ion's monthly webinar for February 2015: Get the real-world, behind-the-scenes insight you need to produce interactive content - the tools, the milestones, the skills, and the timelines. As a culture, we love to see how things are created, whether that’s a movie or a snack or a song (think VH1’s Behind The Music or Food Network’s Unwrapped). It fascinates us to see what backstage secrets go into the final product. So have you ever wondered what it really takes to bring interactive content to life? We go behind the scenes on two real interactive content launches—a “Static to Interactive” white paper and an “Interactive First” infographic—and give you insight into how you can produce interactive content of your own.

1. Creating Interactive Content
The tools, the milestones, the skills, the timelines.
Behind-the-scenes with our team—see how we create
interactive content for our own marketing.

2. What’s Inside
• Inside peek into two interactive
content experiences:
• From static to interactive: white paper
• Interactive first: 50-item ‘infographic’
• We’ll cover:
• The concept
• The team, roles and skills
• The project plan, timelines and effort

3. Our Typical Process
(tip: In our case, Design & Build are collapsed into one step, because we use our software to create our interactive
content. If you have your interactive content coded by developers, separate this into two distinct steps in your project.)
STEP 1
Brainstorm
STEP 2
Concept Brief
STEP 3
Interactive Wireframe
STEP 4
Design & Build
STEP 5
QA
STEP 6
Launch
STEP 7
Review &
Measurement

4. Brainstorm
Concept Brief
Interactive Wireframe
Design & Build
QA
Launch
Review & Measurement
There are two steps in our process we think are critical to
our success—the concept brief and the interactive
wireframe:

5. ✓ Background
✓ Source content
✓ Traffic
✓ Success measurements
✓ Technical considerations
✓ Samples/examples
✓ Details
✓ Overview
✓ Content outline
✓ Data flow
✓ Marketing insights
✓ Sales insights
✓ Data hand off
✓ Next steps
✓ Additional opportunities
The Concept Brief
The concept brief is an important part of our process. It provides a narrative and
outline of what we will build and ensures we all stay on the same page.

6. The Interactive Wireframe
The interactive wireframe is a working experience without design elements or final content. It
demonstrates functionality & user experience. An interactive wireframe is created before every build.
Once approved, we add final content, design and images. This makes our build step go very quickly.

7. Here’s an example of how we did it…
Transforming a static PDF white paper into an interactive white paper

8. Interactive White Paper Snapshot
OBJECTIVE:
Provide an engaging content experience that encourages un-gated content consumption
and continues to drive leads. Capture visitor behavior to surface warmer lead to sales.
This approach works well for our content. Check out this link to learn more: http://
www.ioninteractive.com/blog/ungated-and-unbridled
AUDIENCE:
Prospects (content marketers, direct marketers, online marketers)
MARKETING PROGRAMS:
Social, email marketing, paid social, paid search, organic site traffic
PLANNED INSIGHTS:
For marketing: aggregate topic interest, bounce rate, conversion rate
For sales: individual visitor topic interest

9. Justin
Executive
Sponsor
Justyn
Web Designer
Katherine
Senior Web
Designer
Paige
Content
Marketer
Rachel
Content
Marketer
The Team
Project Lead Concept, Design & Build Consultation, Proofing/QA

10. Justin • Executive Sponsor
Ensuring the initiative meets our business goals and stays on track
How They Worked Together
Justyn • Web Designer
Brainstorming & planning
Katherine • Sr. Web Designer
Design & build
Paige &
Rachel • Content Marketers
Does the interactive content
structure work?
Proofing and QA

11. The Project Lead
Katherine • Senior Web Designer
✓ Brainstormed with team best ways to
add engagement and interactivity to
the experience.
✓ Created an interactive wireframe based
off the original white paper.
✓ Designed & built the experience in the
ion interactive content platform - using
graphics and content from the original
pdf.

12. Timeline
Brainstorm
Time Spent: 1.5h
Time Elapsed: 1d
Concept Brief
Time Spent: 1h
Time Elapsed: 1d
Interactive
wireframe
Time Spent: 3h
Time Elapsed: 3d
Design/Build
Time Spent: 5h
Time Elapsed: 5d
QA
Time Spent: 2h
Time Elapsed: 7d
Review &
Measurement
Ongoing
Launch
Time Elapsed: 7d
Total: 13 man hours, 7 days elapsed

13. The Original Content
• PDF white paper used to
generate leads.
• Driving traffic from site, paid
search and email. Visitors land
on a single page and complete
the form to download the PDF.
• Strong performance–
meeting goals for leads gen.
Download PDF
Rotator with Sneak
Peak of PDF
Lead-Gen Landing Page

14. The Situation
• The PDF drives high volume of
leads but it is “pass/fail”.
• Are people reading it?
• How can we ensure the content
is helping sales have better
conversations with warmer
leads?
• More on info on “pass/fail” content: http://
www.ioninteractive.com/blog/heres-why-i-am-so-
passionate-about-the-digital-dialogue

15. The Opportunity
• Expose the content to a broader
audience by ‘un-gating’ it.
• Bring the content out of the PDF,
and into an engaging interactive
experience where user behavior
can be measured.
• Offer the PDF version within the
interactive version to drive leads.

