How Interact Went from 20 to 500 New Opt-ins Every Month — Without Creating a Single Piece of New Content

Tim: Hey what’s up Josh? Thanks so much for coming on the show. I’m stoked to have you here today.

Josh: Thanks for having me.

Tim: Absolutely. So we’ve got a really cool kind of interesting thing to talk about today and it relates to getting leads, which is obviously one of our favorite things. So why don’t you tell us just specifically the results that you were able to get from this particular case study?

Josh: Yeah. So we did a case study on one particular webpage that was getting a lot of traffic but not a lot of leads. Basically they were getting around 40,000 hits every month to this page which was an Excel guide and out of those 40,000 hits they were only getting about 20 people to sign up for their email list which is pretty abysmal.

Tim: Wow yeah.

Josh: By adding a quiz, which presented a targeted offer, we were able to increase that number by 25x increasing to about 500 new leads every single month.

Tim: Wow. So that’s a big jump and you know, when I kind of read about what we’re going to talk about, I was a little blown away. So I think it’s going to be interesting to talk about the dynamics of this particular test and kind of how it worked and how it made such a big change. So before we do that though I would love to hear what’s interact all about and kind of what’s your role at the company?

Josh: Yeah. So interact is a place for creating lead generation quizzes that are also beautiful and drive traffic. I am founder of the company. We basically started the company based off of some consulting work that we had done. We found that quizzes were really effective for generating leads so then we created a platform where anyone can come in, make a quiz, kind of buzz feeds style lots of fun but then also present a targeted offer at the end of that quiz and then connect that offer up to your email marketing program to collect leads.

Tim: Cool. So very kind of a simple solution to a problem that a lot of people don’t even know that they kind of have. I mean we know that we want to get more leads but we’re always trying to find new ways to get them and so I really like the idea of you know, using a quiz and that’s really a lot of what we’re going to talk about today. So can you kind of tell us what were they doing at this company or this website that you were working with, what was the lead generation method prior to implementing the quiz?

Josh: Absolutely. Yes. So before we implemented the quiz, they just had the standard sidebar sign-up form that we’ve all got on our websites. You know, enter your email address to get tips about online courses. The site is filled up, provides a lot of information online and they just had a generic signup form. I believe they have a PDF guide that you could download that you’ve got if you put in your email address. So that was all they were doing before.

Tim: Okay. So just a simple opt-in form.

Josh: Yes.

Tim: Okay and so what – how did you kind of – how did you use the quiz to change that?

Josh: Yeah. So basically I like to think of it as repurposing the content. So we didn’t actually build anything new with this quiz. The Excel guide that we made the quiz based off of had about 50 points on it. What we did was we took ten of those points and turn them into questions. So instead of saying you know, when you add a new tab, that does this, we turn that into a question so it says what happens when you add a new tab in Excel. We turn that into a quiz and kind of made it an interactive piece that’s right within the content. Then we embedded that quiz I believe around number 21 in the list out of 50 and then added the lead generation aspect to it. So basically what we did was we kind of almost gamified this piece and made it a lot more interesting and fun.

Tim: So this was right within the content I mean was it a blog post, was it kind of a guide that somebody downloaded? Where was this embedded?

Josh: Yeah. So this is a blog post that we put the quiz in. It’s a web page. It’s a standard blog post like you have anywhere on your site.

Tim: Awesome. Okay. So within this blog post that had maybe 50 points, which is kind of a you know, a common thing in that we have this list post right? So this was 50 points, you know, 0.1 this is what happens. And then 0.2 is instead of saying this is what happens you say you know, what happens when you do this and then people kind of answer the quiz and it drives that not only curiosity but also a little bit of like ego right wanting to know if we’re right? Is that accurate?

Josh: Absolutely, yeah. I mean quizzes not only provide kind of the curiosity aspect but also they appeal to kind of the narcissist that’s within all of us right?

Tim: [Laughs]

Josh: So you know, at the end of the quiz it’s like hey I got seven or six out of seven right or seven out of seven right like I really know what I’m doing and you really are kind of drawn into it. We do the lead generation right before the results of the quiz. So I’ve answered seven questions now it says put in your email address if you’d like to learn more about Excel which is not only a targeted offer but you’ll also have incentive to put that email address in because you want to see how you did. You know you want to get that immediate feedback.

Tim: All right. So this is where I want to get into some of the specifics. So let’s say there’s one point you know, like in this example where when I keep referring to points we’re talking about there were 50 points made in this article.

[0:05:08]

Josh: Uh-hum.

Tim: And so let’s say like one particular point instead of a point that was a question. When somebody answers, when they guess do they immediately get a chance to opt in or do they wait until the end of the whole article?

Josh: Yeah so basically what we did was the quiz is a module. Basically it’s embedded the same way you’d embed a YouTube video. So right after point number 23, there’s a quiz. The quiz is seven questions based off of the points that have already been gone over. So out of the first 23 you take seven of them, turn them into questions, embed it as a widget. You answer all seven questions then you’re presented with an opportunity to opt in or skip and then you are presented with your results of the quiz.

Tim: Okay. So it’s not like the individual point itself is a quiz. It’s a multiple part quiz?

Josh: Yeah. So I think kind of the beauty of it and what really drives the conversions is that you’re able to have a conversation through the quiz. So the article itself is a many to one medium so you’re writing to a lot of people whereas the quiz is a one to one medium. So I wrote this Excel post and I can create a quiz where I can talk to people individually through the questions. By the end of seven questions we’ve developed this sort of rapport to where they’re more willing to put in their email address to learn more based off of the points that we’ve already gone over.

