Trends and shifts intensely drive digital marketing today. And to be on top of the competition, firms have to stand out by knowing their customer preferences fast, as that not only generates new prospects but also retains existing customers. Marketers are, hence, adopting smarter and interactive ways to engage customers, attract prospects, and boost conversions.
Below is a Q&A session with Randy Rayess, co-founder of Outgrow, where he talks about the benefits of Interactive Content Marketing. Randy has been featured in Forbes 30 under 30 in Marketing and Advertising for driving engagement by offering personalized solutions to marketers from B2B and B2C commerce. As marketplaces shift online, businesses are looking to replicate human-like experiences – and Outgrow’s interactive content does just that!
What is Outgrow and how did you come up with the idea to build a tool like that?
Outgrow is an interactive content platform built on the no-code framework that lets you create eight different types of interactive tools on it. This includes calculators, quizzes, assessments, forms and surveys, chatbots, product recommendations, polls, and giveaways.
Marketers around the globe use our platform to create tools like ROI calculators, outcome quizzes, eCommerce product recommendations, etc. to help with customer acquisition, qualified lead generation, and conversions.
Coming to your second question, how did we come up with this idea? Well, back in the early 2010s, the mobile app phenomenon was starting to take shape. Every other company wanted to build its own mobile app. And we had this company called VenturePact which was a marketplace to develop mobile applications. So our sales team would get tons of queries about the cost of building apps. That’s when we came up with a solution and built an ‘App-Cost Calculator’ that could give people an estimate based on their requirements. And as it turned out, the calculator became a lead generation powerhouse for us. We immediately realized that it’s a brilliant idea to spin around and create a no-code platform where people could create their own calculators. And that’s how it all started.
What is interactive content and how does it stand out from traditional marketing?
Interactive content is a type of content that demands audience participation. It’s like a two-way conversation between the content and the audience, unlike static content where the audience can only passively consume the content. This makes interactive content way more engaging than any traditional content.
Unlike a traditional post where your audience can just leave a like or comment, interactive posts require them to interact with your content by answering questions in order to move forward. As a result, you keep capturing their responses and index them to build a buyer persona and deliver personalized content. This makes your content all the more interesting and valuable for your audience.
Who do you think interactive content is for and how is it transforming the marketing game for businesses?
Interactive content is something that can be used across industries. You just need to find the right problems to address. For example, a financial services company can create a ‘Mortgage Calculator’ or ‘Savings Calculator’. Similarly, an eCommerce company can create a ‘Product Recommendation Quiz’ to aid its audience find the best-fit products for themselves. So, it has a huge target audience mainly consisting of marketers, freelancers, and entrepreneurs across industries.
I’ll give you some stats here. Interactive content is 81% more effective at capturing user attention than static content. Due to this, the lead submission rate shoots up to 80%!
I’ll explain this with the help of an example. Well, let’s say that a financial advisory firm has a Mutual Fund Return calculator on its website with a lead form that pops up before displaying the results. Wouldn’t it be helpful to a person looking to calculate MF returns quickly? The calculator would help solve the user’s problem and keep him hooked all the way till he finds the result. This way, the advisory firm would not just capture the user’s attention but also relevant data like his name, age, investment amount, time frame, etc.
Compare this with the traditional marketing techniques where you just have a blog post or a landing page with a simple lead form attached to it. Static forms don’t convert anymore!
Was there a trend in the adoption of interactive content experiences during the pandemic?
Oh yes! There has been a huge surge in online stores during the pandemic, for obvious reasons of course. Traditional brick-and-mortar stores started venturing into the online marketplace to keep up with the change. Last year, the online retail sales went up to 32.4% YoY. And this kind of proves that there was a surge in online stores.
However, online marketplaces missed the human touch one gets in a traditional retail store. And the only way to replicate a human-like experience online is through personalized interactions. So more and more businesses turned to interactive content to achieve that. Outcome quizzes and chatbots were the top choices for these online businesses.
You said Outgrow is all about personalized interactions. So how do you enable your clients to bring this experience to their users?
