GUEST BLOG BY JOANNA MAY | INTERACT
When running a business, one of the biggest challenges is getting people into your sales pipeline. You’ve worked hard to develop a system to show potential customers why they absolutely need to work with you, but now you need to get people into that system. You need something that works for sustainable lead generation.
But what should you use? How can you grab people’s attention and convince them that they NEED to give you their contact info? Enter the quiz.
Since the beginning of time (or at least the early days of the Cosmo quiz), people have loved taking personality quizzes that give them insights into who they are. And Interact has helped business owners harness people’s interest in quizzes to generate leads for their businesses.
Now you might be thinking, “That sounds amazing, and I love the idea. But how can I make sure that my quiz reaches the right people and actually works for lead generation?” I’m so glad you asked!
When you’re creating something that you plan to use to help you grow your business, you want to make sure that it’s worth the effort and will work for the long haul as a lead generation tool. That’s what you want for your quiz.
People at Interact know how to create a quiz that gets you leads. To help you make one of those quizzes for yourself, there are two things we’ve got to discuss. You’ve got to know why quizzes work and how you can make a quiz that gets you those leads.
Let’s get to work.
Reasons That Quizzes Work for Sustainable Lead Generation
There are multiple reasons that quizzes work for getting leads. The first reason is people are always interested in getting insights into who they are. They’re also fun for the quiz-taker and they’re shareable. All of these add up to more leads that you can convert to customers for your business.
Reason #1 - People Like Insights Into Who They Are
The self-help industry is built entirely around the idea of learning who you are and becoming an improved version of yourself. People take personality tests, hire coaches, and buy courses that teach them about themselves and help them identify a struggle or a need that a business can solve.
That’s why personality quizzes work. When you offer to tell someone something that they might not know about themselves, and especially without a huge time commitment or financial investment, people take notice. They want their results from your quiz and, if your quiz is engaging and valuable, they’re willing and even excited to give you their email address.
That’s very different from many lead-generation methods. (I’m looking at you, “Sign up to get our newsletter!”)
Reason #2 - Quizzes Are Fun
If you’ve spent any time taking quizzes on Buzzfeed, you know that there are some crazy quizzes out there. Whether the quiz is “Tell me your favorite color and I’ll tell you the breed of your great-aunt’s dog” or “Find your secret not so super-heroish identity,” you can find a quiz on pretty much any topic.
Disclaimer: I made those quizzes up. 😉
The reason quizzes like this are created is because they’re fun! People like taking quizzes, even on ridiculous topics, and checking to see if there’s any truth to what the quizzes reveal. While no one should believe that these quizzes are useful for in-depth psychological insights, they can be an exciting twist and might tell you something you wouldn’t otherwise know about yourself. Plus, you can create pop culture quizzes, use GIFS and emojis, and connect your quizzes to pretty much any topic you want.
Because doesn’t everyone want to know which Disney princess they vibe with?
Reason #3 - They’re Shareable
Admit it—you’ve been scrolling through social media, saw your friend’s results to a quiz like “Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Are You?” and had to find out if you were a Donatello, too.
So, you take the quiz. Once you get your results (Rafael, Baby!), you share them on your own social media, and your friends see the results. The quiz and results get shared thousands of times as more and more people see and take the quiz.
Now imagine if you had that happen for your business. Think of how your business could change if people shared your quiz (and, indirectly, your business) with their friends who then shared it with their friends. And many of those quiz-takers give you their email address. If that’s not sustainable lead generation, I don’t know what is!
How You Make a Quiz That’s the Perfect Lead Generation Tool
When you create your quiz, there are a few things that you can do to make a quiz that makes people take notice. You want a quiz that gets people to say, “Wow, this person is great! I definitely want to see what else they’ve got for me.”
The things that make a great quiz are:
speaking to YOUR people,
sharing results that wow,
giving your quiz a twist, and
following up on your quiz.
Let’s look at each of these to see how they can make your quiz amazing.
Speak to Your People
Whether you call them your target audience, your ideal client avatar, or your buyer persona, it’s essential that you have a deep understanding of who you serve. You need to know how to connect with them and reach them with your messaging.
Like your messaging, your quiz should speak to your audience. It should use language that resonates with them. The quiz should discuss their strengths and struggles. The tone of the quiz should be one that they connect with. It should be uniquely created for and suited to them.
When creating your quiz, the problem you address should be a challenge that your audience faces. If your audience is a small-business owner who struggles with productivity, your quiz could help them figure out how they're currently working within their business. The quiz title and description should make it clear what your quiz is about and how your quiz can help them.
Notice how this quiz description focuses on the WHO and the image further narrows it down. This image probably wouldn’t appeal to a Fortune 500 CEO. The goal is for the audience to see themselves in every part of the quiz.
