Quizzes are amazingly powerful pieces of viral content that can take your brand to the next level. Whether you use them to spread awareness of your services or to directly sell products through a funnel setup, quizzes disrupt the narrative and capture attention, and you can’t afford to pass that up. As small business marketing ideas go, pulling together a quiz is one of the most cost-effective and easy avenues to explore, as it offers a set-and-forget amount of effort, relies on genuine customer connections to “grow legs,” and can be used in perpetuity to generate interest, clicks and engagement on your site.
The Million Dollar Quiz
Going viral is the dream of every small business, but can quizzes really get you there? Absolutely, as demonstrated by Becca James of Zenni optical. In a Qzzr panel at the 2015 Content Marketing Conference in Las Vegas, James explained how she used existing marketing from the Zenni site to craft a “You’ve Been Framed” quiz that guided users through 9 fun questions to discover their special glasses style results. With more than a million dollars in sales coming in from quiz-generated leads, Zenni enjoyed a 7500% ROI from James’ smart application of customer engagement. The quiz, built with the powerful Qzzr application, is scalable and required no special knowledge of coding to create. This makes it a viable and attractive proposition for adding to small business marketing ideas and campaigns.
Making Your Own Quiz
Think about your target demographic – what interests them? A children’s clothing manufacturer might want to make a quiz entitled “What kind of wild child do you have?”, where a gourmet food manufacturer might elect to craft “Are you a wine pairing expert?” instead. Quizzes, according to Qzzr’s Owen Fuller at the 2015 CMC panel, do well with concepts that test users’ ‘expertise,’ (How much do YOU know about X?) give them a designation like a favorite character or idea (Which Disney Princess Are You?), or end by determining something they should do (Which Country Should You Live In?). Fuller also cautions that high test results in scored tests are more likely to be shared, so be sure to make your quiz on the easier side if you decide to use a scored format.
Steering It Back
In the case of James’ frames quiz, the user was presented with a link in their result that led back to a sales page on Zenni Optical, pre-stocked with frames that matched that designation. Your quiz can tie back to your product or service in a variety of ways – the direct product route used by Zenni, a “prize” of a discount offered for high scorers (with the ability to ‘cheat’ and take the test multiple times, of course), or a simple “click here to read more” mention on the results page. Whichever path you select, be sure to make the quiz results shareable to increase the reach of your marketing effort.
If you’ve been testing a variety of small business marketing ideas, why not test your customers instead? Quizzes are short, easy and fun, and can be used in every industry to increase interest and engagement that sidesteps the usual marketing clutter in the perception of your customers.
