So you know what interactive tools you can leverage to drive user engagement. Now, let's talk about specific strategies that brands use to come up with successful ideas for calculators and quizzes.

Sales & marketing funnels usually look something like this. And if you were a company that built roofs, you can create quizzes/calculators that map to each stage.

At this stage, you want to simply engage with your customer in the context of the product or service you are selling. So you may start with “Which color will look good on your roof?” You can also create some very interesting experiences around ideas like:

1. Are you a ___ expert?
​2. Are you a true ___?
​3. Which ___ are you?
​4. Are you a ___ or a ___? 

Here, you can touch your product or service more directly with the focus on real education. So your roofing company could have a “How much does it cost to rebuild your roof?” You can also diagnose needs, recommend products, showcase risks with ideas like:

1. Which is the right ___ for you?
​2. Am I spending too much on ___?
​3. How much should ___ cost?
​4. What is the risk of not doing ___ ?

When the prospect is about to make a purchase decision, your calculator or quiz can directly address their decision-making. So when a customer is about to rebuild a roof, his decision will rest on cost, so you can build “How much can you save by using us to build your roof?” Other examples include:

1. Should I switch to ___?
​2. How does ___ compare with ___?
​3. What is the ROI on ___ ?

Once the prospect becomes a customer, your job isn’t over. You must keep them engaged throughout in order to not only retain them but also keep them engaged. Keep them hooked with ideas like -

1. Are you a making the most of ___?
​2. What should I do next with ___?
​3. How well do you know ___ product?
​4. When is the right time to upgrade my ___?

At the end of the day, you’re creating the calculator/quiz for your customers (existing and prospects). So when thinking of an idea it’s best to take a cue from them.

Sit down with customer-facing teams like customer service and sales and get them to list down the most common questions and concerns prospects and customers have.

For instance, a university can get a lot of calculator/quiz ideas from the admission counselors; they are the ones who speak to students and know their real issues.

Feel free to go beyond your product and service and think at a broader level about what your customers are interested in. If you are selling an email marketing tool, you can very well engage your audience with a facebook marketing quiz as well. It's the same audience!

What are the topics that your customers tend to disagree on the most? Creating experiences around raging debates (think Clinton vs Hillary, Blue dress vs Golden Dress) have a much higher chance of going viral.

There are many tools out there that can help you figure out what is the talk of the town. Such cues can be incredibly helpful when it comes to curating viral content. Here a few tools you can use for this research:

This will give you an insight into what’s trending in a particular geographical area, category or time period. Simply go to Google Trends and set the geographic location and the category of your choice. You’ll get a list content pieces that are trending. You can also use Google Trends to compare the performance of two topics or how a topic has been trending over time. As you can see below, now would be a great time to have a calculator about President Trump.

If you have been running google ads, you already live on this tool. But it is also useful to understand what calculator titles & keywords can get most organic traffic. As you can see, there are real searches for home loan calculator and mortgage calculator every day.

Buzzsumo is a content analysis and discovery app which helps you find the most shared content and topics. With the tool, you can also find how a topic is performing, the numbers of shares and back links it has, the influencers who’ve shared it etc.