Before we dig into what an Interactive eBook is, let’s just highlight some of the main benefits of creating a standard eBook. An eBook is often perceived as one of the best tools for B2B Inbound Marketers because it’s the ultimate form of content to give high value to your customers.
The purpose of any eBook created within an Inbound Marketing perspective is to help your users by giving them helpful information. With this information, you wish to enable them to do their jobs better or to optimize their current techniques and processes. Moreover, when creating a regular eBook or an Interactive eBook, you often succeed in positioning yourself as a leader in your industry and you positively impact your brand image. But the ultimate goal of writing an eBook is often to build a solid email list with qualified and valuable leads.
The purpose and the main benefits of writing a standard eBook are the exact same when you write an Interactive eBook. However, other benefits are specific to an Interactive eBook. You can add them to the top, like an extra layer of awesomeness.
So, in this article, you’ll learn the following:
- What is an Interactive eBook?
- Why is it essential to create an Interactive eBook instead of a standard one?
- How to create an Interactive eBook?
- Interactive eBook examples.
Read on to get inspired to create your stunning educational Interactive eBook!
Interactive eBooks are part of the broader concept of Interactive Flipbooks. Read our ultimate Interactive Flipbook guide to learn more.
What is an Interactive eBook?
An Interactive eBook is an engaging digital eBook that contains interactive elements such as gated sections, polls, quizzes, surveys, videos, animations, hotspots, and many more. Having these touchpoints keeps the readers focused on the content they consume and interact with. Besides, customers give out their information to access the digital book. Therefore, Interactive eBooks are a perfect way to collect leads.
Creating an Interactive eBook can position you as a leader in your industry. As this type of content has educational purposes, you can use the chapters to teach your audience. The more engaging and valuable the eBook, the more people will refer to it. In your readers’ minds, you would be a credible source of information.
Interactive eBooks are available online in any format: mobile phones, tablets, and computers.
Why is it important to create an Interactive eBook instead of a regular one?
There are lots of added benefits to creating an Interactive eBook rather than a traditional eBook. Let’s discuss some of the most important of them.
Increase retention by adding interactive elements and experiences
The main benefit of creating an Interactive eBook is the possibility of adding Interactive Experiences and elements directly in your eBook. The idea is that most eBooks contain lots of valuable information, guides, and processes, but they can be a lot to take on because they are often too heavy. To help your readers process as much information as possible, you need to adapt your eBook to maximize their retention. You can achieve that by adding Interactive Experiences and elements. For example, after reading a difficult chapter on SEO Marketing, you could add a quiz to help readers test themselves and know if they understood the most important takeaways.
Increase engagement and impact your completion rate
Of course, by adding Interactive Experiences, you also succeed in increasing engagement. Readers will want to test their skills in a quiz, answer a poll to compare themselves with others from the same industry, watch an interactive video, or even play small branded marketing games. By adding these experiences, you make sure you engage with the readers throughout the whole eBook. Plus, you’ll see users reading the entire eBook rather than just the resumé or specific sections. This means you’ll increase your completion rate as well.
Collect better audience insights & zero-party data
The fact that they are available online and not only as a downloadable PDFs also brings a lot of value to marketers. We can get much more data out of them. So, instead of merely knowing how many people download our eBook, we can also find out which sections they interact the most with, where they clicked, how many times they opened it, etc. Besides, we can also add questionnaires in the experience such as polls, surveys, quizzes, etc. to collect zero-party data.
Succeed in growing your email list
Finally, one of the best benefits of creating an Interactive eBook is the possibility to gate some of the sections or engaging experiences rather than the entire eBook. That’s the solution to an unsolved marketing mystery: should I gate my eBook or not. Basically, you spend a lot of time and resources to create a free eBook. So, you want to get the most out of it, which means you want to get leads. But, you also want to make sure that everyone downloads it. You can lose loads of readers simply because they don’t want to share their contact details before seeing any value. The solution: gate a section or an Interactive Experience instead.
