What are the benefits of interactive videos?

What are interactive videos? 

Quite simply, they are videos that contain elements that the viewer can interact with, influencing the navigation path itself or ending up on specific landing pages. 

Some concrete examples?

– Data entry fields: useful for entering the biographical details of the viewer, the email to subscribe to a newsletter, the address for a shipment, etc., for example.

– Ask the viewer direct questions with answers that can be closed and simple (so as not to burden navigation).

– Quizzes and surveys: on the user’s side, they are able to trigger engagement and improve retention; on the company or creator’s side, they are very useful for probing sentiment and collecting very precise and “first-hand” data on their audience.  

– Branching paths: maps that consist of turns and forks that the user can choose to take in order to personalize the viewing path.

– Hotspots: clickable areas that are perfect for tailored calls to action. Hotspots can point to an external landing page or open content directly within the video.

These are just a few examples of interactivity that lead to storytelling that is no longer rigid and one-size-fits-all, but fluid and user-oriented.

And what is the real breakthrough that comes from interactive video?

Interactive video overcomes the linearity of traditional video.  

Thanks to interactivity, the old one-way communication is transformed into a real exchange, a dialog between company and customer.

In this post, we will focus on the benefits that this brings; we have collected them around 7 areas that we believe are fundamental.

The core benefits of interactive video 

As promised, here is a list divided into 7 points. In each, we will highlight one of the benefits of interactive video that we find most decisive.

1) Stand out from the crowd

In terms of effectiveness, videos are the highest-performing digital communication tool. 

That’s why they are literally everywhere. 

Suffice it to say that by the end of 2022, videos made up as much as 82 % of total Internet traffic, according to estimates.

We can easily guess when it comes to the downside of this widespread diffusion: it’s increasingly complicated for creators and video marketing professionals to create productions that can stand out from the crowd.

In this sense, interactive videos are a winning strategy. 

Because they are less prevalent. Because they communicate a very clear perception of quality and professionalism (including technical). Because they address users directly, trying to speak to the right ears and not to simply shout louder than the competition.

2) Stimulate engagement

As we have already pointed out, the real breakthrough of interactive video lies in the breaking of the classical paradigm of one-way communication and in the gradual construction of a true participatory dialog.  

The main consequence of all this? 

It’s very simple: the involvement of the viewer definitely soars. In fact, viewers are transformed from passive users into active protagonists of the exchange.

What about concrete numbers? 

According to research by DemandGen, campaigns based on interactive videos tend to double the engagement rate compared to traditional campaigns (demandgenraport.com).

And what benefits can we expect from improved engagement rates? 

First, the increase in retention and viewing times. 

And subsequently, the increase in conversion rates.

These are precisely the two points we focus on below.

3) Retention and viewing times 

 A big issue for all video marketers concerns the retention rate of their videos.

The challenge is to get users to view the video in its entirety, and this is an extremely complicated challenge.

Again, the benefits of interactive video are direct and intuitive: if one-way communication is transformed into an engaging dialog, it’s much more likely to be carried through to the end.

Here’s some other supporting data: 

on average, viewing times for interactive video are 47% longer than for linear video (marketingdive.com)

4) Conversion rate 

Interactive videos stand out from the crowd and tend to capture attention much better than traditional videos. They are capable of skyrocketing user engagement, significantly boosting retention, and thus making average viewing times longer. 

All of this can only have a very important direct consequence: increased conversion rates.

Again, the data says it all.

Linear videos, such as banner ads or classic YouTube ads, experience conversion rates that stay below the 1% threshold. With interactive videos, the surge is really quite pronounced, reaching an average of 11% (marketingprofs.com).

Not only that: according to a survey by Spiel Creative, about 90% of the marketers involved noticed a growth in sales after implementing interactive videos in their campaigns. And 85% of them said they plan to create even more interactive videos in the future (spielcreative.com).

In this blog post we focused on the most important tips and best practices to increase your conversion rate (devoting a section to interactivity as well). 

5) Data mining  

The most valuable asset for anything related to digital marketing is data. The data that relates to the composition of the target audience, first and foremost (and this is something we will also touch on in the next point, related to personalization); but also those that give us a very surgical measurement of campaign performance and of the strategy more generally.

Among the most decisive benefits of interactive video is the ability to more broadly and deeply extract this information.

Why?

Because the touch points are multiplied and directly call upon the viewer, including through First-Party Data.

In this way, creators and companies have a valuable “treasure trove” of information in their hands. This information can (and should) be used in two ways:

– upstream, to make your interactive videos more and more tailored to the target audience; 

– downstream, to get a precise overview of the campaign results so you can recalibrate and continuously improve them. 

6) Personalization possibilities

Here we come to a decisive point, which stems directly from what we addressed just above. 

Interactivity and personalization are two closely related, mutually reinforcing sides.

But what do we mean by this?

We start with an understanding: the more a communication is built based on the individual recipient’s characteristics, preferences, and needs, the more effective it will be. This is true all the time. 

With Digital Transformation, this “ancient” mechanism can be applied to potentially endless audiences.

How?

First, through data collection and analysis, companies can have a thorough understanding of the target audience, which can then be divided into increasingly specific clusters composed of individuals with related profiles.

Now, you can use this information to create videos according to the specific characteristics of these target segments and distribute them accordingly, all in an automated manner, from a single matrix: thus with great sustainability in terms of costs and time spent.

The final frontier? Matching each micro-target to the individual person. This is what we mean by personalization.

Leveraging the possibilities of Babelee’s Video Platform makes this possible.

So, not only can you create interactive paths within a video, you can make these paths different depending on the characteristics and navigation choices of each individual viewer.

With Babelee, the revolution is twofold and complete: it breaks the one-to-many paradigm, transforming video into a bi-directional interactive dialog. At the same time, it overturns the old logic of one-to-many communication, of a one-size-fits-all message, embracing the perspective of one-to-one, personalized, close-up communication.

To learn more about Babelee’s interactive video tool, see here.

7) Videos that are memorable over the long term  

Let’s close with another important point, which concerns the ability of interactive videos to stick in the minds of the viewer (and those who interact with them) in a very firm and prolonged way.

In general, memorability is one of the crucial aspects related to video.  

In this regard, just consider this data:

– When viewing a video, the average user retains 95% of the message it contains; when it comes to text, this drops to 10% (covideo.com). 

– Ninety-four percent of marketers say that video has consistently helped with what customers understand about their products or services (hubspot.com).

In short, it starts from this already very telling baseline data.

With interactivity, the benefits go even higher: an interactive video is 32% more memorable than a linear video (wyzowl.com).

We would like to close this post with an awareness: each of these benefits of interactive video ends up reinforcing all the others in a virtuous circle that can make a real difference.