5 tools to tell 🧍‍♂️ outstanding 🧍‍♂️ SaaS stories through interactive content

 

Do you feel like your content marketing is not “there” yet? 

You write blog posts.
Create social media posts.
Provide your audience with valuable content.

You do an awesome, honest job. Yet still, something is missing… 

It might be that there’s nothing wrong with your content per se. You’re killing it – no reason to think otherwise.

But there is one thing you can definitely improve in marketing your content. Something that we usually forget, blindsided by the notion that:

 

Good content will always stand up for itself.

 

Content marketing has evolved a lot over the years. And so have the strategies and tactics used by marketers. 

Today, it’s all about hooking your audience right from the start. 

Gone are the days when you could publish a bunch of text-based content and expect to see results. Now, your website visitors expect more than just a listicle. You have to make your content exciting, insightful and all the way sexy!

How do you do that? Let’s introduce you first to a bunch of statistics:

 

What your audience ACTUALLY wants

45% of B2B buyers say they prefer interactive content.

Let that sink in. And now, let’s be honest for a moment and answer the question:

 

How often did you think about doing interactive content for your business this week?

 

Got it? Great!

If you’ve answered with something like: “duuuh, at least 248 times”, then there’s no need to read this section further. Let’s go straight to the list of tools that will add even more awesomeness to your already awesome content.

If this is the first time you see the term “interactive content”, let me just introduce you to the concept. 

 

What exactly is interactive content?

Simply put - it’s all the things in your content marketing your audience can interact with. 

Don't make your customer read another long blog post. Or watch another nice (but boring) instructive video. Engage your audience in what you wanna say.

 

 

 

 

 

Interactive content attracts more people into your sales funnel. It also makes them stay there for longer. They are more curious about what’s coming next. It makes lead acquisition fun – for both sides.

But properly implemented interactive content can also educate your customers before they make the buying decision. It’s very successful in giving your customers a sneak peek into your product without making them sign up for a trial. 

It is easier to engage with interactive content. You don’t make your customers fill out a form, confirm their email addresses and go through an onboarding process. 

You just let them see how your product can help them right away.

As you can see – using interactivity is a must to level up your marketing game.

So, to help you embark on your journey to more engagement on your website and longer time spent on your content – I’ve prepared a list of the 5 most interesting tools that will add more interactivity to your SaaS marketing.

Not only that. This blog is all about combining storytelling with content marketing. So, I’ve also included a couple of ideas for each tool that you can use right away. They’ll help you make your content, even more, engaging with great storytelling in place.

And the best part is - all of them are free!

 

Let’s dive right into it:

Tools to improve storytelling in content marketing

Genially - storytelling made clickable

Price: Free (paid plans also available) 💸

BEST FOR: no-code sneak peek of your product 👀

 

 

My personal favourite – genial.ly is a fantastic tool for interactive content production.

 

The possibilities Genial.ly gives you are endless.

• Clickable screenshots,
• beautiful game quizzes
• animated presentations.

Genial.ly simply has it all.

 

AND - you don’t have to code a single thing! All features are available on a very intuitive dashboard, allowing you to drag and drop anything you want onto the project.

 

 

IMHO – if you have a product to teach people about – genial.ly can help you a ton! Training and onboarding in SaaS companies seem to be one of the biggest challenges. In fact, according to Retently, 23% of users bounced back if the onboarding was poor.

That is almost a quarter of your users – gone. And for what reason? 

Luckily, my remedy plan for you takes only 3 steps:

1. Use interactive training materials. 
2. Add an interesting story to your onboarding process.
3. Reduce your churn and improve your product’s overall user experience. 

Also, interactive training materials make the whole process simply… less boring! Just remind yourself how many times you have scrolled through poorly recorded instructional videos or nasty PDF guides – just to learn about the product you wanted to pay for!

Don’t bore your customers with your product – tell them great stories with interactive training materials.

 

Involve.me - interactive stories that convert

Price: Free (paid plans available) 💸

BEST FOR: lead generation quizzes ✅

 

 

If one of the main goals of your content marketing or copywriting is to generate leads - involve.me is your way to go.

