A quiz is an amazingly simple tool with a huge amount of uses, a bit like a Swiss army knife. Like the famous gadget, for a quiz to be a success, all the components must be carefully crafted and work in harmony together.
An SMA quiz is comprised of these five elements:
1. Title
2. Subtitle
3. Questions and answers
4. Feedback
5. Call to action
When you work with us, you can be involved as much or as little as you like in creating the content for your quiz.
Whether you’re thinking of writing your own quiz or interested to know more about the process, read on discover just what goes into writing the perfect quiz.
Title
Any piece of online content should begin by telling the reader (and the search engines) exactly what it’s about and what they will get out of investing their time into it.
This information must be relayed quickly and clearly. The title is the perfect opportunity to do this. Think about what problem the quiz will solve and how your audience would talk about that problem in their own words.
Note down a few phrases and questions. Ask yourself;
What does my audience want to know/have?
What value is my quiz going to bring?
What am I promising?
What will my quiz tell my audience?
Your title should grab your audience’s attention. Get them hooked with a challenging question or a shocking fact.
Spark their curiosity by making it so intriguing that they can’t resist taking the quiz.
Subtitle
If your title tells your audience what they’re going to get, the subtitle tells them how they’re going to get it. The subtitle is there to provide more information, so they know what they’re signing up for.
You could include the fact that it’s a quiz, how long it will take and how they’ll receive their results. For example
‘Take our 3 min free assessment quiz to find out your unique communication style with results sent straight to your inbox’
Questions and answers
Asking the right questions reveals your prospect’s pain points and identifies the key areas you can help them improve in. The questions and answer options make up the bulk of your quiz, so it’s important to get
them right.
Follow these steps to ensure you write the most powerful quiz questions possible:
1) Decide the topics you want to base your quiz on, they can be based on your existing methodology. Aim for between three and 10 topics. If the theme of your quiz is wellbeing, your topics might include ‘Diet’, ‘Exercise’, and ‘Hobbies’. If you’re a business coach, topics could include ‘Planning’, ‘Marketing’, and ‘Financials’. Topics
2) Brainstorm a list of questions for each topic. Remember the old saying, less is more? It’s true! The more topics you have, the fewer questions per topic you need
3) Refine the list. Think about the key messages you want your audience to take away, delete any questions that don’t fit.
4) Edit the wording of the questions, keeping them short, sharp and simple. Use emotive words that resonate with your audience. Above all, be clear about what you’re asking
5) Try to keep the whole thing to 20 to 30 questions. A quiz should take less than five minutes to complete. Any longer and your prospects will abandon it Your answer options should cover a full spectrum of emotion from frustration through to fulfilment. For example:
a. I’m really struggling with this
b. I’m often frustrated with this
c. I’m doing OK, but could improve
d. I’m successful with this
Where appropriate, we recommend providing four answer options so that there is no fence for the user to sit on.
Depending on the length and style of quiz questions, the answer format may differ, for example, if you have lots of practical questions, simple yes/no answers will be more suitable. We are always on hand to offer guidance here if you’re unsure.
You can also incorporate dynamic questioning. So, how the user answers one question will determine what set of questions they are shown next. If you’re writing your own quiz, bear this in mind when creating questions
and remember, we’re here to help.
One of the most valuable applications of the quiz is filtering your prospects through segmentation questions. You can find out more about who is taking your quiz target your ideal niche.
When writing segmentation questions, think about what you want to know about your prospects that could be useful in converting them and what would be your first question on a sales call?
You might want to know if the prospect can afford your services, so you could ask what bracket their annual turnover falls into. Perhaps you want to know what experience they have so you can point them to the appropriate offering for their level, so you could ask how long have they’ve been in business for.
Feedback
The answers your audience select are reflected back to them in the form of tailored feedback. This not only creates a personalised experience, but it shows them that you know exactly who they are and the key struggles
they are facing right now.
Most importantly, it successfully positions you as the trusted advisor they need.
Creating the feedback is a big task. Different variations are written first for low, medium or high scorers and then for each topic.
The first set of feedback should provide a brief explanation of what their score means overall. Keep it concise and clear, we suggest using this format:
‘From your self-identified score, it appears you are struggling/doing ok/absolutely killing it with your current situation and could really use some help working out what direction you want to go in/taking it to the next level/establishing a legacy.’
Don’t feel restricted here as we also offer alternatives to percentage scores, such as archetypes. If this sounds like it might be a good option for you, let us know.
The feedback for each topic should explain what that topic means and why it is important. You can also show off your expertise and knowledge by offering a few tips to help them start making improvements in a specific area.
By doing this, you are already bringing them added value and building trust before they’ve even hit the enquiry button.
Here’s an example:
Time Management
Good time management can be tricky to get right. These days we are so busy with our lives and time can sometimes escape us. A few tips to help you improve include…
Call to action
A call to action (CTA) is a prompt to get your audience to do the thing you want them to do. In your SMA Quiz, the CTA appears on the results webpage, in the notification email and on the PDF report your prospect receives after taking your quiz. That’s a lot of screen time!
Your CTA needs to shout loud and clear, not only about what they should do, but why they should do it. It must align with three things:
Your strategy for promoting your quiz
Your offering
and most importantly…
Your audience
Let’s say you’re promoting the quiz to a warm audience of referrals – A great CTA would be a one-to-one call.
But, if you’re promoting your quiz on Facebook, the traffic is colder, they’re just not ready for that kind of
commitment!
Best practice here is to make the CTA something more entry level, such as a group call or an invitation to join a webinar.
A good CTA is one that answers, “What’s next?” and “Why should I?” Answer those questions, and you’ll know you’ve got something compelling and clickable.
You can create different CTAs for different audience segments. That means that how a user answers a particular question or questions can determine which CTA they see. This way you ensure that you are getting the right message to the right person.
Quizzes can be a big win for both you and your audience. However, if you choose the wrong type of question or word it poorly, then the answers you get will be meaningless and the user will be left feeling confused.
To make the most of your quiz, be sure to follow the best practices laid out in this article, and remember, we’ll be there to guide you every step of the way.
