Increase Engagement

The web is a fundamentally strange communication medium. For thousands of small businesses, creative and effective communication is stifled by the one-way nature of printed articles. As a business owner, you are not able to flex the sales skills that are available during a real-time conversation. That’s where Interactive Content enters the equation. In the form of quizzes, personality tests, and diagnostic pieces, it is possible to bring some of that face-to-face charm to your site. The benefits to this type of interaction are numerous, but here are some of the most profitable ones.

1. Visit Duration: On average, people spend nearly two minutes answering quiz questions. That’s two more minutes you have the full attention of a site visitor; two more minutes they are exposed to your ads, two more minutes to click through, two more minutes to make a purchase. At Interact, we ran a test with approximately 20,000 quiz takers, the results show just under two minutes spent taking quizzes. These quizzes are placed on 25 websites across ten genres.

Statistics from 19,704 Interact quizzes:

2. Lead Generation: Peep Laja from conversion XL calls quizzes a “Ridiculously Effective Technique for Online Lead Generation” and they are. For every three quiz-takers, one of them will enter an email address to receive further updates. The reason quizzes are so effective is because of their give-and-take nature. In return for seeing how they did on the quiz, the visitor will enter an email address. Also, since they just spent two minutes answering your questions, they are more enticed to enter an email address to their time wasn’t wasted.

3. Discussion: Quizzes are polarizing; whether you find out your personality is most like George Washington, or your marketing strategy needs improvement, the results of a quiz are cause for discussion.

4. Learn who your customers really are: According to Jupiter Research, lack of customer data is the number two problem marketers face today. Google analytics and metrics can tell you how people access your site and where they get stuck, but not who they are. A quiz titled “What’s Your Blogging Personality?” can ask leading questions about age, gender, habits, and hobbies that would not otherwise be revealed. This data can be used to target further content towards your existing readers and connect on a deeper level.

5. Guide Visitors through Your Site: Suggested content at the end of posts is a new phenomenon, but you can take that concept one step further by suggesting content based on a questionnaire. For example, a skin type quiz asks questions about skin care and leads to one of four possible skin types. For each possible skin type, there is a unique product recommended based on the quiz. For sites with a vast database of articles or products, a quiz is a perfect way to offer up targeted content based on interests.

While web content will never perfectly replicate face-to-face interactions, it is possible to get one step closer. By implementing engaging quizzes, questions, and thought pieces into a regular content line-up, it’s possible to not only increase interaction on your site in the short term, but also in the long run. To get an idea of how many new leads a quiz could pull in for your site, take our short quiz below, and please comment with your position on using quizzes for engagement!

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Josh is an internet entrepreneur and marketing specialist who’s worked with brands around the world to increase their presence online. He has started and sold several of his own sites and is currently co-founder of Interact, an interactive content platform designed to help websites draw in targeted leads. @JHaynam.