For example, you could add an assessment to your eBook, where readers can assess their skills regarding a specific subject. Upon completion, readers will receive feedback and other learning materials, depending on their score. You can gate the assessment to collect leads, and also send the feedback by email. If you are struggling with the gated vs. ungated content dilemma, we advise you to take your business goals in mind. Gating your content is perfect for growing your email list, while keeping your materials ungated is suitable for increasing organic traffic.
How to create an Interactive eBook?
Transforming your boring downloadable PDF into an Interactive eBook is straightforward. Follow these steps to generate the most effective and engaging educational content for your audience.
Prepare the content
Unless you have a finished PDF-style document in mind, you should write all the text and prepare the visual content. Generating the content in advance will allow you to enjoy the process of designing your Interactive eBook.
Design your Interactive eBook
Once you’ve chosen an Interactive Content platform, it is time to customize your eBook. Upload your written and visual content and start designing. Add your company logo, colors, and fonts. Create a piece of content that fully aligns with your brand identity.
Add Interactive Experiences
This is the most exciting part! What makes your eBook interactive are the touchpoints you add to it. Put yourself in the shoes of your readers and think about the activities they would like to engage with. If your eBook has an educational purpose, you can add various elements to help your audiences test their knowledge.
Below, you’ll find 5 types of Interactive Experiences you could add to your next Interactive eBook.
1. Polls
Polls are fantastic because they are relatively easy to implement in an Interactive eBook, and they are extremely engaging. Ask readers about one or multiple questions that are interesting to them. Plus, show them what others have answered to educate them even further.
2. Quizzes
As I mentioned above, Quizzes are also an excellent addition to any eBook. You could add a small quiz after each chapter of your Interactive eBook to boost retention and even play on your readers’ competitiveness.
3. Assessments
Another really interesting addition to your eBook is Assessments. Assessments are like quizzes, but they are different in terms of length and extent. Plus, they give feedback upon completion. Choose a subject related to the content of your ebook, and use this opportunity to promote your other content pieces like your other Interactive eBooks, blog posts, etc.
4. Surveys
Surveys are also a great enhancement to any eBook. In a survey, you’ll ask readers about their opinions regarding a subject. For example, you could ask them to share their experience by answering different multiple-choice answers. You can ask participants upon completion if they would like to receive the report of the survey. This is an excellent way to grow your email list as well.
5. Interactive Videos
Finally, using other formats than just text and images can heighten your Interactive eBook. And, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth at least 1 million words, and an Interactive Video 10 million, right?
Continue reading to discover three Interactive eBook examples from different industries.
Interactive eBook examples
Engaging your customers should be your top priority regardless of your industry. You should provide value constantly to achieve a competitive advantage. eBooks, however, are especially suitable for companies that want to educate their audience. If you want to distribute educational content, do it in an engaging way.
Below you’ll find 3 industries that would benefit from creating an Interactive eBook.
Real estate
An Interactive eBook can do wonders in real estate. Property descriptions, proposals, comparisons – you can make it all more intriguing with a bit of interactivity. Ditch the boring static content and go for interactive real estate content instead. You will see customer engagement and loyalty increase at quick rates.
Finance
What about letting your readers interact with the content in your finance document? Answering a quiz or a survey will help them digest the concepts you want to talk about. Deliver your valuable financial lessons with the opportunity to test one’s knowledge digitally.
Technology
Companies in the technology industry often face challenges with translating complex information into a more easily comprehensible language. Presenting content in an eBook with multiple engaging touchpoints will keep your readers focused. You can transform some of the data into an Interactive Video.
Is your industry or niche not listed above? No worries! As long as you want to educate your customers and provide value to them, an Interactive eBook is a wonderful choice.
Take your content to the next level with Interactive eBooks!
You might think that creating a standard eBook is long enough! Why take even more time to add Interactive Experiences to it? I assure you, it’s definitely worth the time and effort. Plus, it’s not as demanding as you might think. There are excellent Interactive Content platforms that can help you add Interactive Experiences to your current eBook.
For example, here at Dot.vu, we have many ready to use templates of polls, assessments, and quizzes. You can adapt them and insert them in your Interactive eBook to make it way more engaging for your readers. Take a look at our marketplace and try a template using a free account.