The description also shares the purpose of the quiz. Its focus is to help the quiz-taker find out what productivity powerhouse they’re currently are and the results promise to help them work more efficiently. Even if people don’t know what a productivity model is in this context, because I just made it up, the goal of more effectively getting stuff done connects with the struggles of many small business owners.
After you have a cover that your audience connects with, you’ve got to make sure that your questions continue to speak to them. You might ask about common situations that your customer persona faces. You might give answer choices that are things they think and feel.
Your audience needs to feel seen, heard, and valued in your quiz.
Share Results That Wow
Your quiz results are where you deliver for your quiz-takers. While the questions need to reflect and engage your audience, your quiz results are where you provide value. You’re following through on the promise of the quiz title and description. And, since you want your audience to know you and be enthusiastic about you and your projects, you want to make sure that the results are more than worth their while.
When writing the results, it’s important to maintain the tone of your quiz and keep them personal. The audience should continue to feel that you really understand them and are genuine in helping each person solve their problem.
The results need to have all of the elements that the quiz description mentioned. For example, this quiz result contains the productivity powerhouse model that the quiz-taker is. It’s important that it’s expressed positively because you want your audience to feel good about themselves!
Your results should also address the problem your quiz-taker faces and at least one way that they can do to quickly solve it. When you’re only working on projects as the mood strikes or without a clear plan, the struggle to produce high-quality work and meet a deadline is very real. I suggest a reasonable strategy that can help creative types develop a consistent process to get in the habit of completing projects by their deadlines.
The results can also include a call to action (CTA) for your quiz-takers. It might be something that provides more value for them, like reading a blog post or joining a Facebook group.
The CTA could be an action they can take immediately to start making a change, like buying a course. It could be something that moves them towards their next step in your funnel, like booking a call or attending a webinar. Getting your quiz-takers to take this next step immediately will help them to continue taking action with you in the future.
If you really want to wow your quiz-takers with your results, you can also create a separate landing page for each result. Using a separate landing page (with TONS of quality info) shows how much you value your audience and how committed you are to producing content for them. Check out the post linked above for some examples of quiz result landing page goodness!
Give Your Quiz a Twist
When you think back to quizzes you’ve seen and/or taken, you probably have some that are more memorable than others. There’s something about those quizzes that make them a little different than others you’ve taken—something that makes them stand out.
These are quizzes with a twist.
There are a few different ways that you can give your quiz that twist. Maybe you choose an interesting theme for your quiz, such as a popular tv show. You noticed the Disney quiz above, right? Maybe your quiz results tie to leaders in your industry, celebrities, or movie titles. (Yes, I’ve seen successful quizzes for all of these!) Or maybe you have an unforgettable addition to your quiz results. It’s even possible to have your quiz include more than one of these twists.
In their quiz, which helps business owners find their brand cocktail, Jen and Jeff of Tonic Site Shop focus every question on their cocktail theme.
In their results, which are given cocktail titles, they give insights into the brand vibe, strategies that are unique to that result, and product recommendations for their customizable website designs. What really makes their results stand out, however, is the addition of a cocktail recipe and playlist that are specific to that result.
It makes for a quiz that people remember!
Follow Up On Your Quiz
Even though this seems like it should go without saying, it needs to be said. You have chosen to take the time to make this spectacular quiz to use as a lead generation tool for your business. You’ve shared the quiz, and you’re getting leads from it.
Now isn’t the time to rest.
A great quiz is only the beginning of the process. You’ve collected these new email addresses, and now you need to send a welcome series.
Just like your quiz, you want to be strategic about emailing your quiz-takers. There are many different ways you can set up your follow-up email sequences. It’s always a good idea to send either a recap of their quiz results or provide a link to their quiz result landing page in the first email.
New subscribers also appreciate a warm welcome to your list and a heads-up about how often you plan to email them. You can also begin to show yourself as an expert through your introduction and follow-up emails. When they know what to expect, your audience is a lot more likely to be on the lookout for your emails, and they’re also more likely to read them.
Since the first email is specific to each result, you’ll need to have a different one for each of your quiz results. After that, there are a few different ways that you can set up your email automation. You can continue with your lists that are already segmented by your quiz results (Hello, email marketing best practices! 😉) and send a unique sequence to each group. You can also move all of your new subscribers to a general welcome sequence or sales sequence.
It’s completely up to you how you want to go about doing it, just make sure you follow up.
Summing It Up
You now have everything you need to make a quiz that gets people interested and excited to learn more about you and your business. With your understanding of why quizzes work, you can make sure that your quiz teaches your audience something about themselves, provides a fun experience for your quiz-takers, and makes something that people want to share with others.
And, when you’re creating your quiz, be sure that you focus on:
- speaking to your people,
- sharing results that wow,
- giving your quiz a twist, and
- following up on your quiz.
Using these quiz best practices will take your quiz from good to great and make it one that works for sustainable lead generation for years to come.
We can’t wait to see the quiz you create to grow your business!
Ready to create your very own lead-generating quiz?
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