“What Harry Potter character are you?”
“What can your favourite food tell you about your holiday vacation mood?”
From the Buzzfeed to the bad (wait, that’s the… same thing?) quizzes are familiar to us as humans, and possibly even more so as copywriters occasionally try to procrastinate penning that next brilliant About page or email sequence.
Whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em, quizzes make sense for your business.
Not only do they bring a lighthearted approach to your sales process, but they’re a way of engaging that actually feels fun, or at least less boring and fake than your usual hustle-driven sales call.
Here are a few reasons why they work, plus tips on how to use them to ultimately generate more leads and sell more of your online products.
What, you didn’t think I could resist waxing poetic about quizzes without throwing in quiz questions, did you? Here goes:
1. WHY CHOOSE A QUIZ AS YOUR LEAD MAGNET?
a) they’re excellent connection builders
b) they’re fun and interactive
c) they can go viral
d) they allow you to segment your offers
e) all of the above.
Okay, let me start by spoiling the surprise: the answer is always going to be e. But hear me out, because the details are where it gets good.
Let’s start with connection-building – we all need it, so why not offer it on a platter to your clients
in a way that feels like the least sales-y page they’ll read all day?
Besides making them feel seen AF (and associating you with that feeling) they’ll spill their honest preferences in an entertaining way that provides intel that’ll help you serve them even better as clients in the long run.
It’s also a good way to get them to sample your writing style and tone without even knowing it! You get to confirm that they are a good fit, then offer them the best marketing to suit their needs. Then create an ever-renewing relationship that’s satisfying for both of you. Triple win!
Quizzes are also fun and interactive! Okay, there are some lame ones out there, but with a bit of effort (and maybe a quiz-making professional), yours can be one of the radical ones that makes a reader smile to herself and even click back for another look at your website after she’s done.
And while not every quiz truly probes your soul, who doesn’t want to know what Fab 5 member they have the most in common with? (By the way, I’m team Antoni all the way!)
They’re also sharable – come on, you can’t tell me that you haven’t forwarded that “Who’s your The Good Place archetype?” quiz to your best friend to see if you’re a match! I certainly have (mine’s Chidi which honestly didn’t surprise me that much but led to a far too long conversation next time we were able to hang).
Plus the average quiz gets shared 1,900 times. That’s viral potential! That’s why it’s the ultimate lead magnet. And that’s not just between me and my best friend.
How many times was your last free worksheet or content calendar shared?
Ouch. Sorry, that was below the belt, wasn’t it? Trust me, I’ve created my share of boring lead magnets that have done nothing for my biz. I’m nursing my wounds, too.
Let’s get back to quizzes!
Okay, so fun is a given with quizzes. We already sort of knew that.
But maybe the best news for a copywriter or coach like yourself? They can help you boost your income when you have leads that are dying to hear from you – and ready to hit that but button when you have offers that are perfect for them!
Quizzes also allow you to segment your offers.
If you have multiple offers designed to suit clients at different stages in their business – for instance, you’re a copywriter who specializes in social media content with different tiers of done-with-you and done-for-you packages (with some template offers for those DIYers in your audience).
Quizzes can help you figure out who needs what and then use email marketing automation to tag quiz takers by result.
You then target those segments with emails designed specifically for their stage and you can bet that your open and clickthrough rates will be higher. If warming up your outreach is a goal (and who doesn’t want that?), then quizzes can be a fun way to get there. See below for a handy illustration of how quiz results connect to offers!
2. WHAT DO YOU NEED TO CREATE A QUIZ OF YOUR OWN?
a) a plan
b) a platform for hosting quizzes
c) an email marketing tool
d) a place to host your landing pages
e) all of the above
Got you again! It’s e – and this is the section where I delve into the nuts and bolts of how to set your quiz up for success. Ready? Let’s go!
First step: your quiz needs a plan. This is what separates the kids from the grown-ups. You need to figure out how the quiz will help gain greater insight into your audience, and how that intel will help you serve up even more enticing offers.
Let’s map this out: a copywriter who wants to teach other copywriters how to create email sequences might create a quiz that reveals what kind of email sequences the quiz taker should write (launch promo emails, welcome emails, email newsletters). Another option is to create results that lead to offers based on how experienced they are.
All this is to say, when you create your quiz, don’t start with the quiz—start with your offer, then map back to questions you can ask that will lead to that sweet segmentation.
Next, since a quiz that requires any more effort than a quick click-through will be ignored you need to find a great platform to host your quiz. (One that I totally recommend is Interact (tryinteract.com) ←use this link to tell them I sent you if you want to check it out.)
Interact gives you everything you need to set up your quiz easily, and integrates with your email marketing tool so you can get people on your list automatically while they’re still primed and excited to hear from you.
Also…you need an email marketing tool that’s connected to your quiz and allows you to tag contacts. Then create a welcome sequence that gets your clients-to-be familiar with hearing from you. Once you’re in their inbox on the regular, you can start to send them relevant emails with offers that have their name written all over it.
Finally, seek out a place to host your landing pages, again this doesn’t need to be fancy – you can use a platform like WordPress or Leadpages, whatever is familiar or has worked for you in the past. The point is to take equal care with the landing page as with everything else in your empire so that those visuals and even the copy match with your signature style and tone.
And so we arrive at the third question of our little quiz…
3. WHAT ARE THE RESULTS QUIZZES CAN PULL IN IF DONE CORRECTLY?
a) entertain and delight
b) educate potential clients about the problems you solve
c) create better conversions
d) segment quiz takers for more granular insights
e) all of the above
I hope you didn’t spend a lot of time guessing. You’re a smart cookie and a smart business owner – by now you know it’s e for ‘easy’ or all of the above.
We’ve already reviewed how quizzes can entertain and delight (see: fun, interactive, sharable) but did you know that they can also help educate clients about the problems you solve?
By using keywords that already attracted clients to your services, you can craft questions to reveal the depth of your own expertise and even tag responses in your quiz that will allow you to segment your list in extremely specific ways. You seed new services that they may want to follow up with you on after (say in the form of a sneaky question that drops a hint about the need for launch email sequences in a quiz otherwise focused on nurture).
All of these steps help to elevate your authority, and create better conversions when quiz-takers realize that you really know your stuff and send them emails that meet them exactly where they are!
Again, segmentation is the ultimate goal here, because you can pitch your quiz list according to the answers (pains, needs, and desires) that they JUST HANDED OVER TO YOU LIKE CANDY in their completed quiz.
So, what are you waiting for?
Oh, hold up. You’re not waiting for anything. You’re convinced. All you need is – help.
Yes, I can appreciate how this moment can be overwhelming for even the slickest copywriter.
Yes, you want a quiz. In fact, you might wonder how your biz ever lived without one!
Take a deep breath, my friend. You don’t need to muddle through it. Instead, head over to Interact – they’ve got a great free course that I highly recommend. You can also check out my ridiculously talented pal Chanti’s website (quizzes are her jam).
If you’ve got questions, leave a comment or email grace@gracefortune.com if you want to know more!
