Today, readers want magazines that allow them fun and engaging interaction. That’s where interactive magazines come in.
They bring engagement and aesthetics beyond readers’ typical expectations. For example, interactive magazines feature audio, video, and even links for readers to purchase featured products with a simple touch.
This blog will explore interactive magazines, the tools used to create them, and other entertaining types of interactive content.
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Interactive magazines are digital publications that rely upon readers’ interaction. These digital interactions include links, CTA buttons, videos, pop-up frames, and other types of rich media. The reader can click or swipe to perform different functions.
This interactive travel magazine makes a stunning first impression with its picturesque cover.
Travel with Noe welcomes its readers with a pointed, “Hello, Dear Travelers.”
The content uses stunning photography, animations, and embedded video to highlight the incredible landscapes they encourage readers to visit.
Travel with Noe is a unique interactive magazine for “lone travelers” that provides information on and insight into the world’s most amazing places to explore.
While the cover image for I Am Chef might resemble a fashion magazine photo shoot, there’s more here than meets the eye. This elegant food magazine hits all the right notes for its readers.
The prominent call to action, “Open Magazine,” makes navigation a breeze.
Once opened, an embedded YouTube video welcomes the reader and showcases the chef’s skills for the reader. As you flip through, you’ll see product photography of mouth-watering cuisines. The magazine also narrates the chef’s personal and professional journey.
This magazine grabs the readers’ attention through interactive features such as videos, pop-up images of the chef’s favorite dishes, and hyperlinks to his must-have tools.
Publuu is a top-notch interactive magazine creator that’s easy to use and learn. It offers intuitive navigation and a highly detailed page-turn effect with sounds, shadows, and reflections.
This tool offers customization options on photos and videos and works well on all desktop and mobile devices. Moreover, you can customize the magazine’s colors and layouts and choose a design from hundreds of visually appealing templates.
All magazines made with Publuu are in vector format. That means readers can zoom in and out while reading the magazine without worrying about pixelation.
Publuu also allows you to embed your digital magazine on your website and share it via email or social media, which is a great way to boost engagement.
If you need added privacy, Publuu can protect your content with a password and only allow those with permission to access it.
Publuu also offers analytics that lets you view your readers’ time spent on your magazine, on which pages, and how they interact with them.
Foleon offers a user-friendly platform to create online interactive magazines that work on all devices seamlessly.
It has a shorter learning curve, which means you can quickly adapt to how it works in no time.
This dynamic tool offers an intuitive drag-and-drop editor with hundreds of design templates, allowing you to customize your designs with just a few clicks.
Foleon gives life to your magazine with its enriched animation and captivating background videos. In addition to design templates, it also offers a wide range of animation and transitions for you to embed on your website or use as a full-screen background.
You can also design a logo with fonts and colors that resonate with your brand and incorporate your CTA.
Furthermore, you can optimize your interactive magazine to rank on Google and other search engines. You can also integrate Foleon with other tools like Zapier, Zoho CRM, Google Analytics, and more to improve your workflow.
Like Publuu and Foleon, you don’t have to be an expert designer to create and publish interactive magazines on Flipsnack. All you need to do is upload a PDF, select a template from its vast library, customize it, and post it. Of course, you can design one from scratch if you want.
On Flipsnack, you can add images, videos, GIFs, captions, and more to make your magazine more engaging and interactive.
Flipsnack has many features that can take your business branding to the next level.
Quickly and easily brand your magazine according to your brand’s needs. Flipsnack’s simple steps allow you to customize your brand colors, favicon, logo, and more.
With its website integration feature, you can embed your interactive magazine on your website. And with Flipsnack’s privacy and sharing settings, you control how and where your magazine is shared.
Finally, it can also integrate its analytics feature with Google Analytics, allowing you to track readers’ time spent on your magazine.
There are three formats most often used to create interactive magazines.
The PDF format is excellent from a design perspective but lacks user adaptability and optimization. But by using digital publishing tools, you can add interactive elements to your PDF magazine.
The .folio format is more dynamic and adaptable than PDF and allows for optimization according to the device users choose. For example, it offers users a better viewing experience since it adapts to the device’s screen size.
Finally, HPub uses HTML5 to give you flexibility in implementing interactive elements. HPub acts more like a website than the other formats, so you can let your creativity flow when designing your magazine.
Regardless of which format you choose for your magazine, you must keep user experience a priority and make sure to optimize for different devices whenever possible.
Video wins every time.
