Matt Coen of Second Street Promotions Lab explains how media companies can take advantage of the popularity of online quizzes…
These days, nearly everyone has seen the quizzes all over the BuzzFeed homepage or making the rounds on their Facebook News Feed. (For example: “How Well Do You Remember Dialogue From Star Wars?”)
And while they might seem like they are just for fun at first, quizzes actually represent an opportunity for media outlets to gain insight into their audience, collect data for their advertisers, and drive revenue for their company.
Here is a great example from WDAF-TV in Kansas City that ran during the World Series, where the Kansas City Royals faced the San Francisco Giants.
Within one day of launching, the quiz was taken over 20,000 times! WDAF also received a ton of engagement on Facebook.
Royals player Billy Butler even took the quiz (and got himself!), and shared his result with 83,0000 followers on Twitter.
Here are four reasons quizzes benefit a media company and their advertisers:
1. Quizzes are fun for the audience AND advertisers.
People love to take these quizzes – and it’s a great way for a media company and its advertisers to be at the center of a timely, visual and fun promotion.
2. Quizzes are incredibly shareable.
According to KISSmetrics, quizzes are by far the most engaging type of content on Facebook. But people don’t just love to take quizzes. They also love to share their results. Take, for example, how many times the Royals quiz above was shared on Facebook and Twitter in the first few hours it was live.
3. Quizzes connect sponsors with an engaged, highly targeted audience.
This type of promotion can connect an advertiser to an engaged audience. A bank could sponsor a “What Kind of Dog Are You?” quiz to associate their name with a fun promotion focused on something people in their audience love. The bank would also benefit from having their brand shared over and over as the quiz spreads virally.
4. Quizzes are native content that can solve advertiser challenges.
If one is looking to develop native advertising programs for their advertisers, quizzes could be an exciting alternative or complement to other types of native content. A local Ford dealership might attach their name to a “What Kind of Car Should You Drive?” quiz, which would collect data about a targeted audience for the advertiser to market to. The quiz results could also center around Ford vehicles – if the answer is “pick-up truck,” the associated image might be a Ford F-150, while the image for “convertible” might be a Mustang V6, and “fuel-efficient sedan” might be illustrated by a Ford Focus.
