Content marketing reigned as the most important trend of 2015.
Marketers poured more effort into producing interesting whitepapers, informative case studies, entertaining videos, exciting blog posts, and other forms of content that sought out warm leads.
Among the various options of content available to marketers, finding the best content for your marketing strategy can be difficult. Not all content will guarantee new subscribers. So which types will be the most effective in generating leads?
The answer you’ve been searching for may have gone unnoticed. And we don’t blame you for it.
Of all the content proven to generate leads, social media quizzes have been known to be one of the most underrated types of content available to marketers.
Social media quizzes are arguably one of the more competitive forms of content out there, and when implemented into any brand’s marketing strategy, can not only generate leads, but increase audience engagement, provide entertainment value, and even drive revenue.
Here at Interact, we’ve helped over 10,000 brands create over 25,000 quizzes, so we have a pretty good idea about how effective they are, and the best practices when it comes to creating your own.
That’s why we’ve come up with this guide.
Today, I’ll show you how to create your own social media quiz for lead generation. We’ll go over what it takes create an effective title, which type of quiz you want to make, how to create fun and engaging questions, setting up your lead capture, and then creating results that get shared.
By the end of this article, you’ll have no problem coming up with one of your own.
So let’s get started.
1. Come up with your title
Viral quizzes don’t just come out of thin air. They start with something as simple as a title first. What follows after that title is the idea behind the quiz. But before we get ahead of ourselves, we have to understand the importance of the right title.
Eighty percent of readers will determine whether something’s worth reading, just based off of its title. That being said, what kind of title can you come up with?
It isn’t very easy, now is it? The title will be the first impression we make to our audience, so we have to make it count. Here are some title formulas to get you started:
The “actually” title
Adding the word “actually” to your title does a lot more than you think. Compare “How much do you know about Star Wars?” to “How much do you actually know about Star Wars?” You’ve just transformed a boring question into a challenge, and no one wants to back down from a challenge.
The “Which _____ Are You?” title
This is your classic personality quiz title. Fill in the blank with anything, from food to vehicles, or even characters from your favorite television show. Because of our inquisitive nature, sometimes we just have to know which “Breaking Bad” character we are.
The “celebrity personality” title
Take the “Which _____ Are You?” title template and substitute the blank with a celebrity. It’s the same kind of title, with the only difference being the use of celebrities. Because of this, this title template is more likely to attract a larger audience based on the chosen celebrities.
Now that you’ve got a title in mind, it’s time to figure out what type of social media quiz you’re going to make.
2. Choose a social media quiz type
There’s more than one kind of quiz, and which you choose will determine your questions and results. Here are two quiz types to choose from:
The personality quiz
Because of something called “self-serving bias,” people generally love hearing good things about themselves. That’s why this type of quiz so popular.
The personality quiz categorizes people into personality types based on their answers. Let’s say your brand has a line of beauty products. Using a personality quiz, you could place people into different personality types that offered personalized product recommendations. You’ve just personalized the customer experience.
The knowledge test
This is one of the more common social media quizzes. It gauges an individual’s knowledge and delivers results based on accuracy.
From a marketing perspective, you could utilize a knowledge quiz to assess your company’s employees. You could even use it to find out how much your audience knows about your brand or its products. If you really wanted to, you could even gauge the knowledge of someone based off what’s trending.
3. Create engaging questions
After you’ve come up with your title and figured out what type of lead generation quiz you want to make, it’s time to move to the questions. This is your chance to establish a one-on-one connection with your audience, so take advantage of it.
The questions allow you to connect with prospective customers as your brand, and also warm them up as potential qualified leads. Use this as a way to encourage your audience to opt-in later on through an entertaining piece of interactive content.
Here are a couple of ways to effectively engage your audience with your quiz:
Get personal with your quiz
Don’t be afraid to make things personal. Approach your audience as if you were talking to them in person.
This helps establish a more relaxed tone throughout the quiz and eases your audience into getting to know your brand better. This will prove to be extremely useful when the time comes for them to opt-in.
Use images in your questions
Text-only questions are fine, but liven things up every once in awhile by including images in your questions.
Not only is it fun and relevant, but it can also often turn a very mundane quiz into a trivia game. The higher the entertainment value, the more memorable the quiz will be to your audience, which may increase shares.
Keep things short
People don’t have a big chunk of time on their hands to kill. At most, your audience will have around 5 minutes to interact with your brand.
Consider having between 6 to 8 questions in your quiz. This normally takes people about 2-3 minutes to complete.
4. Generate leads with your quiz
Once you’ve finished coming up with the questions, it’s time to move onto the lead capture form. This is your opportunity to have your audience opt-in to your mailing list.
We’re purposely placing the lead capture right before the results, so that your audience is given the option of opting in or skipping this portion (always let them skip this step) before getting what they came for.
“Gating” the quiz with a lead capture allows your brand a small window of opportunity to help grow its subscriber list. Here are several ways to optimize the opt-in rate of your audience:
Include incentives to increase opt-ins
Even if your audience is making a fair trade of contact information for quiz results, offering incentives to them gives them an additional reason to opt in.
Try offering things like a free ebook or whitepaper, an entry into a free giveaway, or even some marketing advice.
Only request information that you’ll use
It isn’t a particularly great idea to ask for more information than necessary. Most lead captures will require an email address. Others might require a first name and last name.
Keep in mind, you’re just trying to get subscribers. Unless you have another use for extra contact information, it’s best to stick with the bare minimum.
Be honest about your marketing strategy
We don’t mean giving away our entire marketing strategy, but at least let your audience know what you’ll be doing with their information. It isn’t always obvious to your audience that you’ll be contacting them, so gently remind them through a privacy policy.
5. Create results worth sharing
After completing your lead capture, it’s time to move on to the last portion of the quiz: the results.
By now your audience should be excited to get their results, so as a brand, we can’t let them down, especially after asking for contact information.
The results will ultimately determine how popular your quiz will become. If your audience falls in love with their results, the likelihood of them sharing it across social media increases.
The more contagious your results, the more likely others will want to take their quiz for themselves, so they can see what they’ll end up with.
Here are some helpful suggestions to make the most out of your results:
Be truthful and uplifting
They say that positive emotions encourage sharing, so why not take advantage of that by coming up with results that compliment your audience? Make your audience feel good about themselves, but be truthful as well.
By evoking positive emotions, you prompt your audience to essentially brag about their results on social media. It’s a win-win.
Use images that are likely to be shared
We suggested using images earlier in your questions. This time around, the use of images is even more important.
When people share their results on social media, the first thing others will notice is the image related to their result. Make sure you use captivating images to attract an even larger audience.
Consider including a call-to-action
Sure, you might’ve gotten your audience to join your mailing list, but don’t let your interaction end with them at the results. Don’t be afraid to include a call-to-action.
It can be as simple as inviting your audience to learn more about your brand with a link to your website, or even a link to other products that your brand has to offer.
Let’s sum up
And there you have it.
Today, you learned how to create your own lead generation quiz from start to finish.
There’s a wide variety of content at the disposal of marketers, but not all of them can guarantee fruitful results. That’s where social media quizzes comes in.
With its versatile functionality, implementing a social media quiz in your marketing strategy can make a world of a difference in the number of leads your company gets.
