There are a lot of reasons to run a game-based contests and sweepstakes. But too often we see marketers make a common mistake: running a promotion just to give away a prize.
Game-based promotions are a great opportunity to engage consumers and change behaviour. But you have to approach promotion planning with a list of goals you want to achieve. Otherwise you might not achieve any at all.
Here’s some common goals to get you started.
Grow Your Email List
According to Campaign Monitor, every dollar spent on email marketing generates $38 in ROI. That’s pretty good as far as I’m concerned.
But to maximize your email marketing ROI, you’ll need to have a decent sized email list.
Getting people to join your email list can feel like an uphill battle. Especially with more consumers taking defensive actions to protect their personal information.
The trick to growing your email list is to provide consumers an incentive to join.
Sound simple? It kind of is.
You can do this within your game-based contest or sweepstakes by offering extra game plays or rewards for signing up.
Attract New Loyalty Members and Engage Current Ones
Loyalty members spend 5-20% more than non-members, and they purchase 5-20% more often. So it makes sense that most companies have a customer engagement or loyalty program.
If you’re aiming to grow your loyalty program, integrate registration within your digital promo. Offering extra game plays for joining your loyalty program is an easy way to attract new members.
Just remember that you don’t want to only focus on new members and forget to engage current ones!
It costs 5X more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain a current one. So neglecting current members is definitely something to avoid. You don’t want them to feel like they aren’t getting as good a deal as new members!
Offering loyalty points as prizes is a great way to appeal to current members. It can also grow your program as players will need to join to redeem their prizes.
Increase Your Social Media Presence
74% of consumers rely on social media to make a buying decision. And 71% of consumers are likely to buy an item based on a social media referral. That means your brand needs to have a presence on social media.
Incorporating social sharing into your sweepstakes or contest can help boost your social media presence. Just offer extra game plays or rewards when consumers post about your brand.
Or get them to share content, like pictures, videos and stories on your brand’s pages. Plus you can prompt them to post about the promotion, increasing the number of people who hear about it!
Improve Product Awareness
If people don’t know about your products, they aren’t going to buy them. But reading about products isn’t always the most exciting or engaging activity.
That’s not the case with game-based contests and sweepstakes.
Game-based promos reward consumers for learning more about your products. You can drive them to your product pages or even feature trivia about your products within the game!
Plus you can feature your products as collectible icons or showcase them as large images.
Drive Brand Engagement
Engaged consumers can have a significant impact on your bottom line. According to Gallup, brands that successfully engage consumers achieve a 63% lower customer attrition rate and a 55% higher share of wallet. But engaging consumers can be hard. That’s where game-based contests and sweepstakes come in.
Making your promotion fun increases how long consumers spend engaged with your brand.
Plus game-based promos let consumers choose when to engage with your brand. That means their interaction already starts off on a more positive note. Their downtime isn’t being interrupted with ads and commercials. They’re choosing to interact with you.
Drive In-Store Traffic
While e-commerce is definitely growing, the majority of sales still occur in-store. And that means getting more people into your stores can make a significant impact on your bottom line.
You can use game-based promotions to drive store traffic. Just offer rewards that are only redeemable in-store — like gift cards.
Increase Review Volume on Your Website
Consumer product reviews are hugely influential on purchase decisions. In fact, 67% of consumers say reviews influence what they buy. And, on average, having product reviews on your site results in an 18% increase in sales
That means having product reviews on your website is critical — especially if you have an e-commerce section!
Game-based promos can target review volume growth. Just offer rewards to consumers that write reviews on your site.
Drive Sales
Digital marketing isn’t just about social shares and website traffic. Ultimately, it needs to drive sales.
You can actively drive sales within the promotion by offering rewards for purchasing products. Just integrate PINs or codes on your receipts that are redeemable in-game.
This helps increase purchase frequency by offering consumers rewards for buying products. And it can help promote the promotion by appealing to shoppers who haven’t heard about it yet!
Just remember, if you want to incorporate PINs or codes on your receipts you need to plan your promo well in advance.
The Bottom Line
Certain promotions are better than others at achieving specific results. Knowing what you want to achieve from the get go is critical to achieve the best ROI.
So don’t wait until it’s too late. Start early, and get better results.
