How to Use Quizzes to Boost Your Marketing Strategy

If you haven’t caught on to Buzzfeed yet, the solution to your problem might’vegone undetected. Using quizzes as a part of your marketing strategy is one of the most underrated types of content that every marketer should be trying, and we’d be lying if we didn’t tell how effective they really were.

It isn’t enough for us to just convince you to implement quizzes in your marketing strategy, so we’re going to show you exactly how to create an effective quiz, how to distribute it, and how to follow it with marketing automation.

After following this guide, you’ll come across several brands that we’ll be highlighting to give you an idea on how they used quizzes in their marketing strategy so that you can walk away with a little more insight.

Part I: Creating Your Quiz

Title Selection & Quiz Types

There’s more to a quiz than you might actually think. Did you know that 80% of readers decide whether something’s worth checking out or not based on its title? That means we’re going to have to make a pretty good first impression.

The very first step to creating a quiz would be coming up with the title for it. Once you’ve got that down, you’re going to want to figure out what type of quiz you want to make.

Let’s see what options we have available for us:

Choosing Your Title

• The “Actually” Title – Believe it or not, adding the word “actually” can turn a simple question into a challenge. Compare “How much do you know about the Golden State Warriors” against “How much do you actually know about the Golden State Warriors” and you’ll see what we mean. No one likes to back down from a challenge, right?
• “The Which (Blank) Are You?” Title – This one’s a classic. Due to our innate inquisitive nature, sometimes we just have to know which Marvel superhero we are before we die. It’s just one of those things we have to cross off our bucket list.
• The “Celebrity Personality” Title – This is your typical personality quiz with the substitution of celebrities to give it that added pizazz. Because of the use of celebrities, they’re more likely to get someone’s attention sheerly through being starstruck.

Choosing The Quiz Type

• The Personality Quiz – We like to hear good things about ourselves, so because of the “self-serving bias,” personality quizzes work so well. This type of quiz categorizes people into personalities that compliments them based on their answers. If you’re a brand that focuses on product sales, you could use a personality quiz to place individuals into categories with personalized product recommendations based on the answers they gave.
• The Knowledge Test – This is another commonly encountered type of quiz that you can find on social media. The knowledge test simply challenges anyone’s knowledge on a given subject. You could ask your audience how much they know about your brand, the products it offers, or any of today’s trending topics.

Crafting Quiz Questions

Now that you’ve got a general idea of what kind of quiz you want to create along with a title to go with it, it’s time to bring it to life by filling it up with questions!

Here are some things to keep in mind when formulating your questions:

• Infuse Personality into Your Quiz – Breathe some life into your quiz by injecting your personality into it. Approach your audience as if you were talking to them in person. Make your audience feel comfortable so that they’ll be more likely to opt-in later.
• Use Images for Your Questions – There’s nothing wrong with having text-only questions, but don’t be afraid to use images either. Using pictures keeps things interesting and relevant, it also makes your quiz feel more like a trivia game.
• Keep Things to a Minimum – People these days don’t have the longest attention spans, so we’re going to want to keep things simple and sweet. Aim between 6 to 10 questions for your quiz, in general this will only take your audience about 2-3 minutes to finish.

Designing A Lead Capture: Do’s and Don’t’s

After coming up with the questions to your quiz, it’s time to create a lead capture form. The purpose of a lead capture is to gather contact information so that you can grow an email list. You can then follow these leads up through marketing automation, which we’ll get into later. For now, here are some helpful do’s and don’t’s you should follow when creating your lead capture:

Do: Incentivize Your Lead Capture Form
Give your audience a reason to provide you with their contact information. Offer incentives like a free eBook or an entry to a free giveaway. Standard incentives include infrequent updates about your brand or a weekly newsletter. Find what works best to encourage your audience to join your mailing list.

Don’t: Ask For Information You Won’t Use
What’s the point in asking your audience for their phone number if you aren’t going to call them? Make sure you only ask for information that your brand will use; the most basic being a first and last name, and an email address. What’s worse than handing someone your number and not getting a call back the next morning? Yeesh.

Do: Be Honest About Your Marketing Strategy
It won’t always be clear to your audience that after you get their contact information, you’ll be contacting them. It’s a good rule of thumb to let your audience know that you’ll be getting in touch with them soon, so don’t be all hush-hush about your marketing strategy. Be honest with your audience. Give them a quick head’s up about what’s to come.