On the American Chemical Society homepage, there’s a heading for a big Virtual Meeting & Expo this week; then there’s a very cool member invitation: “Me Becomes We, Improve the world through the transforming power of chemistry” with a super-diverse, 16-square face box; and also a Personal Stories area with testimonials.   One more element on the page must get a lot of clicks to be so prominent: “Molecule of the Week: You'll get a bang out of making me. What molecule am I?” (There's always a clever question.) I click for the answer. “Azidoazide azide.” When I click on their archive, I see they’ve been doing this feature since 2005! (Bullvalene was the first. Superbowl was the fifth.)   People like quizzes, trivia—virtual nights still attract a big crowd—and puzzles. The Wall Street Journal studied how different reader habits affected subscriber churn. They looked into how various products and subscr ...

The Wall Street Journal studied how different reader habits affected subscriber churn. It looked into how various products and subscriber actions affected customer retention during the first 100 days after a reader had signed up. They found that “playing a puzzle had a more dramatic impact on reader retention than other actions the team had been promoting."   We know that quizzes can be good for lead generation, but interesting that they can boost retention as well.    Research last year from Northwestern’s Medill Local News Initiative looked at audience data from three major metro dailies. Their conclusion was that the frequency with which a reader comes back to a publication’s website “is the single biggest predictor of retaining subscribers—more than the number of stories read or the time spent reading them.”   So with that established, here are a few successful quizzes and one contest:   Remote educ ...

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the successful quizzes that Lessiter Media is doing—an initiative they started well before the pandemic hit. For one, they received a few thousand submissions with almost 2,000 new email addresses; more than 120 new subscribers emerged from the list of quiz takers.   This week I came across a quiz from a publisher in the UK that ties into the pandemic. The Investment Week Virtual Quiz 2020 was designed to help "heroic frontline NHS [National Health Service] staff tackling the coronavirus crisis." Today at 4 pm their time they held the live quiz "hosted by a special industry guest." Participants were sent a link and also could dial in to a video/audio call. They would even show a leaderboard in real-time so the winner can be revealed instantly.   To take part they asked people to choose a donation fee with all proceeds going to CASCAID's NHS fundraising campaign (minimum donation was £15).   Coinciden ...

I received an email from Lessiter Media Chairman Frank Lessiter over the weekend talking about the success they've been having with quizzes in the last few months. So, of course, I had to take it.   Quizzes are one engagement element that can still be effective now—and frankly can bring us a little relief. (I've read that jigsaw puzzles are also reaching new popularity heights.) In fact, this morning, a sports station here presented the most compelling content in weeks by doing quiz questions to callers. And trivia nights have already found a comfort zone online—one friend just gave a thumbs-up testimonial for one and forwarded it to me. They're charging $18.   "Hey, it's Frank!" a pop-up emerges with his photo when I go to Lessiter's no-tillfarmer.com. "Have you taken the 12-question quiz, 'How Much Do You Actually Know About Cover Crops?'" It takes less than 5 minutes to complete and we'll se ...

I just scored 5 out of 10 on Financial Times' FirstFT newsletter's weekly quiz. I did at least get the question on what percentage of fantasy sports players are women—7%, 15% or 29%. (See below or take quiz yourself here.)

The International Security Conference & Exposition, which will take place in November in New York City, is using an interactive quiz to both personalize an attendee's onsite event experience and convince people to attend.

Editor's note: This is the ninth of an ongoing series profiling the 2018 SIPAward winners. See links to the others below.

Business Management Daily published an HR IQ test last week that's worth checking out. It's thoughtful and informative, and they also have some fun with it with questions like: 

Gamification continues to soar in publishing, and for good reason. It's engaging, can convey important information, bring in new email addresses and unleash some fun. Here are some recent uses that I’ve come across: Convey important information. Education Week has a weekly sponsored quiz. The one I just took is sponsored by Discovery Education. They also post the following: “Education Week has full editorial control of content.” 75099 Once you finish, you can see how your score compares to your peers, get the correct answers with detailed explanations, and be provided with additional readings and resources on the topic. Have some fun with the publisher. The Atlantic Life Timeline, sponsored by National Geographic, invites readers to "explore your life in history. Tell us your birthday, and we'll show you how the world has changed during your lifetime." I entered my birthdate and found out that I'm "one of the fi ...

If done well, podcasts, quizzes, contests and live seminars can add levels of engagement to a website. To get a flavor for what SIPA members are doing, I visited some of their websites and took a quiz on Literacy Instruction—don't ask my score—listened to advice on painting indoors this winter—that could come in handy!—and entered a contest for Creative Kids—my friend sent me a video of his daughter painting a superhero mask.