Customer experience (CX) and investing in CX results in better levels of customer acquisition, retention, increase sales, and a more loyal audience. That’s why brands have to work extra hard to create memorable experiences that engage customers.
Customer experience is not a passing trend. As marketers, we’re no strangers to fads coming and going but the dramatic shift in consumer behavior that happened in 2020 is not going anywhere, anytime soon.
Unfortunately, there is a significant disconnect between expectation and reality when it comes to CX. In research carried out by Adweek and Accenture Interactive, they found that while 80% of brands believe they deliver a superior customer experience, only 8% of customers agree.
Brands have to go further and break down boundaries to meet customers’ expectations.
What are interactive customer experiences?
Customer experiences have changed. Brands can do more with customer data. From personalization to augmented reality, savvy shoppers know that brands are capable of delivering exceptional experiences.
As a result, CX is less about fulfilling wants and needs and more about meeting increased expectations. Customers compare experiences from diverse brands across different industries. That means that a shopper who has a good experience buying plants online expects a similar experience when they buy anything; groceries, takeaways, jewelry.
Interactive experiences will help you continuously meet these experiences. Interactive content personalized customers’ interactions with your brands and boosts overall engagement.
Think online questionnaires, web-based calculators, or gamified content. It’s content that lets users personalize and participate in it.
In-email customer experiences
Interactive experiences can come in many formats, but in recent years, email marketing has made massive strides towards providing customers with unique experiences.
AMP for email
AMP for email is a powerful tool that allows you to build web-like experiences in email. It allows readers to interact with your email and choose their own path.
It’s a great tool for when you want to showcase a number of your features or product but want to drive users to complete a specific goal. Using an AMP-powered carousel feature, email recipients can flick through your highlighted products of campaign photographs before clicking on your email’s main CTA such as a ‘register your interest’ button.
Similarly, customers can discover their own pathways by choosing what content they’d like to see in your email campaign. You can later use these insights to deliver a more personalized experience throughout the rest of their journey.
Real-time personalization
Real-time personalization pulls in the most up-to-date data you have on your customer to provide a hyper-personalized experience.
Typically, pulling in a subscriber’s first name using liquid script is an example of this. But you can also use geo-location to make them even more relevant. This pulls in a subscriber’s current location data to populate your emails.
GIFs and videos
GIFs and videos bring joy and delight to your email openers. They grab your subscribers’ attention immediately, keeping them engaged and scrolling down your marketing.
Embedded videos have a great engagement rate that ultimately drives more conversions. Animations and videos make communicating complex ideas simple. In a matter of seconds you can explain your lastest product launches and business updates.
Advice from interactive experience experts
Odicci helps brands boost customer engagement and drive customer loyalty with interactive experiences such as quizzes, games, and product finders. These are the top tips on creating interactive and engaging emails from CEO Founder of Odicci, Jacques Prothon:
How to jazz up your email design
Just because customers want to receive emails from you, it doesn’t mean that you’re maintaining their engagement. Thankfully, there are many things you can do to ensure your customers are engaged with your emails. We’ve listed four ways to jazz up your email with interactive experiences.
1. Intrigue: what does the future hold?
Instead of engaging your audience with a standard marketing message, use email to create interest, curiosity, or “intrigue.” Use a clever hook to invite subscribers to an interactive personality quiz or a product profiler and deliver a personalized brand interaction.
2. Gamification: can you beat the hi-score?
Gamification can actively improve clicks and conversions. By asking people to play a game such as a memory game or a matchmaker you are tapping into the creative potential of your subscribers. Add an engaging moving gif design to drive clicks and enjoy your dwell time stats go through the roof as people will be engaged for a long time on your website.
3. FOMO: are you one of our lucky winners?
By using elements of accomplishment, envy, ownership, and scarcity you are driving your audience for the clicks. Subscribers, when signing up, are expecting to receive some type of value, such as a coupon, free gift, or a contest entry. If you want subscribers to continue being engaged with your emails, keep providing something of value and make them interact online with an online scratch card or a shake your phone to reveal a prize.
4. Rewarding customers: thank you, here is something for you
Subscribers are looking for positive experiences with brands. One of the most popular customer rewards in use by many brands is when a subscriber reaches a certain level of a loyalty program. To congratulate a subscriber why not deliver an experience with a golden ticket that can be revealed online. You can also combine this together with other moments such as birthdays or an anniversary “club” rewards program.
A great way to deliver the message and drive clicks from your e-mails to these engaging experiences is to use moving GIFs that demonstrate how the reward, game, quiz, or interactive promotion works in a few seconds. Using moving GIFs is the perfect way to show what engagement and reward(s) subscribers can expect. To get the best results you can create moving GIFs that are personalized or tailored to a segment, or audience.
As we know email marketing is one of the best tools to drive sales and convert leads. With interactive experiences it is possible to substantially increase your click-through rates and conversions whilst delivering great value to your audience. Don’t be intimidated these interactive experiences can be published in just a few clicks. Give it a try or contact us for more information about our pre-built interactive experiences. With more than 80+ out-of-the-box experiences you won’t be disappointed!
