In the final part of this series, contributor Jane Loring advises brands on how to harness the power of interactive native content to improve customer retention.
Over the past few months, we have been examining the many advantages that interactive native content has to offer. From brand awareness and market education campaigns, to growth, rebranding and cross-channel activities — interactive content contributes to every brand’s efforts in expanding its reach.
You may be asking yourself…
But what happens after a new user is acquired? How does a brand nurture its existing clientele? 
The following post will take a closer look at customer retention, and how brands can use interactive native content to bring back dormant users, and keep active ones happy. 
Before they leave
Making sure that your user base is satisfied is extremely important, and — thanks to interactive content tools — a whole lot easier.
Conduct an interactive customer satisfaction survey, and present existing users with a series of questions that will shed light on how your product or service is perceived. Use trivia questions to determine users’ level of expertise in using your product, and ask direct questions via polls or questionnaires.
The insight-gathering survey is also a wonderful opportunity to ask users what new features are on their wish list, so that you can reorganize your product road map accordingly.
Embedding your survey within relevant content will help you reach a wider user base than your existing mailing list. And the engaging nature of interactive content will assist you in getting users involved, turning the boring structure of surveys into a captivating experience.
The only thing worse than not asking your audience how they feel about your brand, is asking, and then ignoring their response.
Since no company is perfect, your customer survey is bound to deliver some user critics. Pay special attention to repeating complaints, and follow up with specific audience segments to let them know that you listen and care. The only thing worse than not asking your audience how they feel about your brand, is asking and then ignoring their response.
It’s a bird… It’s a plane…It’s the superuser!
While some users want to share criticism of your product, others are huge fans of what you have to offer. Superusers are your best advocates and ambassadors, which is why you should invest a little extra in keeping them happy. The first thing you can do is include them in the above suggested survey, and analyze their input with their segment characteristics in mind. You may even want to take an extra step and include specific questions for heavy users to make sure that their opinion is heard.
In addition, you can use interactive native content in a somewhat different manner, inviting devoted users to create their own content items and share their experience. User-generated content is a brilliant tool for every brand, and exploring users’ journey via high-quality content will increase engagement. You can interview users and share their thoughts on social media, feature the items on your company blog, or incorporate them into an external campaign. Watch as engagement rates rise thanks to the magic of authentic, personal content.
If you do choose to implement this suggestion, remember that opting for simple and fast content creation tools is a must. Users who contribute their time expect you to make things as easy for them as possible.
Another idea would be to hold a competition among users, inviting them to prove just how serious they are about your brand. Challenge them with fun trivia facts, invite them to discover what type of user they really are, and remind them to share the results on social media.
Blast from the past
If your brand has been around for quite some time, it might be facing the challenge of battling an outdated image. In this case, interactive native content comes to the rescue in more ways than one.
Turn your challenge into an advantage, and approach readers’ nostalgic side on your quest to remind them what makes your brand so great
Demonstrate your product’s transformation over the years using before-and-after Flip Cards
Test users’ knowledge of your brand’s history
Poll users regarding which discontinued feature they miss the most
The emotional aspect of nostalgic content will surely boost your content’s performance, which is all you ever want, really.
As you can see, there are plenty of use cases for interactive native content in customer retention. By allowing users to share their views, experience and sentiment, brands are able to improve their content’s viewability and shareability metrics, and ensure that the customers they worked so hard to acquire stick around.
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.
About The Author
Jane Loring is Vice President of European Brand Partnerships at digital authoring platform Playbuzz. At Playbuzz she leads the brand partnership team across Europe, introducing brands to Playbuzz’s innovative content solutions and commercial content campaigns. Jane has over ten years of experience working with some of the biggest brands in the world on their content solutions, including a number of top global brands. Prior to this role, Jane was General Manager at lifestyle content company Mode Media.
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