Why Interactive Videos Matter for Your Brand and How to Make Them

With digital videos accounting for 22.6% of a brand's media marketing budget, it's clear that videos are a popular medium of choice for businesses. However, with 91% of businesses already using video as a marketing and outreach tool, the question is: how do you stand out?

The answer lies in interactive videos.

Grabbing and retaining the attention of target audiences is a big priority for brands. The internet has made it easy for potential customers to compare brands and move away from your business if they can't find the right information.

Given this reality, brands are forced into fierce competition where time is of the essence. There's a real need to get information out to potential customers in the shortest amount of time possible while also being informative, engaging, and memorable.

Video interactivity rises to these challenges and gives brands a way to provide their audience with a unique experience that will stick with them for a long time. This ends up affecting their engagement and brand recall, ultimately leading to better customer conversions.

In this blog, we'll explore why making an interactive video matters for your brand and how you can make one. But before we dive into that, let's understand what interactive videos are.

What are Interactive Videos?

Interactive videos are specific types of videos that allow viewers to interact with them in some way. This is different from a traditional video where the only interaction viewers can have with the player controls to play, pause, rewind, fast forward, etc.

This is where an interactive video differs. Unlike traditional videos, they give viewers a more immersive experience. This can happen in a number of ways, including answering in-video quizzes to assess knowledge retention or providing feedback through an integrated survey.

A major advantage that video interactivity offers here is the ability to engage your audience throughout the duration of the video. You don't have to rely solely on passively presenting information and hope it sticks. Interactive elements can encourage active participation, leading to better information retention and a deeper understanding of the topic.

Types of Interactive Videos

Brands and organizations can serve different purposes by incorporating interactivity in their videos. They can tailor their video content to be more engaging and impactful for their audience.

Let's delve into some of the most popular interactive video formats available to help you understand how you can create captivating video experiences.

Training and Onboarding Videos

Interactive training and onboarding videos are a powerful way to engage viewers and test their knowledge or understanding of a topic. They are particularly well-suited for organizational training efforts or as a means to onboard new employees.

Interactive elements make these videos more interesting for employees. This makes the material more engaging, helps employees retain information better, and encourages them to ask questions and participate in discussions.

Brand/Product Awareness Videos

Adding interactivity in videos gives businesses the untapped potential to bring customer awareness to a product or service they are offering. One way to achieve this is through creative quizzes, like those with the personality test format.

For instance, you can delve more into the interests of your target audience by asking what they like, how the feel when using your competitor's products, etc. This way, you can assess the popularity of your product and understand how it resonates with your audience.

Educational Videos

Sometimes brands like to step back and create awareness of a broader topic or initiative. This helps them establish their credibility as an expert in the field, communicate their organizational mission, and help establish a relationship with their customers. That's why educating viewers is the number one reason why brands like to use interactive video.

This can be done through videos with interactivity elements like annotations that draw attention to specific points on the screen or quizzes that can help viewers understand and retain the information better.

A good example of this is The British Council's "Exploring Creativity and Imagination" video. This helped students understand the role of creativity and imagination in learning and encouraged them to explore new ideas.

Interactive Product Demos

Brands can also leverage interactivity to help customers understand their products and services better. This enables them to directly engage their target audience and demonstrate how their product can help solve their pain points or offer additional value.

For its S6 phone launch, Samsung released a video showcasing the capabilities of the S6's camera. This video opened with a timestamped menu that allowed users to jump to the specific feature they were interested in rather than watching the entire video.

Live Interactive Videos

On-demand videos aren't the only type of video that can be infused with a little bit of interactivity. The most common ways brands use interactive live videos are for webinars, product launches, announcements, virtual events, and so on.

The advantage that an interactive live video brings is the real-time interaction that keeps viewers engaged and invested in the content. During the stream, viewers can ask questions, voice their thoughts, and learn more about the brand and product.

Birchbox, the monthly makeup subscription box, used this strategy to talk about its products. During their livestream, Birchbox demoed a mascara from Benefit Cosmetics, complete with a tutorial on how to best apply it. Viewers could ask questions during the stream via the live chat and were even encouraged to do so to enter a giveaway.

Ways to Add Interactivity to Video

Believe it or not, making interactive media isn't just about adding bells and whistles and calling it a day. Instead, it's about strategically incorporating elements that enhance your content and engage your audience.

Here are some practical examples of how you can use interactivity in your videos:

Add a Quiz to Test Viewers and Build Awareness

As previously mentioned, brands use videos with interactive elements like quizzes to increase brand and product awareness. But that's not the way quizzes are used. Sometimes, brands and organizations use quizzes to gauge audience understanding of a topic or product.

This is also helpful in assessing training and learning efforts within the organization. Organizations can easily ensure that employees are adequately learning from training videos by checking their quiz results.

