ARE YOU A QUIZZARDHOW TO CREATE QUIZZES

THAT DRIVE SOCIAL TRAFFIC AND GENERATE LEADS

BY: CELESTE STEWART

Quizzes for you, by you.

ARE YOU A QWIZARD

Quizzes for you, by you.

2

ChAptER 1 A Quick introduction to Quiz MArketing

if you follow BuzzFeed, visit lifestyle and health sites, or use Facebook, you’ve likely

encountered your fair share of quizzes lately. Quizzes have always been engaging (think

cosmopolitan magazine), and the instant feedback and interactivity of the Web make them

even more so online. While sites such as BuzzFeed, Lifescript, and WebMd have been using

quizzes for a long time, interactive quizzes have become extremely popular lately. Best of all,

publishers, agencies and brands of all sizes can get in on the action with Qzzr.

ExAmplEs Of BIg BRAnDs UsIng QUIZZEsnot familiar with Buzzfeed? According to Buzzfeed.com, Buzzfeed is:“… the social news and entertainment company. BuzzFeed is redefining online advertising with its social, content-driven publishing technology. BuzzFeed provides the most shareable breaking news, original reporting, entertainment, and video across the social web to its global audience of more than 150M.”

indeed, BuzzFeed publishes highly viral content, including quizzes. in fact, when you look at

BuzzFeed’s main navigation bar, you’ll see that BuzzFeed places a high value on quizzes —

placing the Quizzes tab before the Videos tab.

When you complete a quiz on BuzzFeed, you’re

prompted to share your results. this social sharing

encourages others to visit BuzzFeed to take the

quiz, too. this helps BuzzFeed attract new visitors

to its website.

Quizzes for you, by you.

3

BuzzFeed isn’t the online big brand using quizzes. WebMd

uses them, too. While BuzzFeed’s quizzes tend to have a high

entertainment value, WebMd’s quizzes are more educational

with a focus on health and well-being.

Lifescript.com, the number one women’s health website and

one of the fastest-growing healthy living publishers, also uses

online quizzes extensively. As you can see in the screenshot

below, Lifescript includes a link to its quizzes section at the

top of every page.

Why? For starters, online quizzes are a fun way to deliver content and engage users. For

example, who can resist taking a quiz to find out if they’re a coffee connoisseur, Harry Potter

fanatic, hot mama, or even a drama queen?

Alas, it’s not all purely education or for fun and games. Quizzes are also used to generate

qualified leads. For example, WebMD uses a popup box to entice quiz takers to subscribe to

one of its newsletters before completely revealing its quiz results as shown below:

Quizzes for you, by you.

4

Lifescript takes a slightly different approach. For example, when

taking its “Are you a drama queen” quiz, two popups appeared,

requiring the user to either take a marketing survey or share the

page in order to complete the quiz.

not only did these popups prompt the user to share either an

opinion about the brand or a link to the quiz, the quiz squeezed

even more out of the quiz taker before revealing the answer as

you can see in the two screenshots below.

A word of warning: Be careful about requesting too much from your quiz takers. For example, this drama queen did not complete the quiz.

WhAt Is QUIZ mARkEtIng?the examples you saw above are examples of quiz marketing.

You saw how BuzzFeed used a quiz to bring new visitors to its

website; how WebMd used a quiz to build its email marketing

list; and how Lifescript used a quiz to learn the quiz taker’s

feelings about a given product as well as get an email address

and prompt the quiz taker to sign up for a special offer from one

of its sponsors.

Marketplace.org recently wrote about quiz marketing, saying that quizzes are “free data

mining tools for brands.” the author noted that by taking a game of thrones quiz, she had

revealed valuable information about herself such as: her preferred wine (white wine), her last

meal (steak), her biggest fear (failure), and her idea of heaven (a tropical beach).

Quizzes for you, by you.

5

According to eConsultancy.com, marketing quizzes are commonly used for:

• Driving traffic to a website - As we saw with BuzzFeed, engaging quizzes are highly

shareable. this method is ideal for websites that make their money by attracting lots of

visitors such as content sites with advertisements.

• Generating leads - econsultancy’s article on quizzes said that quizzes have an average

opt-in rate of 50 percent, making quizzes an attractive choice for lead generation.

• Increasing sales - remember that game of thrones quiz? What if you ran a travel site

and knew that a visitor dreams of a tropical beach getaway? Would you offer a special deal

on an Alaskan cruise or a trip to the caribbean? Quizzes can be used to offer personalized

product recommendations.

