5 Examples of Brands Using Quizzes in their Content Marketing

The last time we met, I introduced myself as the Content Marketing Director for Interact, an online quiz creation tool, and walked you through the entire quiz creation process.

Today, we’ll be looking at several success stories that have stemmed from making these quizzes and how brands from different industries have implemented them in their content marketing strategy.

Marketers are tirelessly pushing out multiple forms of content to boost the various aspects of their brand and diversify their content offering. Quizzes often fly under the radar, but brands are now paying closer attention to this format as they’re seeing it deliver consistent results.

Whether you’re looking to gain awareness or generate leads, quizzes can be relevant and timely across the entire customer journey.

I’m hoping this will give you a feel for how others have utilized quizzes in their marketing, along with the results that followed so you can better match your efforts to a winning outcome.

So strap yourself in, because we’re about to take you on a journey across several brands spanning different industries.

1. The Elephant Pants And The Quiz That Kickstarted Their Brand (Retail)

Before becoming the successful retail brand they are today, The Elephant Pants had their humble beginnings as a company riding on the support of fundraising via Kickstarter.

In an effort to help direct their audience to the Kickstarter to fund their launch, they created the quiz, “Which Pair of Elephant Pants Are You?”

The quiz consisted of five short questions that ultimately suggested a pair of, you guessed it, Elephant Pants for the quiz-taker based on their answers.

The results of the quiz had a link that led back to The Elephant Pants’ Kickstarter page where individuals could help fund the brand.

Not only did the campaign help raise money for their launch, but it also established a potential customer base for The Elephant Pants.

What made the quiz so successful was how entertaining it was. With the look and feel of similar quizzes you’d find on social media, the difference was that based on the answers given, participants were suggested a pair of pants that was most suitable for their personality.

Replicating the process is easy just by filling your quiz up with delightful images and fun questions that you’d find on any other social media quiz. By the end of the campaign, The Elephant Pants brought in over $8,500 and was able to launch successfully.

Your Takeaway: Are you a business that requires the aid of a fundraising campaign? Consider pairing your campaign with a fun quiz that not only leads back to a platform that allows fundraising but helps grow a potential customer base for when your brand launches.

2. Cloud Sherpas And Their Lead Qualifying Quiz (Software)

Cloud Sherpas is a software company that focuses on providing unrivaled cloud advisory and technology services for some of the world’s leading brands.

As a means of simultaneously generating leads and qualifying them; talk about killing two birds with one stone, they created the quiz entitled, “How mature is your ServiceNow instance?”

The quiz itself was an assessment on how familiar someone was with the ServiceNow instance.

It categorized individuals by knowledge, breaking them out into levels of maturity along with suggestions on how to improve their score.

While their quiz might seem boring to the general public, its importance is clear to Cloud Sherpas’ target audience, allowing them to engage more effectively with the brand’s offerings.

In an effort to increase the rate of quiz participants, Cloud Sherpas promoted the quiz via their blog and Facebook page.

Due to the nature of the quiz, more knowledgeable candidates are filtered through as a means of qualifying leads. With a focus on quality over quantity, Cloud Sherpas’ quiz continues to bring in 3-4 qualified leads per day.

Your Takeaway: For those that want to focus on the warmer leads, try to create an assessment test for your marketing strategy. This kind of a quiz will help determine who knows more about your brand, its products, and services, or other matters that factor into the kind of lead your brand is looking to nurture.

3. Brandeis University And Their Sorting Quiz (Higher Education)

Brandeis International Business School, one of the world’s leading research universities, has a reputation for academic excellence.

With their focus on business, finance and economics, to give students an idea of what they could achieve after graduating and to encourage enrollment into the university they created a quiz on, “Which Career is Right for You?”

What made their quiz pop was the inclusion of images for every question, enhancing the visual experience and making something already interesting more engaging.

Potential students received results that suggested career paths or programs based on their answers.

Connected with Hubspot to handle their new contacts, Brandeis IBS brings in 125 new potential students through the quiz each month.

Your Takeaway: If you run a brand with an emphasis on education, enrollment is one of your top priorities. Consider using a quiz to help potential students pick out their majors or career paths.

4. The American Red Cross And Their Awareness Raising Quizzes (Non-Profit)

The American Red Cross has been around for years, and they continue to provide care to those that need it around the world.

To raise awareness for key issues on social media they create educational quizzes. One of them being, “Know the drill: find out how you would handle a home fire!”

The American Red Cross uses their quizzes as a form of interactive gaming, based off of otherwise boring subjects.

For example, their fire safety quiz tries to demonstrate how prepared you would be for a fire, an exciting recreation of the checklist it’s based on.

Rather than listing off what you should do, Red Cross quizzes you on what you think you know, and then provides structured results which communicate the proper steps to take.

Their “Do you actually know how to swim?” quiz brought in 695 total social shares for their Red Cross mobile app that teaches swimming.

Your Takeaway: Pairing your quiz with campaigns that focus on raising awareness is a great way to add an exciting new perspective on otherwise not-so-exciting topics. Shed light on various subjects by attracting an even larger audience to take notice of a particular cause or message.

5. The Foundation Cuts Costs Per Lead With Their Quiz And Facebook Ads (Higher Education)

The Foundation is a six-month online program that helps entrepreneurs learn how to start a software business without any concepts, coding skills or funding.

To help people discover what kind of entrepreneur they are, The Foundation created the quiz “Do You Have An Entrepreneurial Mind?”

Ultimately, they generated leads and increased revenue by pairing the quiz with Facebook ads.

The quiz, originally based off of an existing eBook, covered the basic types of business owners.

From there, it was transformed into a quiz by setting up the questions to help gather the necessary information required to categorize the audience into entrepreneurs or business owners that fit The Foundation’s criteria.

This gave audiences an idea of what kind of entrepreneur they could be and ended up driving over 16,000 leads and millions in revenue.

Your Takeaway: The Foundation did two things: They not only paired their quiz with distribution via Facebook ads (amplification by Outbrain is another option) but also repurposed existing material that did well with their audience, into a quiz with results of the same caliber.

Now Back To You

That concludes our journey!

Today, we dipped into 5 brands from different industries and saw how each and every one of them used quizzes in their marketing.

• The Elephant Pants used their quiz to help gain momentum during launch while simultaneously growing a future customer base.
• Cloud Sherpas used their quiz as a means of assessing their leads, determining which were the most qualified to move through the funnel.
• Brandeis University had a dual use for their quiz, helping students pick an appropriate career path while driving enrollment.
• Red Cross used their quiz to create several campaigns for raising awareness about various topics.
• Lastly, The Foundation paired their quiz with content distribution to cut their cost per lead from repurposed material.

I hope you are feeling as inspired as I am and that these examples will become a tool for you to implement the next best case study for using quizzes to deliver results.

Thought of a way to implement quizzes in your marketing strategy? I’d love to hear about your examples and results in the comments.