Video is one essential element of interactive magazines. Interactive magazines let your readers play and watch embedded videos. There’s no comparison between watching a video and simply describing what’s happening in a video.
Whether you’re an expert chef, artisan, or fitness enthusiast, videos are an opportunity to engage with your audience. Don’t miss it.
Navigation is the key to engaging your audience. Intuitive navigation design is a must. It allows readers to navigate your magazine with ease.
Your interactive magazine should incorporate different navigation options according to the reader’s device. For computer devices, that includes a navigation bar. For mobile devices, you’ll need to ensure that commands like pinch and zoom or swipe and tap work flawlessly.
Additionally, pay attention to mobile popups. Ensure they are designed to be unobtrusive and easy to close on smaller screens. Mobile popups should be optimized for quick loading times and should not cover too much of the screen, which can frustrate users. Properly designed mobile popups can enhance user engagement without disrupting the overall user experience.
In addition to embedding videos in your interactive magazine, you should consider including audio. You can add a QR code for audio in the magazine, allowing users to scan and listen.
With traditional magazines, readers can only read the transcript of an interview. With interactive magazines, readers can listen to the conversation between the interviewer and interviewees, giving readers a better overall user experience.
An interactive magazine might not have the versatility of an ebook but is a great platform to cross-sell products and services. Readers willing to download your interactive magazine might also want a downloadable ebook. You can leverage this opportunity by getting an app to publish your digital magazine in ebook format.
Quizzes are among the most popular forms of interactive content. They’re fun, enjoyable, and highly shareable.
They’re not always just for entertainment. Quizzes can also educate the audience.
For example, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles created a fun quiz for dog lovers in their audience to learn more about their Therapy Dog Program.
Polls and surveys are popular methods to get instant feedback from your audience. You can use a website survey tool or social media platform to access customers’ insights, preferences, and opinions.
Here’s how Dunkin’ used social media to gain customer feedback and insights. First, they took the opportunity of a National Coffee Day to survey their customers’ preferences.
Calculators can also be a great way to boost engagement from your audience and generate leads. They also help potential customers decide whether your product or service is a good investment.
Wordable does a fantastic job of offering value to users by providing an ROI calculator on their website for free. They create a win-win situation where clients can calculate their monthly and annual savings in dollars and hours using their product.
Infographics convey complex information with visually appealing images. However, with so many brands leveraging infographics, it can be challenging to set yourself apart.
The University of Washington created and shared the Lunar cycle and sleep patterns with interactive infographics. It shows two options in the Community Type: “Rural” and “Urban.” Each of them offers information on different lunar cycles and sleep patterns. Users can also learn about the average bedtime and sleep duration by hovering over the Radial cycle.
Interactive videos are a new form of interactive content recently gaining popularity. It’s worth mentioning interactive video ads drive 47% more view time than standard videos.
During an interactive video, moments of choice for the viewer will intermittently interrupt the progress of the video. The viewer’s choice will determine how the rest of the story progresses.
One example of an interactive video is Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. Throughout the movie, the remote icon in the lower left of the screen indicates a choice is coming up, and you need to get ready to decide.
As a viewer, you’re the one in control of the protagonist’s actions. It’s up to you to decide which breakfast cereal the protagonist will eat for breakfast – “Sugar Puffs” or “Frosties.”
Maintaining constant engagement with static content, such as an ebook, can be difficult. However, transforming an ebook into something interactive is easier than you might think.
With the tools we mentioned above, you can embed videos, audio, animations, graphics, and more into your ebook.
Prophix, for example, created this interactive ebook to inform its audience about the impact of AI in the finance industry. Their interactive ebook allows you to navigate through different sections by clicking arrows and following the directions of the virtual assistant. You gain insights from finance gurus as you listen to audio clips.
Landing pages capture traffic from marketing campaigns and convert that traffic into customers. A successful landing page should meet readers’ expectations after they clicked on an ad. It should engage them and answer their questions well enough that they perform the call to action on the page.
An excellent example of a successful landing page is RingCentral’s hybrid work solution page. It’s interactive as it includes videos, a chatbot for users’ questions, and offers an easy call to action – “Sign up – it’s free!”
In a vast sea of online magazines, attracting your target audience’s attention and delivering an exceptional reading experience by incorporating interactivity is more important than ever.
Interactive magazines offer a win-win situation for you and your readers.
With clickable images, audio, and videos, readers can effortlessly interact with the content they love. As a result, you’ll boost sales, increase ROI, and create a loyal following.