Ever entered a store only to be bombarded with an unending sales pitch? The relentless monologue leaves you no room to speak, forcing you to endure the spiel until an escape opportunity arises. Unsurprisingly, you rarely purchase the item.
Now imagine an email without interaction – similar to that overpowering sales pitch. There's no space for your customer to engage. Online, they can simply close the email and move on, leaving your marketing efforts unread and unacknowledged.
Enter interactivity. It not only invites customers into your marketing narrative but also elevates your email engagement. Break the monotony, invite participation, and watch your audience actively connect with your brand. That's the power of interactive emails – turning passive readers into engaged participants.
What are interactive emails?
The purpose of an interactive email is to make the recipient DO something, rather than just SEE something. Simply watching content - GIFs or countdown timers - isn’t enough to be classified as interactive anymore.
Interactive emails include elements in the email body that allow customers to truly engage with content. Whether that be voting in a poll or quiz, clicking through images, reviewing an item, starting a song, or even playing a game.
But what interactive elements are best suited to your business? Read on to find out.
Types of interactivity
Buttons
Buttons make interactivity look easy because they’re simple and they work! They quite often literally tell the recipient how to interact, with text such as ‘click me’ written across it plus they also serve a few important functions:
- They urge the customer to take immediate action
- They redirect to specific links and website pages
- They encourage the recipient to interact with the email
Product rating
Receiving feedback on products and services is important for any business looking to grow and improve, so making it an easy task for your customers is key. You can do this with interactive emails.
Once a customer has purchased and received their item, a follow up email can be sent with a simple star rating system included, where the recipient clicks on the stars to rate their product. This promotes interactivity while simultaneously providing you with valuable insights. You could also include a text box, encouraging the customer to leave a written review too, all without leaving their inbox.
Gamification
Who doesn’t love a good game? Especially when it’s an unexpected surprise in an email during your monotonous work day.
People delight in excitement, competitiveness and the chance to win prizes. So by popping an interactive game into your email, your customers will be jumping at the chance to engage. It could be a spin-the-wheel, an Easter bunny race, a scratch card, or something entirely different. If you can code it, you can send it!
Rollover and hover effects
Both hover effects and rollover effects are essential for email interactivity. When businesses want to create a presence with a product and make a statement, these effects should be the go-to choice.
Especially popular with products and online shopping, these effects can show a 360º view of products, share more information, or encourage a CTA. They’re both used primarily on buttons and images, but can be used on much more than that.
Video
Video content is fast becoming one of the most popular ways to communicate with customers, so involving it in your email marketing is a strong move in the right direction.
In fact, 89% of people say that watching a video has convinced them to buy a product or service. By including a video that the recipient must click in order to watch, your interactive emails will be driving engagement and boosting sales, while promoting products in a sleek, popular manner.
Polls
Want to know what your customers think about a certain product, service, topic, or anything in between? Feature a poll in your email. With one click of a button, your customers will be interacting and having their voice heard.
Customers value brands that want to hear their thoughts, which in turn nurtures loyalty and creates returning customers.
Forms and surveys
Similarly to polls, forms and surveys can be used as an interactive tool to gain insights from current, past, and potential customers. Whether it’s multiple choice, box ticking, or written answers, there are many methods to be trialled.
Customers are more likely to fill in forms and surveys if they’re immediately accessible from their inbox, rather than having to visit a website or input a URL. Also, a little incentive goes a long way - perhaps 10% off or free postage for the next order. Again, collecting this discount code can be an interactive feature.
Music
Perhaps you want to share your latest musical release, or just share a song that you think your audience would resonate with. The key here is that the customer needs to physically click on the song in order for it to be interactive, so prompting the recipient to press play is crucial.
Music is a great interactive feature as it’s somewhat unusual, and won’t be forgotten quickly.
What to do (and what not to do!)
DO vary your interactive features. Just like anything else, repetition can quickly become boring, which will lead to less engagement. With so many options out there, there’s no need to duplicate.
DO NOT overuse interactive elements and demand more clicks than necessary. Not only does this overwhelm the recipient and feel click-baity, but it is also more likely to drive away engagement all together.
Interactivity with Transpond
We offer two campaign building options - our intuitive drag and drop email designer and the ability to write your own template.
When it comes to interactive elements, writing your own template is the best option with Transpond. With full support, you can craft any interactive feature you desire, including all those mentioned above.
Our drag and drop template also offers custom code blocks that you can craft interactivity with.
Find out more about Transponds campaign builders: https://transpond.io/features/campaignbuilder