Using the tool you can both draw the user’s interest and entertain him, strengthen the brand’s image and most importantly – win a new user/subscriber/fan/customer. This is what I did for Opel brand, for whom our agency provides content for their website for employees. It was a purely entertaining quiz on the Mother’s Day, but the questions were developed by a professional psychologist – a few answers and you could learn what type of a mother you are: whether you’re perfect like Bree from Desperate Houseweives or more like Natalia Boska from Rodzinka.pl”?
Seemingly, the aim of the quiz was just to entertain, but in fact my goal was to draw employees’ attention and to increase traffic on the company website. Naturally, it was a success.

For another big client we prepared a quiz “What type of employee are you?” and each of the types represented one of the company’s values. In this unboring and non-pushy way we reminded the employees the principles which the organization follows – what’s interesting the quiz was available in two versions: interactive for the client’s electronic medium and one for the printed magazine. The idea was that the quiz can be done both by employees sitting by the computer and those who read the paper magazine during lunch break. They had a few moments of entertainment and we completed our communication task, which was to promote the company values.

And this is the value of this tool – if you remember about a few rules preparing an online quiz, you will be able not only to draw the audience’s attention, but also to urge them to do something in a non-intrusive way.

Planning a quiz, just like any other marketing action, requires a good strategy. You need to remember about several things:

1 Come up with a clever title
If you intend to support long-term communication, and not just a one-time leap of interest, the quiz should encourage to competition or entertain in an original way – then someone who does the quiz may want to share the news e.g. on Facebook to show that he or she is good at something or is similar to e.g. a character from the Game of Thrones. As many as 80% of users decide whether to do a quiz or not judging by its title – it must be attractive, provoking, intriguing. This is pretty easy. Instead of asking a polite question like: How well do you know your city? you should ask: You really think you know your city? The latter question provokes a defensive reaction and the desire to prove that “sure I do!” Those who get caught by this title start filling out the quiz just to prove their knowledge.
Such gimmicks always work. Just as the immortal tests like: Which celebrity are you? Which character from “Friends” are you? This is the stunt we used for the TV show mother types quiz on Opel website. Such titles are highly engaging.

2 Choose a popular type of quiz

– Personality quizes are most ‘catchy’ as by nature people love listening about themselves and finding out positive things about themselves. This is the main reason behind the popularity of such tests. They attract a large number of users and are most frequently shared. Their big advantage is that they’re easy to adjust to a particular product or issue.
They are often used in marketing. They help match the product with a given person, considering their individual features and needs. If you sell sofas, make a quiz entitled: How do you like relaxing at home? Next to the possible answers you put pictures of seats, hassocks, sofas etc. You present your products and make the choice simpler for the user. This is also an opportunity to obtain contact data, invite to your mailing list etc.

– Knowledge quiz – another popular type of quiz. In marketing it is primarily used to see how much people know about a given company/brand/offer and so on. While in internal communication you can check your employees’ knowledge about your company. Such knowledge tests are great for competitions, e.g. for the company foundation anniversary, awarding the person who has the deepest knowledge about company related issues.

– Education quiz – this is the type in which you can forget about entertaining form – and sometimes you need to, if the quiz is about something it would be awkwardly to make fun of. This type of quiz is often used in social campaigns, their goal is to make people aware e.g. about the scale of the problem. For instance, the Red Cross placed a quiz on their website about the safe swimming. It’s goal is to increase awareness about safety in water, it became quite popular and was commented on the social media.

3 Add an image – and make it funny
A quiz that consists solely of the text is boring, and the user who is used to the image culture won’t last till its end. Use illustrations; in addition to making the test look more attractive, they will also make it more memorable. Along with your website/brand/product etc. In addition to other graphic images, use also the logo of your brand or products, this is inevitably increase potential customers’ awareness about them.

4 Don’t overdo it!
Respect the time of people doing the quiz. Being short is key, as people either won’t have enough time to go through 20 elaborate questions or they simply won’t feel like it. Don’t make them spend there too much time – users browse through social media websites quickly, and so doing the quiz also has to be quick. It should contain 6–10 questions and be able to complete in 2–3 minutes. Only in some cases a longer format can be accepted – e.g. if you’re preparing a quiz for fans/experts on something. When people find something fascinating they will complete a 40-question quiz, but that’s a niche group.

To encourage people to do your quiz, place links to it in various places – on your website, blog, in the social media, via newsletter. You can also consider offering awards, particularly when the quiz was prepared for a special occasion, like the company’s 20th anniversary.

5 Don’t forget about a happy end
Quiz results musn’t be negative – even if a result is weak don’t say that directly. By telling nice things to someone who has done your quiz you automatically gain your chance for a bigger number of shares, and so for a broader reach for your quiz. If you tell someone they’re stupid beyond measure, they might not choose to share it on FB:)

For instance: I’m really impressed that you’ve made it to the end of this article:) WOW! OMG! SUPER! You must share it on FB!