Why are quizzes so good at driving traffic, generating leads, and increasing sales? In

short, quizzes are HOT. People love taking them and sharing their results with others. This

phenomenon is well documented. For example, BuzzSumo analyzed over 100 million social

share counts over an 8-month period to learn what goes viral. Among its findings, 8 of the top

10 most shared articles during that time period were quizzes.

in 2013, guess what the top most-shared article on

nYtimes.com was? that’s right, it was a quiz. the quiz,

How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk, had some stiff

competition. it beat out the Boston Marathon bombing

and Angelina Jolie’s decision to have a preventative

double mastectomy.

WhAt mAkEs A QUIZ sUCCEssfUl?People enjoy taking short quizzes and sharing their

results, giving quizzes an advantage as far as social

sharing goes. However, this isn’t to say all quizzes are

going to spread like wildfire. Josh Little, founder and CEO

of Qzzr, summed it all up in a recent blog post titled

Cooking Up a Viral Quiz. His recipe for success contains

three ingredients (content, context, and channel) and a

pinch of luck.

• Content is basically your concept. ideally, it should

be remarkable and be all about something that

matters to the quiz taker. Your content should also

be relevant to your channel.

• Context is the environment where quiz takers

interact with the content, such as Qzzr.

Quizzes for you, by you.

6

• Channel refers to where you place

your quiz such as on your website,

Facebook, or via email.

Let’s take a look at a quiz that’s been

taken over 100,000 times. Why is it so

successful?

here are a few keys to its success:• it’s on a remarkable and timely,

yet evergreen, topic.

• it features a fantastic photo that

tells you exactly what to expect.

• It satisfies curiosity in a non-threatening manner. For example, if you ace the test, you’re

free to share your results. if you do poorly, no one has to know.

• it’s both fun and educational.

now it’s your turn. here’s a quick quiz for you:1. Quiz marketing is hard.

a. true

b. False

2. Quiz marketing requires a large budget.

a. true

b. False

3. You have to create your own quiz tool to do quiz marketing

a. true

b. False

Answers:All of the above are FALSe! Quiz marketing is readily accessible to publishers, agencies and

brands of all sizes; it is easy when you use a tool such as Qzzr; and free and low-cost Qzzr

accounts are available.

WhAt Is QZZR?QZZR is an online tool for creating engaging, interactive quizzes. Brands like Mashable, ESPN,

Reddit,Yahoo, HubSpot, KISSmetrics, Yelp, and IBM all use QZZR to create quizzes — as do

thousands of digital marketers, publishers, bloggers, big brands and small companies. Qzzr

offers monthly plans at various price points including free plans. Qzzr’s entry-level paid plan

starts at just $19 per month as of this writing.

Quizzes for you, by you.

7

Qzzr is extremely easy to use, and it produces beautiful, highly interactive quizzes. it also

includes lead generation, social sharing, and targeted offering tools.

Here are examples of QZZR results pages for each of the three different marketing purposes:

ready to get started with Qzzr? if you haven’t already, sign up for a free Qzzr account

and then meet us over at chapter 2 for a visual tour, tips for creating engaging quizzes, and

instructions on how to create your first quiz.

Quizzes for you, by you.

8

ChAptER 2 creAting An engAging Quiz

A VIsUAl tOUR Of QZZRnow that you’re signed up for Qzzr, it’s time to get familiar with it. Qzzr is easy to use and

navigate. In fact, many users jump right in and start using it. With that in mind, we’ll keep this

section fairly short.

When you first sign in, you’ll see that the home page is divided up into: • A main content area with recent quizzes

• A left side navigation menu (Home, Trending, Topics, How-to, Go Pro, [Your Username],

Settings, and Log out)

• A top menu bar (Search and create a Quiz)

• A left sidebar (Featured topics and topics)

Quizzes for you, by you.

9

if you want to take a quiz, click on one of the featured topics or explore by topics. Before you

create your own quizzes, it’s smart to take several quizzes to get a feel of types of quizzes

you enjoy and how other users are using QZZR. Taking quizzes is a great way to get inspired

while keeping an eye on what’s trending is a great way to see what types of quizzes are the

most popular. it’s also a good way to see how Qzzr can generate a buzz for your business.

For example, the screenshot below shows the social tools that are immediately presented

when getting ready to take a quiz.