This tool lets you create BEAUTIFUL things. To give you just a handful:

• Lead generation quizzes
• Price quote calculators
• Surveys and personality tests

All of this can enhance your content interactivity and make your customers feel that your product is tailor-made to their needs and desires. You can incorporate storytelling into quizzes and surveys, guiding your audience through the sales funnel without seeming pushy and sales-oriented.

 

 

Even better – you don’t need a single line of code (just like in genial.ly). Everything can be done and styled using a drag-and-drop interface. 

If you want to see an example of how powerful involve.me is – I prepared an example for you 😉

 

Infogram - engaging infographics and reports

Price: Free (paid plans available) 💸

BEST FOR: engaging infographics 📊

 

 

In 2017, 85% of B2B marketers planned to use interactive infographics as a part of their lead nurturing strategy.

I would say this percentage is not going down anytime soon.

Luckily, we as content marketers, don't need to have an elaborate design background to produce decent interactive infographics. One of the tools that allow us to do that is Infogram.

Their product makes data visualisation beautiful and easy to share with your customers. There are thousands of templates available, from classic infographics to very advanced, clickable, top-of-the-top data charts.

Even more important is that all of the projects made in Infogram are optimised for mobile. So, there’s no need to duplicate your projects between both versions of your product’s page. If you’re using CMS platforms, like WordPress – your projects can be easily implemented, with no code required.

 

Moovly - boost up your storytelling with video

Price: Free (paid plans included) 💸

BEST FOR: easy, cheap video production 📹

 

 

Did you know that 79% of people have been convinced to buy a product or service through video?

If you’re not using video (and especially - video storytelling) as one of the pillars of your content marketing - you might be missing out on a big chunk of potential customers.

You might probably think now: “Okay, great, but how the hell should I find time and resources to include yet another form of content into my marketing strategy?!”

Well, it might be simpler than you think. With the right tools, of course.

Moovly is one of those tools - it allows you to create a wide range of videos appropriate for your business, like:

• video ads
• product presentations
• training and onboarding videos

What's even more important - it gives you the opportunity to automate video production. This is especially important for smaller business owners that don't have much time and resources to invest in good-looking video production.

To be honest - when it comes to video marketing, the only limit is your imagination. The possibilities with this format are endless. Likewise, adding an element of storytelling to your video ad or presentation is much easier, in comparison to other forms of content.

See one of the video examples available in their gallery:

 

 

What I appreciate the most about Moovly, is that they require little to no design skills to achieve high-quality results in your projects. It may become very useful, especially for those “one-man-army” marketers. Besides - it saves you a ton of time that usually is needed to produce video content.

 

Eko studio - let users choose the end of your story

Price: Free 💸

BEST FOR: Out-of-the-box video content producers 👨‍🎨

 

 

This app is interactive content at its finest.

Eko allows you to make video shows in which the person watching it can form the plot on the spot. It’s something like some of Netflix’s Black Mirror episodes, or those mobile games with Sultans and stuff.

 

On their website, you can check out some examples of videos made with Eko.

 

And let me tell you, the results are totally captivating.

It mixes video, gamification, storytelling and marketing. All of this is served in a very convenient and user-friendly form, making the viewer grasp the whole concept almost immediately.

The creators of Eko provide you with powerful (and COMPLETELY FREE 🤯) software that makes it surprisingly easy to produce good results. Most of the interface is based on the drag-and-drop system. Eko studio also allows you unlimited customization with API access.

 

This is a real storytelling gem for every content marketer and I really encourage you to try it out.

 

Conclusion: good storytelling is interactive

There's no doubt that content marketing is a powerful tool - but only when it's done correctly. 

Luckily, there are several great tools available that can help improve your storytelling and make your content more interactive. By that you enhance engagement, conversions, and — above all — make your marketing less repetitive and predictable.

So what are you waiting for? Share this post with your fellow content marketers and start utilizing these tools to take your content marketing to the next level.