Create Engaging Digital Marketing Documents with Interactive PDFs.

PDFs have evolved. They’ve come a long way from simple static documents for sharing documents between different applications and operating systems, as they were designed to do in the early ‘90s. Nowadays, PDFs can be used to create dynamic, interactive, and engaging documents.

Person holding a tablet flat in the palm of one hand. The other hand is hovering over a hologram effect above the screen of the tablet with icons depicting ideas, commerce, email, listening, security, searching for information, etc.

Make your digital marketing work for you, and your customers, with PDFs that are attractive, and engaging, and help get the job done.

What you’ll learn.

What an interactive PDF is
Uses for interactive PDFs in digital marketing
Benefits of using interactive PDFs for marketing
Interactive PDF features and tips
Ways to create an interactive PDF

What is an interactive PDF?

The acronym PDF stands for Portable Document Format — the file type originally developed by Adobe to help people worldwide share documents quickly and easily between devices.

An interactive PDF is a file format used to combine both static and interactive content. This makes content more appealing to readers. Interactive features can also be used for practical and functional purposes and help customers get back to you.

Make your digital marketing stand out with interactive PDFs.

Make your digital marketing mighty! Anything you might consider for paper marketing materials; you can create into an interactive PDF and digital marketing content. For example-

Catalogues
Presentations
Slide shows
Brochures
Annual reports
Portfolios
Conference booklets
Membership brochures
Newsletters
Magazines

Benefits of using interactive PDFs for marketing.

There are many ways to market a business, product, or service. Adding interactive PDFs to your marketing resources can be of benefit for —

Photograph depicting customer lifecycle management. A spiral design on a black background has the words attract, engage, convert, retain, loyalty, advocacy. Small chess pieces are shown outside and inside the spiral in various positions.

Engaging customers — Successful marketing is often about having a point of difference. With interactive PDFs, you can create unique content to involve your customers in your brand.
Collecting information — Interactive PDFs are a secure alternative to fillable forms. They provide an easy way to create and manage digital data collection, especially for large-scale distribution.
Accessibility — PDF files can be read and accessed anywhere by anyone with an electronic device and distributed widely at a low cost to your business or organization. They can also be viewed online or offline.
Portability — Compressible and easy to email, upload to your website, or download from your website, interactive PDFs will also nicely onto a USB stick if you’re into creating branded giveaways for your customers.
Security — Sensitive data and content in interactive PDFs can be encrypted and password protected to prevent authorized access and changes.

Interactive PDF features and tips.

As the name suggests, interactive PDFs are all about encouraging users to interact with your content in a similar way they would with other types of marketing materials. Interactive features also businesses and organizations to interact with clients and customers economically and efficiently and get information back from them.

The interactive PDF features you choose are what will help make your marketing materials pop. Get creative and think outside the square. Features you can use with interactive PDFs, and some suggestions for their use in marketing resources, include –

A series of four vector images showing different presentation and colour layouts in marketing and presentation materials.

Clickable links and buttons — Take people to your website, your email, another page in the document, or a payment gateway.
Fillable forms — Use fillable forms to capture customer orders, contact information, or booking requests. Or give your readers and users something fun to do, like a short quiz.
Embedded videos — Show people what you do, or what they will experience with your product or service.
Audio — Add sound effects or music to set the mood and tone.
Images and GIFs — Get your readers' attention with static or animated images or GIFs. Add alt text to all images. Alt text not only gives a description that is read out loud for people with visual impairments but it is also picked up by internet search engines.
Bookmarks — Help your users get around your document with ease. Bookmarks appear on the left-hand side of your PDF, like a menu, to get to specific content quickly.
Page transitions — Set up your PDF with decorative page transitions, for example, a page flip such as they would experience when turning the page in a physical book, brochure, or magazine.
SEO optimization — Be sure to update your document properties to include keyword descriptions for search engine optimization. Also, use file names and titles that incorporate your keywords and content.

Ways to create an interactive PDF.

There are a few ways to get started on creating an interactive marketing PDF —

Convert your current documents — It’s easy to convert documents and content from digital marketing materials created in other applications into a PDF format online. For example, drag and drop from Word to PDF, PowerPoint to PDF — and vice versa, if you wish.
Prepare a PDF — Use the features in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Acrobat Pro to create and edit PDF forms and fields, add clickable links, and more.
Design your interactive PDF like a pro — Use Adobe’s InDesign, available as a single product, or as part of Adobe Creative Cloud to create stunning interactive documents that are engaging, easy to navigate, and fun to read. The built-in tools will intuitively and effectively help add interactivity to your content. Then just put it into PDF format from within the app, and you’re good to go.

Add power to your PDFs with interactivity.

PDFs are easy to share, easy to access, and easy to search. When you combine PDFs with interactive functionality, you can take your digital marketing assets to a whole new level. Interactive PDFs are of benefit to both you and your customers in terms of getting your message across and encouraging clients to interact with you. Get into interactivity and get creating!

Frequently asked questions.

Can anybody view an interactive PDF?

We recommend letting your users and customers know that your PDF is interactive, and best viewed and accessed in the free Adobe PDF reader or Adobe Acrobat. There are a lot of PDF applications available, with various capabilities. Always be sure to use applications from trusted sources, especially if your PDFs contain or collect private and sensitive information.

Are interactive PDFs captured by internet search engines?

Get your interactive PDFs captured and indexed by internet search engines to help your marketing strategy. Add meta descriptions in your PDFs and use search-friendly titles and file tames. Add alt text or alt tags to images and visual content. Complete the document properties fields, and make sure your company name is in the “Author” field.

Are there potential security risks associated with interactive PDFs?

As with any type of digital communication, there are electronic security risks with PDFs. To prevent authorized tampering of content, always password-protect the content and features you don’t want anyone else to edit, or potentially insert malicious content. If you are collecting sensitive and private customer information, always follow relevant privacy laws and use encryption. Follow the best practices you would use with other types of electronic documents and your security systems.

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