As you can see, quiz takers can immediately share a quiz on various social media sites as well

as add comments via their Facebook accounts.

if you want to create a quiz, simply click the create button in the upper right corner and

follow the prompts (more on that later).

thE IngREDIEnts Of An EngAgIng QUIZEngaging quizzes tend to have a lot in common with each other such as a great headline (How

Broke Are You?), a short format, snarky responses, or outrageous — and highly shareable — results.

Below are a few essential ingredients to include in your quizzes:

• A captivating quiz title in the form of a question — What’s more engaging: “test your

book knowledge” or “How much of a bookworm are you?”

Quizzes for you, by you.

10

• Eye-catching images (royalty free or creative commons licenses, please!) — take a

quick look at the screenshot of the Qzzr homepage once again. See the quizzes with large

color blocks? they’re not nearly as interesting as the quizzes with photos, are they? the

color blocks tell you NOTHING about the quiz. In contrast, we know exactly what to expect

when we see images of colored lips, a football field, or Star Wars characters.

• A personable writing style, perhaps even a slightly snarky tone — You don’t want to

alienate or insult your audience, but you can definitely have a little fun with your quiz’s

wording.

• A positive outcome — People will be more likely to share their results if they make them

look good. if you’re going to say, “You’re a rat,” make sure to give that result a positive spin.

For example, would you share a result that says you’re a rat because you’re so dirty and

sneaky? now let’s turn that around to highlight the positive: “You’re a rat. rats are creative,

intelligent, honest, and generous. they have excellent memories and make laughter sounds

when playing.” Wouldn’t you be more likely to share the positive outcome?

• A short format — Most BuzzFeed quizzes have about 10 questions and can quickly be

completed. this format works as online users have short attention spans. the quiz should

not be too difficult or intrusive, either. For example, remember the Drama Queen quiz with

its survey questions toward the end? nothing wrong with adding a marketing element such

as a survey question. However, there were 10 quiz questions and 4 marketing elements:

two survey questions, an email opt-in, and a special offer. that could be considered too

much.

• A purpose — You absolutely need to know what you want the quiz to accomplish ideally

before you start building it. do you want to attract lots of visitors to your site, generate

leads, or deliver targeted offers to quiz takers? Figure that out first and it will be much

easier to build a quiz that can deliver the desired results.

Copyblogger makes two greats point in its the marketer’s guide to Using Quizzes to Reach and Engage Your Audience, both of which involve your audience:

1. know Your Audience. Copyblogger suggests creating a quiz for a specific group of people but writing for just one person. “This will help you develop a friendly tone and comfortable writing style. Also, if you can’t think of one person who would like your quiz, you may want to rethink the idea.”

2. Have a conversation. “the questions of a quiz are where you get the chance to create a conversation with quiz takers and build rapport. this is where quizzes really start to show their magic. unlike many other forms of content, quizzes are a one-to-one medium where you can speak directly to each person who takes your quiz.”

Quizzes for you, by you.

11

creating a compelling quiz takes a great deal of forethought. Spend some time thinking

about who your audience is. As a marketer, you’ve likely already researched your target

market. You should have an idea about:

• Who they are

• What problems they have

• What they worry about

• What they dream about

• What products they use

if you have already developed marketing personas for your target audience, by all means, write

your quiz for one of your marketing personas. For example, let’s say that one of your personas

is Paralegal Penelope, a paralegal who aspires to become a lawyer while juggling both work

and family. Knowing what you know about Paralegal Penelope, you might develop a “Which

Justice League character are You?” quiz. Because you’re appealing to a female demographic

here, you’ll want to choose female characters such as Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, or Zatanna.

Since she’s juggling work and family, include work and family quiz questions. Likewise, align

your persona’s positive attributes with the quiz results. Working with the market research

you’ve already compiled on your persona can help to make your quiz more relevant to your

target audience.

thE pOWER Of pICtUREsPeople love pictures. We enjoy the imagery as well as the fact that a picture really can convey

“a thousand words.” Moreover, people tend to respond to faces. Smartinsights reported on

a study of 32 BuzzFeed quizzes. those with thumbnail images of a face received almost 50

percent more views than those that didn’t.

if you have any doubt about the power of pictures, consider these websites: instagram,

Pinterest, Flickr, and Tumblr. Visual content is extremely popular. If you want your quiz to

take off, you’ll want to harness the power of pictures. After all, which of the following two

quizzes first captures your attention?

Quizzes for you, by you.

