What Exactly is Interactive Video & How Can it Help Your Business?

Interactive Video is on the verge of taking the online commerce and digital marketing world by storm.

If you’ve been staring too long at tried-and-tested, traditional videos that offer limited to no interaction, interactive videos are the next step in the evolution of video commerce. If you’re not yet familiar with these engagement-boosting marketing tools, join us as we explore what it is that makes interactive videos so much fun, so exciting, and so effective.

According to gurus Brightcove, interactive video has the potential to boost both conversions and sales dramatically. In this blog, we look at what these interactive videos (IVs) are capable of and what makes them that much better than the clips we’ve all become so used to.

What is it?

Interactive videos are essentially regular videos that have been given clickable elements that allow users to interact directly with them. These elements encourage interaction with the video, whether it be entering information, taking quizzes, hitting hotspots to reveal information, or adding items to carts and contact forms. 

These novel video formats are so new that many users are still getting used to them. As the number of online consumers interacting with IV’s grows, so too are the numbers of brands and companies making use of them.

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Types of Interactive Video

They are constantly changing and evolving, so – until a revolutionary form of IV emerges – you can expect new and innovative video types to occur almost daily. In the meantime, here are a couple of the more effective and valuable IV types available:

• Interactive e-Learning & Development Videos – these videos allow a user to review, explore and gather information. Especially useful for brands with a lot of information to share, e-learning and development videos go hand-in-hand with monetizing options.
• Interactive Sales & Marketing Videos – These intriguing IVs allow users to click on hotspots and links within the video to learn more about a brand, product line, or brand history. Here, branching techniques work well to add some engagement to the brand storytelling. 
• Interactive E-commerce Videos – Also known as ‘shoppable videos’, e-commerce IVs are probably the most popular interactive videos around right now. Users can explore and then click to add a product to their cart while watching the video promoting the product!

Benefits of Interactive Video

While we’re only seeing the early advantages of interactive videos now, very soon, the core benefits of this rich medium will be clear for all to see. Interactive videos are engaging and compelling media sources that allow you to tell a brand’s story and keep people hooked. Improved viewer retention times of up to 47% naturally lead to enhanced conversion rates and the ability to include CTA’s that people are compelled to click on, leading to more extensive, better sales across the board.

Ultimately though, interactive videos are FUN. People enjoy having something to do while consuming video media, and with the average YouTube user watching up to 12 videos each day, giving them something to click on is a great way to snag new customers. 

Interactive videos are slated to become the next step in the online video media revolution. From asking audiences to complete “in-video” surveys to giving them the power to add items to shopping carts without having to pause the clip first, IV’s will soon be rendering traditional, liner videos – and potentially even websites – moot. 

So, before the interactive video goes mainstream, consider investing in putting together some interactive content and besting the competition to the proverbial interactive punch!

Need all the ranking factors to get more views and subscribers on YouTube? Download the full guide below.