Outgrow is equipped with the ability to carry out logical tasks. You can define conditions and assign personalized outcomes for each condition. And that’s just one part of the personalized interactions you can deliver through Outgrow.
We have product recommendation quizzes where you can upload your eCommerce product catalog, set predefined questions, and map your product to the responses. So you can ask your audience about their interests, preferences, size, gender, etc., and map the responses to the products that would fit them best. For customers with a dilemma to choose between products, these personalized recommendations are a real problem solver.
We also have conversational chatbots that work on predefined logic and can carry out personalized conversations with the customers. Now with all this, you not only generate leads and keep customers engaged but also collect deep insights about the customers. And as I have already mentioned, you can then use this precious data for lead nurturing and personalized retargeting.
Let’s understand more about Outgrow. Can you talk about some interesting features of Outgrow and how you’re doubling down on them?
Outgrow is loaded with features! You can build eight different tools all on a single platform! Just think about it!
People use Outgrow to build interactive tools with the least amount of effort. Keeping that in mind, we have made the interface super easy to use – anyone can navigate through our builder and create amazing interactive experiences. We also have a library of pre-built templates which are attractive and mobile optimized. This way, you can save a lot of time by not starting things from scratch and just edit our pre-made templates according to your needs. You can customize almost anything from fonts, colors, logos, backgrounds to question types and layouts.
Then we have logic jumps, conditional messaging, multiple language support, integration options, automatic email triggers, embed options, and above all, a really powerful analytics framework. The analytics dashboard can give you loads of information like conversion rates, demographic data, funnel charts, comparison tab, just to mention a few.
We are also working on a new builder. It’s still in the beta stage but once it’s up and running in full capacity, it would have a better interface and more customization options.
Why should someone choose Outgrow?
As I already mentioned, Outgrow is packed with features and you can create eight different interactive tools with just one subscription! Apart from the power-packed features, we have outstanding customer support. Our average reply time is between 2 – 5 minutes, so if someone needs assistance of any sort, we are available 24/7.
Another thing that I would really like to emphasize is our pricing. We have developed a price model that makes Outgrow accessible to everyone. Our basic plan starts from $14 a month and goes up to $600 a month. Then we also have a dedicated custom plan for startups and small businesses which costs around $50 a month. And for agencies, we do provide the option to customize the entire plan on request. In fact, we offer a free trial for anyone who would like to test our platform; no credit card is required!
Last but not least, we offer an absolutely free subscription for those who only want to create forms and surveys. You can check out our pricing page to avail yourself of the free subscription.
Can you talk about a successful Outgrow case study?
So we worked with Golf Avenue, one of the biggest players in the online retail golfing equipment business. They wanted to know more about their customers’ preferences. For this, they used Outgrow to develop a quiz titled ‘Guess Your Handicap’ having questions like the average number of birdies, golf balls lost, length of a hit, etc. This empowered them to collect customer preferences, which they later used for lead nurturing and retargeting. As a result, they generated 247K+ visits, 82K leads, and a staggering 33% conversion rate.
This is just one example, we have loads of other customer success stories to tell – check out our “Success Story” page under the “Why Outgrow” tab on our homepage. The point I am trying to make is that these figures are quite achievable through interactive content. One can simply sign up for a trial and see the kind of results they get.
How is Outgrow meeting the changing needs of the B2B industry?
We have tried to include everything in our platform to meet the changing dynamics of the B2B industry. For instance, data is a big thing now. To cater to custom data collection, we offer a robust analytics framework for our B2B clients. So, with Outgrow you not only collect data but also analyze it on the same platform. Apart from that, here’s a gist of how Outgrow is empowering the B2B industry:
- Authentic and relevant lead generation through pull marketing strategies
- Boosts engagement and conversion in times of uncertainty
- Cuts manual workload and automates processes
- Helps you better educate your customers about the value of your offering in an engaging and helpful way
How can businesses get in touch with Outgrow?
Well, we are always available on our live chat that you’ll find on our website. And if you want to drop us an email, we are reachable at questions@outgrow.co. You can also sign up for our free trial and we’ll get in touch with you.
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