12

As powerful as photos are, they come with a catch. You can’t simply copy and paste images

as you find them. Copyright infringement is a real concern and “fair use” is an extremely

complicated topic. to avoid potential problems, only use images to which you have obtained

the rights to use. Below are a few sources for finding images.

Sources for Free Royalty-free Photos:• Flickr Creative Commons - https://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ — Make sure to

pay attention to the Creative Commons license type and follow it specifically. If your quiz

is commercial in nature, you’ll also need to make sure that the license allows commercial

usage.

• Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page — this is another

source of photos offered under creative commons licensing. Again, pay attention to the

license type and its requirements.

• Morguefile - http://www.morguefile.com/archive — Both free and paid images are

available here.

Sources for Paid Royalty-free Photos:• ImageSource - http://www.imagesource.com/

• Shutterstock - http://www.shutterstock.com/

• Fotolia - http://us.fotolia.com/

• Getty Images - http://www.gettyimages.com/

LEt’S MAkE A QuIZ!Finally, let’s make a quiz. For this example, we’ll make a quiz for new Qzzr users with a goal

of getting more likes on Facebook at the end of the quiz. Notice how we defined our audience

and goal? You need to do that as well! okay, let’s go through the technical steps of using

Qzzr to create a quiz.

Start by clicking the create Quiz button and then choose

a quiz type. For our purposes, we’ll choose a graded quiz.

Next, enter your title and then click the Define Results

link to predefine your results.

Quizzes for you, by you.

13

notice the options for answers? Select the most

appropriate option and enter your answers.

After adding your questions and answers, click

Appearance and upload a background photo for your

quiz. (note: you can, and more-often-than-not should,

add photos for your questions and answer options as

well. Simply click the image icon when adding your

questions and answers.) While you’re at it, add a

custom share image.

After choosing your image, click on Settings and

explore the various options.

By predefining your results, you are creating a roadmap for your quiz.

now start creating questions. You’ll need to click the + button found in the bottom right

corner of the screen.

Quizzes for you, by you.

14

Finally, preview your quiz and take it yourself a few

times.

this will give you the opportunity to spot and

correct errors. once you’re happy with your quiz,

click Publish! It’s that easy.

Quizzes for you, by you.

15

ChAptER 3

diStriButing, AnALYzing, And teSting Your Qzzr Quiz

Now that you’ve created your first quiz, it’s time to sit back and relax — not so fast! Sure, you

could do that, but your quiz might not be as successful as you’d like. to get the most traction

possible, you’ll need to distribute, analyze, and test your Qzzr quiz.

DIstRIBUtIng YOUR QZZR QUIZ First, you have to release your quiz out in the wild. Sure, if you leave it as-is on Qzzr, you’ll

get some nibbles thanks to our active community of QZZR users. However, you’ll want your

targeted prospects and existing customers to take your quiz, right? this means getting your

quiz in front of them by whatever means possible. Below are a few ways to do that:

• Email - Send your quiz to your list. this is as

easy as sending an email with a link to your quiz.

• Your website - embed your quiz on your

website. Qzzr generates an embed code. All

you have to do is copy and paste. it’s a lot like

embedding a Youtube video.

• Your blog - Announce your quiz on your

blog and either link to it or embed it. Qzzr

generates a WordPress shortcode for use with

the Qzzr plugin, making sharing your quizzes

on WordPress a snap.

• Your social media sites - distribute your

quiz on Facebook, twitter, Linkedin, reddit,

Pinterest, Google+, or Tumblr. Again, QZZR

makes it super easy. Simply click the desired

social network and follow the prompts.

AnAlYZIng YOUR QZZR QUIZQzzr includes some powerful stats that help

you to see just how well your quiz is performing.

Sign into Qzzr, click on your user name in the

lower left section of the page, and then click on

your quiz. Since our example quiz was just made, its stats are empty. However, you can see

the type of information will be gathered about your quiz over time.

Quizzes for you, by you.

16

As more people take your quiz, the more meaningful the stats will become. For example, if

the quiz has been taken hundreds of times, but only a handful of people have completed it,

something is wrong. Perhaps the quiz is simply too long, or maybe it’s because the quiz is

not engaging. Another important stat might be your lead conversion rate, if you’ve added a

lead capture form to your quiz.

lEARnIng WhAt WORks BEstWatch the stats across all of your quizzes to see which quizzes get the most engagement

and conversions. When you see a quiz really take off, find out why. What’s different about

that quiz than the others? is it the topic? the graphics? the format? the audience? the

better you are at figuring out what works, the better able you will to replicate your success

with future quizzes.

