Want to Give Your Users Something Different? Try Interactive Online Tools

Oftentimes, great content isn’t just words – or even pictures. Instead, consider interactive online tools that educate or entertain your audience. Here are a couple of examples of companies that are doing this well.

HubSpot Graders

HubSpot has a suite of graders that help marketers measure and analyze their efforts. At the time of this article, there are seven interactive tools that marketers can use. Not only is this data useful at driving people to the site, but they also offer useful insights into HubSpot. HubSpot graders include:

• Website Grader
• Four Square Grader
• Book Grader
• Facebook Grader
• Twitter Grader
• Blog Grader
• Press Release Grader

Are these tools effective? Over 1,700 have “liked” this content on Facebook, and HubSpot states that it has graded over one million websites.

Contributed by Amanda Maksymiw

You Don’t Know Jack

You Don’t Know Jack is the flagship effort from the creative folks over at Jellyvision.  The interactive and extremely humorous online game has been leveraged to help marketers further entertain and engage their audiences.

Marketo recently used this platform for their blog to position their thought leadership and expertise in online marketing (truly self-fulfilling).  Marketo boasted that “hundreds of marketers test[ed] their skills to see how their knowledge stacked up compared to their friends and marketing peers within minutes of its launch.”  The blog positions this interactive game as content, not with the goal of immediate sales, but for – as they put it – ‘seed nurturing,’ i.e., qualifying prospects and growing relationships prior to obtaining contact information.  This alone qualifies Marketo as getting it in terms of content marketing –  and they practice what they preach.

Contributed by Keith Wiegold

Weight Watchers’ “Advent” Calendar

As a way to introduce their new PointsPlus™ program while also supporting their members and Facebook fans through the challenging holiday season, Weight Watchers created an interactive advent-style calendar launched on December 1, 2010.  Installed on the “calendar” section of their Facebook page and promoted via status updates to their 440,000+ Facebook fans, as well as on Twitter, the interactive calendar shows WW’s mastery of content marketing and social media, their in-depth understanding of their target audience’s behavior and triggers, and how they execute broader marketing strategies using content marketing.

Each day of the month in December, the interactive calendar offered a new game, tool, tip, coupon, recipe or other goodie (much more calorie-wise than chocolate!).  The choice of Facebook as the primary channel for distribution of this content is an inspired marriage of WW’s knowledge of their audience’s behavior as well as the next plank in their strategy to move members online, increasing the reach and ROI of WW’s product distribution.  At the same time, they were faced with the launch of a new program format  (which brings with it an increased risk of member attrition) in December – a time of year that already includes a high attrition risk, plus a need for them to set themselves up for the kind of all-out  promotion of their product that allows them to maximize conversions among the New Year’s resolution target market in January.  I think they scored maximum points on every count.

Contributed by Jennifer Watson

Here are some others from Joe Pulizzi:

• The Webbed-O-Meter from Webbed Marketing. Free tool to analyze your “buzz” effect over 16 different social media sources.
• iFood Assistant from Kraft. Recipes on the go via your iPhone.
• Personal Budget Planner from Mint.com. Easy-to-use online tool that helps you create a financial budget.
• The Perfect Shoe Finder from Nike.  Very cool.

Do you know of any other branded interactive tools that a company is using as part of its marketing?