For brands, this comes in handy when educating customers. They can embed quizzes at key points of the video, like after introducing a new concept or showcasing a product feature. This allows viewers to test their knowledge and reinforces learning.

Get Feedback from Surveys

Customer feedback and sentiment are crucial for brands to understand audience preferences and give them the information they need to tailor future strategies.

Brands can add surveys to various points of the video depending on the outcome they're trying to achieve. Survey responses can reveal viewer opinions, interests, and pain points that may not be otherwise apparent. This allows brands to tailor future content and marketing strategies to resonate better with their target audience.

Responses can also be used in conjunction with comments to gain a more comprehensive understanding of user sentiment. Positive feedback and comments tell you that the video is resonating with the audience and meeting their needs. Negative comments and feedback tell you that you need to rework your strategy.

Use Forms for Lead Capture

Interactive media doesn't just benefit the customer's viewing experience; it also allows brands to use it as a powerful tool for lead generation. In-video forms enable brands to capture valuable viewer information directly within the interactive video player, eliminating the need for viewers to navigate away to a separate landing page.

The perfect strategy for brands to use this is to put out evergreen content that offers viewers some value. In return, they can put a form at the start of the video as a lead wall to continue playing or at the end of the video to nudge them to take the final step.

But that's not the only way to use it. You could also utilize forms to segment your customers based on their interests. For example, you release a video highlighting a new feature and insert a lead capture form. Once leads start rolling in, you'll know for a fact they're interested in that specific feature. Now, you can use this information to launch targeted email campaigns and personalize your marketing efforts.

Attach Supplemental Materials Using Handouts

Brands often offer a range of marketing collaterals to customers to increase their understanding and exposure to the company and its services. While the video itself provides the core content, viewers might appreciate access to supplemental materials like PDFs, infographics, or white papers that delve deeper into specific topics discussed in the video.

Specifically for video marketing, it can help expand upon the video by offering downloadable resources like case studies, product brochures, or industry reports. This provides viewers with additional context and reinforces key takeaways.

Alternatively, this can be used by brands in their training efforts. If a customer views a product troubleshooting video, you can include your product documentation to help them get a handle on things. Or, for a compliance training video for your employees, you can include a checklist for them to follow after the training process.

Wondering how videos can be used for training? See our dedicated Training and Learning page.

an infographic detailing why brands need interactive videos

Why Interactive Videos Matter for Your Brand

Traditional videos can be informative and engaging, but sometimes, they don't fulfill those aspects in their entirety. It's very easy for viewers to get distracted or passively consume the content when it requires little to no input from them.

On the other hand, videos with interactive elements offer an alternate solution by transforming viewers from observers into active participants. This keeps their attention better and longer.

Of course, there are several other benefits as well. Here are some of the major reasons why you should consider using interactive videos:

They Engage Your Viewers

Interactive media will always be immensely more eye-catching. In a Demand Metric survey, 70% of participants agreed that interactive video has the potential for creating engagement. This is because the interactive nature of these videos inherently grabs attention and keeps it retained.

The act of watching evolves into the act of participating when a video has interactive elements. Viewers become invested in the outcome, such as the final score of their in-video quiz attempt. This is what makes them stick around to the end.

Attention spans are already dwindling thanks to the hyper-availability of content and the rise of second-screen behavior—using another device while watching content. Interactive elements help bring the divided focus back to the content by catering to the audience's needs for more stimulation.

They Give You Deeper Insights

Tracking is one of the most useful metrics to ensure the success of a video marketing campaign. However, brands have always struggled with extracting insights from video content when the only metrics they could rely on were analytics like view and completions.

While helpful, these kinds of analytics only tell half the story. This is especially difficult for brands as they struggle to prove the value of their video marketing efforts.

Luckily, interactive video offers insights to correlate the direct impact of the video on the viewer. You can go beyond standard analytics to track user behavior and understand video consumption on a deeper level.

For instance, you can gain insights from how many survey forms were filled during the video. If the number is low, maybe there wasn't a compelling enough reason to convince them to do so. If quiz attempts are high but the passing rate is low, then that tells your informational video didn't quite reach the target of effectively educating your viewers.

These analytics are helpful because they tell you exactly how compelling the content is in the first place. By default, these analytics will include users who were actively engaged enough in your content to complete a quiz, fill out a form, submit a survey, post a comment, or leave a like. They won't be passive viewers who just let the video play while their attention is focused elsewhere.

They Help With Customer Conversion

Every brand's ultimate end goal is to convert customers. This can only happen when brands can reach their customers effectively. It's a well-known fact that content preferences tip in favor of videos, with 72% of consumers wanting to watch a video about a product or service than reading about it.

It's a similar case with interactive video, with 78% of surveyed participants agreeing that they delivered better business results. With click-through rates of 11% for interactive brand videos compared to the 1% from banner ads, it's no wonder why they think that.