16. Interactive White Paper
Responsive
Content

17. Include interactive featuresTabbed Content

18. Add in fun or educational quizzesQuiz

19. Use animations and interactivity to draw attention to the most
important elements
Includes
Animation

20. Un-gate the content, but provide an option to download the
PDF for lead gen
Asset lead-generation lightbox

21. Offer a ‘contact sales’ option to generate hot
inbound leads for your team
Contact Form

22. Tag user behaviors behind the scenes so marketing can evaluate content
consumption and sales can meet the lead at the point of interest

23. How we use it in our marketing: Social, email, organic, paid search

24. Here’s another example of how we did it…
Creating content, “interactive first”

25. Interactive Infographic Snapshot
OBJECTIVE:
‘Show” rather than ‘tell’ the advanced features of our software (demonstrate the feature
within the experience itself, rather than writing copy about the features)
AUDIENCE:
Prospects (content marketers, direct marketers, online marketers)
MARKETING PROGRAMS:
Social, email marketing, paid social, paid search, organic site traffic
PLANNED INSIGHTS:
For marketing: aggregate feature interest, bounce rate, conversion rate, average score
For sales: individual scores, as tallied by number of ‘features’ viewed

26. The Concept
• Create an interactive ‘product’ marketing
brochure showcasing key features of our
product and service.
• A massive “info-graphic”-style interactive
content experience that includes 50 unique
items, grouped by categories of content

27. Justin
Executive
Sponsor
Matthew
Art Director/
Designer
Jay
Product
Specialist
Paige
Content
Marketer
Rachel
Content
Marketer
The Team
Project Lead Concept, Design & Build Copyediting, Proofing/QA

28. Justin • Executive Sponsor
Ensuring the initiative meets our business goals and stays on track
Matthew • Art Director
Conceptualize, Design & Build
Jay • Product Specialist
Brainstorming, Planning
Technical Copywriting
Paige &
Rachel • Content Marketers
Does the interactive content
structure work?
Copywriting & editing
Proofing and QA
How They Worked Together

29. Project Leads
Jay • Project Specialist
✓ Identified the 50 key platform features
✓ Organized features into a workable outline
✓ Wrote copy for technical content
✓ Provided product guidance for advanced features
Matthew • Designer
✓ Using Jay’s outline - conceptualized
the visual flow and layout of the
experience directly within the platform
✓ Created all graphics / animations
✓ Built the experience without code

30. Timeline
Brainstorm
Time Spent: 4h
Time Elapsed: 1d
Data Flow
Design
Time Spent: 1h
Time Elapsed: 1d
Interactive
wireframe
Time Spent: 10h
Time Elapsed: 7d
Design & Build
Time Spent: 23h
Time Elapsed: 23d
QA
Time Spent: 1d
Time Elapsed: 25d
Review &
Measurement
Ongoing
Launch
Time Elapsed: 25d
Total: 46 man hours, 25 days elapsed

31. Responsive

32. Flow & multi-step forms
Multi-Step Rotator Include a Form

33. Include video Include video

34. Show vs. Tell

35. Add wow Video Backgrounds

36. Social sharing

37. Social sign-on

38. Lead-Generation

39. Tag user behaviors behind the scenes so marketing can evaluate
content consumption and sales can meet the lead at the point of interest

40. 1+ 1+
1+
1+ 1+
Score each of the 50 features (increment +1 for every feature visited) behind the
scenes so marketing and sales can gauge level of engagement with content.

41. How we use it in our marketing: Social, email,
organic, paid search

42. Here are some tips & tricks for planning your own
interactive content…

43. • Confined by the content: Creativity
in re-purposing is key
• Content editing
• The content often dictates the
modality & presentation
• Content and presentation are
conceived separately
• Content team can be separate from
design & build team
• No pre-defined guardrails:
Concepting is key
• Content concepting & writing
• The desired interaction dictates the
modality & presentation
• Content and presentation are
conceived together
• Content, design and build teams
work closely together
vs
STATIC FIRST INTERACTIVE FIRST
Considerations

44. • Brochure = Interactive lookbook
• Whitepaper = Interactive white paper,
assessment, interactive infographic
• Pricing sheets = Calculators
• Product sheets = Solution finder
or product configurators
• Factoids = Game or quiz
Ideas For Scaling Static Content Into
Interactive Experiences

45. How to uncover strategic opportunities for
interactive content from content you already have:
• What content do you already have, and
how you can make it more useful
and engaging for your buyer?
• Meet with sales or the field to determine
gaps in your buyer experience—what
information do you have that needs to
be surfaced more effectively?
• Understand the conversations that
sales and/or customer support are
having today—what static documents
are they using in their communication
with customers and prospects?
• Use the ion solution finder to provide
ideas to scale your existing content:
http://apps.ioninteractive.com/site/
solution-finder/interactive-content

46. • What does your buyer need
to help evaluate or make a
purchase decision?
• Meet with sales or the field to
determine gaps in your buyer
experience
• Understand the conversations
that sales and/or customer
support are having today
• Scour the web for inspiration and
ideas (or just call us!)
Considerations for
Interactive-First

47. Want to see these two interactive
experiences in action? Check out:
http://www.ioninteractive.com/examples
We help transform static content into engaging,
educational, useful interactive experiences.
web: www.ioninteractive.com
twitter: @ioninteractive
email: info@ioninteractive.com