Quizzes for you, by you.

17

Quiz marketing is becoming increasingly popular with marketers and quiz takers alike. it’s a

fun way to engage with your audience as well as achieve your marketing goals. And now, for

your final quiz question of this ebook…

hOW WIll YOU UsE QZZR fOR YOUR BUsInEss?

a. to generate leads

b. to drive traffic

c. to make targeted offers

d. to create engaging, shareable content

e. All of the above

ABOUt QZZRMade up of a team of Qwizards, craftsmen, rock stars, rocket surgeons, and knights in shining

armor, Qzzr is making the internet awesome with one great piece of content at a time.

Learn more about Qzzr by contacting:

PHONE: 1-844-Qzzr-noW

eMAiL: sales@qzzr.com

Quizzes for you, by you.

18

REsOURCEsExAMPLE QuIZ LInk (WHAt tYPE oF QZZR uSER ARE You?):https://www.qzzr.com/quiz/what-type-of-qzzr-user-are-you/fi9xdWl6emVzLzI1OTQz

REfEREnCEsBuzzFeed, (2014). About BuzzFeed. [online] Available at: http://www.buzzfeed.com/about

[Accessed 13 Nov. 2014].

econsultancy, (2014). the complete guide to using quizzes in your marketing strategy. [online] Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/65334-the-complete-guide-to-

using-quizzes-in-your-marketing-strategy [Accessed 13 Nov. 2014].

Flickr.com, (2014). Flickr: creative commons. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/

creativecommons/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2014].

Haynam, J. (2014). the Marketer’s guide to using Quizzes to reach and engage Your Audience - copyblogger. [online] Copyblogger. Available at: http://www.copyblogger.com/quiz-

guide/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2014].

Haynam, J. (2014). People click on quizzes with smiling women, here’s why. « Interact. [online] Tryinteract.com. Available at: https://www.tryinteract.com/blog/people-click-

on-quizzes-with-smiling-women-heres-why/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2014].

Heehaw Multimedia - gordon McLachlan, L. (2014). Amazing facts about rats | onekind. [online] Onekind.org. Available at: http://www.onekind.org/be_inspired/animals_a_z/

rat/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2014].

Lifescript.com, (2014). About Lifescript | Mission Statement. [online] Available at: http://

www.lifescript.com/aboutlifescript.aspx [Accessed 13 Nov. 2014].

Marketplace.org, (2014). [online] Available at: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/

quizzes-are-free-data-mining-tools-brands [Accessed 13 Nov. 2014].

Mashable, (2014). Q: Why Are Quizzes Suddenly So Popular? A: Narcissism. [online] Available

at: http://mashable.com/2014/03/04/quizzes-getting-lucrative/ [Accessed 13 Nov.

2014].

nytimes.com, (2014). Facial recognition - Brain - Faces, Faces everywhere - new York times. [online] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/13/health/psychology/13face.

html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& [Accessed 13 Nov. 2014].

Quizzes for you, by you.

19

Smartinsights.com, (2014). the complete guide to marketing using online quizzes - Smart insights digital Marketing Advice. [online] Available at: http://www.smartinsights.com/

content-management/content-marketing-tools/marketing-online-quizzes/ [Accessed 13

Nov. 2014].

Stim, r. (2013). What is Fair use?. [online] Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center. Available

at: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-fair-use/ [Accessed 13 Nov.

2014].

tryinteract.com, (2014). interact case Study: gamifying content for Skilledup generates 1612 new leads « Interact. [online] Available at: https://www.tryinteract.com/blog/interactive-

content-of-the-week-test-your-excel-skills/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2014].

Mobilemarketer.com, (2014). Sideshow�s quiz campaign delivers 46pc of responses on mobile - Mobile Marketer - content. [online] Available at: http://www.mobilemarketer.

com/cms/news/content/18981.html [Accessed 21 Nov. 2014].

nytco.com, (2014). the new York times’s Most Visited content of 2013 | the new York times company. [online] Available at: http://www.nytco.com/the-new-york-timess-most-

visited-content-of-2013/?smid=tw-share [Accessed 21 Nov. 2014].

okdork.com, (2014). Why content goes Viral: What Analyzing 100 Million Articles taught us. | okdork.com. [online] Available at: http://okdork.com/2014/04/21/why-content-goes-

viral-what-analyzing-100-millions-articles-taught-us/ [Accessed 21 Nov. 2014].