Why Your Business Needs Interactive Video

interactive video

Today’s marketplace is highly competitive. Companies are striving to stand out of the crowd by introducing new techniques and tools as part of their marketing activities. Over the last few years, we have seen a significant rise in video usage. And judging by 51.9% of professional marketers worldwide, video has the best ROI – among all content types. But for some companies, traditional video content isn’t enough. They like to offer personalized and more engaging video experience to their viewers. This is where interactive video comes into play – as a powerful tool that helps businesses boost conversion rates and increase customer engagement.

What is Interactive Video?

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Image by: Rob Nowman (via Wiki Commons)

Interactive video is an innovative concept that introduces a new way of thinking about videos. Basically, you go a step further to engage the viewer to actively participate in your video. In the simplest terms, interactive video enables customers to click and navigate through content. All those elements like action buttons, external links to product pages, contact and subscription forms are often used in interactive videos. This way, viewers are allowed to take action and control the output of the video.

But lately, we’re seeing a whole new approach when it comes to interactive videos. Companies are promoting their brand or product by developing a storyline where customers can change the video output by selecting number of choices as the video goes by.

One of the issues with traditional videos, is that people are passively watching the video with no participation whatsoever. This is where interactive videos are different. When customers are taking action, the video becomes more memorable.

Benefits of Using Interactive Video

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Image Credit: FutundBeidl (via Flickr)

Businesses can highly benefit by creating interactive videos. They can connect with their customers more directly and gather insights to better understand their behavior. Here are the main benefits of using interactive videos.

Increased viewer engagement

Many companies are struggling to get the desired video marketing results. Although video is naturally engaging, it requires a lot of effort and planning. By using interactive videos, you’ll be able to bring something fresh and unique to your viewers. The personalized connection that interactive videos provide can be just the thing you need to increase your viewer’s engagement.

Better conversion by linking external content

Interactive videos allow you to add different elements like call to action buttons, contact forms and links to external sources. This is pretty powerful – considering how many tools you have at your disposal to engage your viewer into action.

Understanding customer behavior

If you develop your interactive video around some appealing story, you can collect valuable insights on how your viewers behave while they’re watching the video.

Improved Brand Awareness

Using interactive videos, you can significantly raise awareness for your brand, product and service. If you create unique interactive video content, it can get really popular really fast – allowing you to be a step ahead of your competitors.

Examples of Successful Interactive Videos

Here are some examples of how companies use interactive videos to promote their brand and boost customer engagement.

Tipp-Ex A hunter shoots a Bear Video

This is probably the best interactive YouTube video out there. It lets you choose whether a hunter should shoot the bear that shows up or not. Right after you choose one of those two options, you’re taken to a page that looks just like the video, where the hunter picks a Tipp-Ex white and erases the word “shoot” from the YouTube title. Then, it allows you to write a word instead of shoot. It’s funny, innovative and clever.

Philips’ “Designed to Play” by Ogilvy & Mather

This is a an innovative and playful interactive video. It promotes Click & Style electric razor through highly entertaining content. Check it out here.

Interactive Recruitment Video by Deloitte

This video was made to educate potential candidates about Deloitte’s culture in a slightly different way than you’re used to seeing in traditional recruitment videos. Click here to check out the video.

Featured Image by: David Mulder (via Flickr)