Tim: Yeah. So it’s kind of like within a webinar where you’re presenting a webinar to a bunch of people but when they’re asking questions and you’re answering their specific questions, they feel more connected and it becomes a personalized experience and then that usually converts better. Kind of same concept right?

Josh: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Tim: So what was the start? I know you said this before but they started at how many leads and they ended up with how many leads when you switched to the quiz?

Josh: Yeah so in the previous three months to using the quiz, they were generating about 20 month leading to about 60 in the previous three months. Adding a quiz the three months after that, they generated 1612 new leads.

Tim: [Laughs] I can’t imagine what 1612 new leads from generating 20 a month must have done for them. That had to have been an amazing feeling.

Josh: Yeah. It’s pretty absurd to be honest. It’s we were kind of blown away by it.

Tim: Okay and so now is this prior to the formation of interact or was this using interact once you created it?

Josh: Yeah. So this was using interact once we created it. Skilled up was kind of one of our early customers and we were testing things out and it just kind of blew up and worked really well. So we’ve gone from there.

Tim: Awesome. So and this is – I don’t know if this is the right question to ask you but I’m just feeling compelled to ask it. So what’s kind of a typical result? I mean I know that’s so difficult to answer but a typical result for a company that’s generating average traffic. We won’t say –you know, because you need to have some traffic for this to work but you know, what’s a typical result for a company using something like this in a popular blog post?

Josh: Yeah. So basically across the board half of the people that take your quiz will opt in. We do provide a very obvious skip step because we don’t want to generate leads that aren’t qualified.

Tim: Right.

Josh: So at the end of the quiz, you’ll be presenting to offer half of everyone that finishes your quiz will opt in.

Tim: Wow. That’s fantastic.

Josh: Yeah.

Tim: So there’s an offer built in as well.

Josh: Yeah. So the offer can be edited for the skilled up. They target it towards Excel so learn more about Excel if you put in your email address, you can change that call to action text to be whatever you want it to be. We’ve had people from fitness companies, health companies all kinds of different companies. Change that offer and kind of make it whatever they want to make it.

Tim: And you could tie that to your list you know, whatever list software you’re using and you could have that at that point also deliver some kind of a lead magnet that you promote within the quiz. Is that right?

Josh: Absolutely yes. So we integrate with MailChimp, AWeber, Marketo, Eloqua. Pretty much we cover about 70% of the market with our integrations as far as email marketing programs. So then you can have an autoresponder, send them an eBook or some kind of further tips or put them on a you know, an autoresponder for a few months to send them a lot of different things. So you can do a lot with it.

Tim: It sounds like this will be an amazing opportunity within a blog post to kind of implement another tactic that we’ve kind of shared on this show. So if you had this quiz, this will be great for somebody to split test I think. If they put this quiz within a blog post and then had a really specific you know, resource guide lead magnet something that was like you know three tools to help you do whatever was in this blog post and split test that within the post also against a nonspecific lead magnet, you know, just maybe your general guide or I think it will also be really cool to split test a specific lead magnet versus no lead magnet at all and just delivering the results. Have you had anybody split test a lead magnet versus no lead magnet just to get the results?

[0:10:19]

Josh: Yeah so a little bit. We’ve definitely had some people play around with the call to action text. We don’t have concrete numbers on that but it does work either way. Like I said, it does hover right around 50%. We haven’t had someone really kill it or knock it out of the park by having a lead magnet versus no lead magnet.

Tim: Interesting.

Josh: I think the incentive of just getting your quiz results is fairly compelling. So it would be interesting to test that out as well to add the lead magnet.

Tim: Yeah that’s super fascinating. You know this is something that you know, this is something that I think you could probably implement one way or another whether or not you use interact but I think it just sounds like interact would make it just so much easier. You don’t have to hire a developer and kind of have somebody come in and do that. So do you have any kind of like a specific type of blog post that you’re finding that this works really well in or is it just something that you could kind of put in to just about any blog post as long as it’s tailored to some good information?

Josh: Yeah. It’s a great question. So we [0:11:22] [Indiscernible] post and with a lot of posts I think there’s a lot of great content online that either ranks well in search or is getting a lot of social traffic but just really isn’t driving leads. I think we all have those posts on our blog that consistently get traffic but don’t really seem to get any kind of ROI for us. Those are the opportunities that you can really nail with a quiz. Because with the quiz, you can present a targeted offer specifically for that post that’s getting traffic but not really delivering leads and implement it right into the middle of your content without changing anything, without changing the way it’s structured anything like that. You’re just adding the quiz in. It’s a way to really get ROI from some of those great blog posts that you have that are getting traffic but not delivering the ROI that you want.

Tim: So that kind of best practice would be to implement this in an already you know, highly trafficked blog post or maybe your most popular post?

Josh: Yeah absolutely. We’ve also had people implement the quizzes as Facebook tabs so you can do those tabs on Facebook where you stay right into, stay right on the Facebook page and you can take the quiz. That works really well for people that have an audience on Facebook but not so much traffic on their website.

Tim: That’s super interesting. Yeah I love this. This is cool. This is a different way to kind of generate leads and there is –you know, we’ve heard of a lot of different ways but I like this because it’s a little unique. It’s interactive and it serves for more than just improving conversion rate. Like you said it really opens up that you know, communication specifically with your audience. So I really like this and this is something that I think we’ll see a lot of people trying out. So Josh, thanks so much for coming on the show. It’s been really helpful and really valuable so thank you.