What Is Interactive Marketing, and How Does It Help Your Bottom Line?

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New forms of marketing seem to rise to the top of the priority list every few months. And although trends like influencer and experiential marketing are important and effective, being able to read and respond to your customers' actions is arguably the most valuable currency for engagement.

And, for that, you need to make an interactive marketing strategy a priority.

As a customer-centric strategy, interactive marketing (sometimes called event-driven or trigger-based marketing) involves reacting to a customer's behaviors or actions, and then working to meet his or her expectations.

Because interactive marketing is facilitated by the technology at your disposal, it offers new ways for your brand to engage with customers. And now that customers journey through digital channels and expect seamless interactivity, interactive marketing has become crucial.

For example, consider a common lead-generation journey for a software-as-a-service company as a member of its target audience goes from prospect to client:

  1. Someone visits the website looking for more information about the software.
  2. That person comes across educational content covering what the company does and enters an email address to download a whitepaper or case study to learn more.
  3. The SaaS company sends emails to the person prompting him or her to schedule a call and consult with a salesperson.

Behind that journey is a web of interactive marketing: the platforms, content, and emails already built to attract clients and guide them toward the next step of their engagement.

Interactive comprises all the digital touchpoints your brand has with customers—including experiential and influencer—and it also takes into account media planning, SEO, and content. It allows customers to connect with companies directly, through two-way communication channels.

Although everyone says being proactive is better than reactive, in this case it's better to be both: Interactive becomes a cycle of responding to—and then anticipating—customer actions.