So, it's clear that interactivity is the way to go if you want to work on having more conversions. But why is that?

The simple answer is that the added element of interactivity drives your viewers to action. They are urged to answer questions, give out their information, express themselves, access additional resources, and explore your brand more thoroughly.

All these actions help reduce the resistance that a customer may have to committing an action. What's more, they act as stepping stones to get to the eventual conversion stage of the buyer journey.

Curious to learn more? Check out our blog on how online video platforms help customer conversion.

They're More Memorable for Your Viewers

It's no secret that interactive videos are good at grabbing and retaining the attention of your viewers. An interactive video-based advertisement is 32% more memorable than a non-interactive one.

The psychology behind this is the fact that the act of participating helps us build a stronger connection. Research indicates that interactivity helps increase information processing, recognition, and recall of consumed content.

When brands make their marketing content interactive, they incentivize customers to take control of an outcome—whether that's getting a certain score on a quiz, downloading a resource, or offering their insights in a survey. These actions encourage viewers to pay more attention to the product and the brand while putting more thought into their decision-making.

This translates to a significant advantage for brands. When viewers remember your brand after encountering your interactive video, they're more likely to consider you when making a purchase or taking a desired action.

They Increase Reach via Social Sharing

As we touched on earlier, interactive media makes for a more engaging, enjoyable, and memorable experience. And what happens when we experience something enjoyable and profound? We're more likely to share it with others.

This translates directly into increased social sharing. Viewers who are captivated by your interactive video are more likely to share it with their networks, organically expanding your reach and brand awareness.

For example, think about a viewer actively participating in a fun video quiz that you put out. They may be excited to share their experience with friends and colleagues. If they get a high score, they may talk about it on social media, encouraging others to beat their score or try out the quiz for themselves.

What this does is potentially introduce your brand to a whole new audience. All this is because video interactivity is inherently more social; it sparks discussion and encourages viewers to share their experiences, acting as a powerful word-of-mouth marketing tool.

An infographic detailing the step to make interactive videos using EnterpriseTube

How to Make Interactive Videos Using an Interactive Video Platform

Now that you understand the power that videos with interactive elements have, the next step is figuring out how to make interactive videos. Here's the good news: you don't need to have extensive technical knowledge or spend time, money, and resources to make it happen. Instead, all you need is an interactive video platform to help you bring your vision to life.

An interactive video platform comes packed with a host of interactive capabilities, features, and functionalities to help you add interactivity to your videos.

While there are several interactive video platforms out there, for enterprise-level needs, consider VIDIZMO EnterpriseTube. This robust platform offers a comprehensive suite of features specifically designed for businesses and organizations:

Here's how simple it is to make interactive videos in EnterpriseTube:

Upload Your Video: Login to the EnterpriseTube portal and upload your existing video content to the platform in any of our 255+ supported file formats.
Choose Your Interactive Elements: Select the video you want to choose in your video library and go to EnterpriseTube's Studio Space. Once there, simply select which interactive elements you want to add to your video.
Preview and Publish: Once you're happy with the results, preview your video to ensure everything functions as intended. You can fine-tune and make adjustments as needed before publishing the final video.
Share the Video: You can share the video directly to viewers using EnterpriseTube's secure sharing options, share it on social media, or embed it onto a webpage.
Track Results: Keep an eye on your video's performance using powerful analytics to track viewer engagement, media performance, content interaction, and more. Measure the effectiveness of your video and refine your strategy for future content creation.

That's it! That's all you need to start making your videos engaging with interactivity options.

Take Advantage of Video Interactivity with VIDIZMO EnterpriseTube

Want to make interactive videos but not sure where to start? We've got you covered. Using VIDIZMO EnterpriseTube, you can start making interactive videos to engage your viewers and gain comprehensive insights to personalize your video strategy.

Recognized by Gartner, VIDIZMO EnterpriseTube is more than an interactive video platform—it's a complete enterprise video platform for on-demand and live videos that allows you to store, manage, stream, and share media with internal and external audiences.

That's just the start. Check out EnterpriseTube's extensive feature list to find out what else it is capable of.

Make Interactive Videos Today

Video interactivity can make or break your efforts to reach your audience in an effective and engaging way. More and more businesses are starting to realize this fact as they start using interactive videos to fulfill various business goals.

It's clear that interactive video is the future, with 95.4% of people who used it in their organization saying they were pleased with the results and that it was a good investment for them. It offers brands and businesses an engaging and trackable way to reach more customers and convert them.

As always, the tools are only as good as you use them. Make sure to set a proper strategy when adding interactive elements to your video and choose a comprehensive interactive video platform like VIDIZMO EnterpriseTube to get the job done.

Ready to harness the power of video interactivity? Try out EnterpriseTube using a 7-day free trial or get in touch with us to know more.

Making Interactive Videos: Why They Matter for Your Brand and How to Make Them