4 Mistakes to Avoid in your Next Online Quiz

Marketing today has evolved. Its goal is no longer simply generating brand awareness. Nor is it to deluge your customers with a ton of marketing messages.

Customers have become more conscious of the efforts a brand puts into connecting with them, and so have their expectations for consistent engagement experience.

Many marketing professionals have learned the importance of experience the hard way, but you don't have to be one of them. Over the past few years, we have seen tremendous growth in the experience industry, both focused on customer experience and employee experience. The way people behave, the way they interact, and the way they consume content, has evolved rapidly in the past few years with the rise of technology, mobile, and social interactions.

If you want your marketing efforts to connect and build engagement, you need to change your strategies, too.

Quizzes have been widely popularized over time, and today they captivate the attention of your audience better than any other form of content. An excellent video is a really great option, but I believe quizzes are a close second, and sometimes an even better choice for certain audiences or situations.

While they are fun and engaging, quizzes can also be complicated if not appropriately planned. I was almost a wreck while looking for the right tool to help me with creating an experience. I had hit every keyword from my marketing dictionary before I found SoGoSurvey, thanks to a great reference on Wordstream.

Think it’s hard to create a quiz? Make no mistake -- I’ve seen some really bad quizzes. The good news is, I’ve got a cheat sheet for you below so you won’t make any of the same mistakes!

The common mistakes people make while making a quiz:

1. Disconnected branding

   Brand logo and aesthetics can be powerful when you are communicating a message or trying to engage your audience. Brand identity is crucial for every business, and it is one of the first things your customers notice.  Hence, customizing the look and feel of your quiz is essential. Make sure to keep uniformity in the color palette, as it has a big impact on customers’ recall of the brand. 

   Imagine that you run a cake shop and you use a specific shade of yellow for your logo, your packaging, and even the walls of your shop. Naturally, customers who frequent your shop associate your brand with this yellow color. So, if you send a quiz that includes only shades of blue, you’re serving up a big slice of disconnect!

2. Irrelevant call to actions

   Quizzes are a great tool to create engagement while delivering a message. Still, before you ask your audience to act on something, you need to be clear on the purpose of your quiz. Do you want to see how well they know your product or brand? Do you want to better understand what they’re looking for from you?

   Say you’re launching a new clothing line and you want to find out if your offering is a good fit for your target audience. Your inspiration for this collection is superheroes, so you might send a quiz asking what color XYZ's costume is or how would they define a particular character. These results can give you plenty of information, and you can follow up with an invitation to check out the new collection. However, using the results you collect can also help to improve performance: Asking your female audience members to check out a male clothing collection probably won’t have the same impact. Even if half the people click the link, the possibility of them actually making a purchase is slim.

3. Text-heavy quizWhen you take a quiz, how much text do you prefer reading? A few sentences? Or maybe a paragraph max? Your audience feels the same way. People just want to know the vital information in your text and move on. When you have a question that covers half a page, people will drop out of the conversation and abandon your quiz. However, giving them information in small digestible chunks can create excitement to find out more. Riddles are catchy because just a few sentences can inspire interest in something participants need to figure out. A riddle can intrigue and capture attention, but not if the text goes on and on. The amount of content included and the type of questions you ask to play an essential role in the way your quiz performs. Too much text can drive away potential customers before they even engage at all.
4. Confusing flow

   Have you seen the movie Inception? It’s an intensely engaging show, but you never know which direction the narrative will take next, and the end (no spoilers here!) leaves you even more confused.

   When a quiz does not have a seamless flow from one point to another, it loses its impact. Sure, Inception left an impression, but your audience might feel differently about a quiz. We don't want a very obvious quiz, as it might not have a spark, but engagement is generally improved when participants know what to expect next.

Hopefully, these points will help you get started. Getting quick feedback can be useful and engaging both for you and your participants. So what's stopping you? 

Now that you already know what mistakes to avoid, you can start drafting your ideas! And if you are wondering where to begin, SoGoSurvey can help you with their pre-designed templates. You can quickly make any modifications you need to in order to achieve your goals.