When it comes to content marketing, finding the most consistent and innovative way to generate leads has always been a top priority. Largely due to their seamless integration with social media, quizzes have become a persistent pattern on some of the largest platforms for lead generation.
Content marketers have begun to see the impact of quizzes as a form of lead generation, but not many know how to implement them successfully. It can be difficult to formulate a popular quiz, which is why I’ve created this guide for you.
Let’s dive right in, shall we?
Part 1: Creating An Interesting Quiz
There are a handful of things to keep in mind when it comes to creating a successful quiz.
Pick The Right Topic
Before you jump right in and create a quiz out of thin air, you’re going to need a concrete idea. For a lot of companies, the answer is pretty obvious, such as, “Which tasty break-time snack are you?” for a vending machine company. For others, the subject isn’t as clear. Here are some suggestions to help you pick out a topic:
- Know your audience. Create your quiz with a specific group of people in mind. Don’t try to reach everyone in the world—it will only result in disappointment. If you focus on a specific group of people, you’ll resonate with them more, even if the group isn’t large.
- Make it personal. Think of someone in particular (a persona or an actual person in your target audience) and make your quiz specifically for them. This will help you develop a more relaxed tone of voice.
Create An Engaging Title
The first thing most people will see is the title of your quiz. You want to make sure it captures their attention and keeps it long enough for them to want to take your quiz. You don’t want to come up with something that will make people shy away from your quiz.
Here are several templates that have consistently performed well and encouraged clicks.
The “Actually” Title: “How much do you actually know about the world?” The “actually” title is just a knowledge test, but once you incorporate the words “actually” or “really,” it becomes a challenge. Who would back down from a challenge?
The “Which _____ Are You?” Title: “Which emoticon are you?” These quizzes are based on the traditional Meyers-Briggs personality quiz. Replace the personality types with the appropriate results to correspond with your quiz topic.
The Celebrity Comparison Title: “Which celebrity would be your best friend?” This template is similar to the personality quiz but you can switch out the results in the quiz to be relevant to your business.
Ask Good Questions
The questions in your quiz are meant to start a conversation with your quiz taker. This is where the quiz truly shines. Unlike other forms of lead-generating content, a quiz is a one-on-one medium of interaction where you can speak directly to someone to build rapport.
Here are some ways to construct that conversation:
- Let your personality show. If you want to effectively use your quiz, make a connection by infusing it with personality, be it your own or one you’ve completely made up.
- Follow the “pub rule.” Ask questions conversationally, as if you were hanging out with your friends. This rule comes from the Irish Post, a UK newspaper that reached Irish people living in London with a quiz that had a conversational question style.
- Be open and honest. Encourage openness and get as personal as you have to. Let people tell you about themselves through their answers.
Design Share-Worthy Results
Your quiz’s results are an opportunity to facilitate social shares, promote products, and get clicks to your website. Here are a few rules worth following to maximize your success rate:
- Be positive. People adore the idea of sharing things that make them look good on social media. Make the results of your quiz as positive as possible to get the most out of people sharing your quiz.
- Don’t lie. We want to give positive results, but we want them to be authentic as well. Don’t give negative results. If you tell someone they’re like a mountain, they’re majestic and breathtaking—not craggy and unmoving.
- Prepare your quiz for social sharing. There’s a simple formula you should follow when creating your results image and title: “I got (result)(quiz title).” It’ll turn out like this: “I got mountain! Which geographic landscape are you?” We want both result and title to complement each other.
Part 2: Three Ways You Can Use Quizzes
Quizzes are supposed to be fun and interactive. Let’s take a look at three different companies that used quizzes to promote their brands. We’ll go over their choice of title, question format, how they obtained leads, and the results they got.
Each of the following three examples were quizzes connected to Marketo, which handled the leads and nurtured them into paying customers.
1. Driving Interaction At Events
Channel Advisor created a simple “Product Image Quiz” to see which images were most often used in product listing ads.
They used their quiz at an event that had employees interact with attendees by having them take the quiz.
The quiz itself was short and simple, consisting only of seven questions that asked the same question over and over with a different pair of images each time. Quiz takers had to decipher which image was more commonly used for the ads. Each question had a simple image consisting of the product alongside a staged version of the same product.
After answering all seven questions, quiz-takers were taken to a lead-capture form with the choice to opt-in for actionable eCommerce tips.
Whether or not they opted in for the incentive, participants were then treated to their results, letting them know which of their answers were correct.
Using a quiz at an event is a smart way to drive engagement with your audience, especially when the attendee count is large.
Channel Advisor’s quiz rounded up 105 leads.
2. Generating Leads Through Entertainment
The marketing team for The Matrix created an amusing quiz titled “Who’s Your Famous Movie Tech Persona?” It asked quiz takers several questions pertaining to certain situations and paired them up with their corresponding tech persona from a film.
This quiz was made up of seven different questions that utilized both text and images. Its approach was a lot more lax, catering specifically to quiz takers looking for a bit of fun. This kind of angle draws in a larger crowd because of how broad its subject matter is.
Like the previous quiz, participants were prompted with a lead-capture form right before the results, offering “fun and relevant updates on your local IT market” if they chose to opt in.
The use of highly relatable material is a great way to attract activity on your quiz. It doesn’t necessarily target a specific audience, so anyone can take the quiz.
The marketers for The Matrix obtained 123 leads through their quiz.
3. Gathering Valuable Information About Your Visitors
A company called Velocity Cloud came up with a quiz called “The HFM Maturity Assessment.”
Its sole purpose was to gauge a quiz taker’s level of maturity when it comes to the Hyperion Financial Management application.
The quiz consisted of 16 questions, a little lengthier than most quizzes, but because of the reason behind its creation, the amount of questions for this particular quiz made sense.
The company wanted to know how familiar people were with HFM, so the more questions they asked, the easier it was for them to obtain the information they were after.
After answering all the questions, quiz takers were taken to a lead-capture form asking for their first/last name, email address, and company. They were then shown their results.
In the end, the number of questions asked in the quiz allowed Velocity Cloud to better understand the audience’s knowledge about the application.
Velocity Cloud acquired 125 leads from their quiz.
Part 3: Distributing Your Quiz
Once you’ve created the perfect quiz, you’ll want to promote it. Here are four simple places to do that:
Website Or Blog
Embed your quiz on your website or blog. When a quiz is on your website, all of its shares, links, and comments happen on your domain, without running the risk of losing people to other distractions.
There are two different ways to share quizzes on Facebook, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.
- On Your Timeline: The easiest way to share your quiz on Facebook is through your own timeline. Make sure you grab an image from your quiz and share it along with a link to the quiz itself.
- In a Custom Tab: If you want a permanent option on your Facebook page, you can embed your quiz into a custom tab.
Much like on Facebook, it’s a good idea to include an image to visually represent your quiz. The exact time of the day you share your quiz will deeply affect how much activity it gets. Try sharing it during the middle of the day on a weekday. Share it again a couple more times, but evenly spread it between shares. Only share it a handful of times: otherwise you run the risk of seeming spammy.
Email Newsletter
Want to drive even more traffic to your website? If you already have subscribers or a following, share your quiz through an email newsletter. Make sure you include a link that leads to a dedicated page just for your quiz.
Part 4: Back To You
Are you more comfortable with the idea of creating a quiz? After reading this guide, you should have a pretty good idea on how to effectively use and distribute your quiz.
Making a quiz isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but once you have one set up and running, the leads should come pouring in. As long as you adhere closely to our guidelines, you should be well on your way to creating, using, and promoting a very successful quiz.
Now then, what are you waiting for? Get to it!
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: How To Generate Leads With Quizzes
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