Time to Gamify your Marketing Strategy with Digital Coupons

Inflation is rising, gasoline prices are rising, and the costs of vehicles are rising–but one more thing that is at an all-time high (also distressing) is high customer expectations for great shopping experiences. 74% of customers are more likely to buy from a brand based on customer experience.

Many studies emphasize that you need to keep customers first at all touchpoints to cut through the cluttered business landscape along with your unsurpassed marketing and advertising endeavors. Digitally, one such effective way is with the help of coupons. Digital coupon marketing has become quintessential and helps marketers offer a positive CX.

Retailers want customers to come back time and again and increase loyalty. This requires providing a unique, personalized experience and a frictionless customer journey. Gamification in digital coupons helps them to offer a new experience every time customers purchase and improves the overall rewarding system. In fact, research shows that gaming elements can help build a positive attitude toward a product or brand.

With gamification, retailers can deliver a highly-branded and personalized experience to their target market, connecting and engaging with them, getting valuable data, and rewarding them for opting for their products and services. And when consumers enjoy the experience, they recommend it to others, increasing brand awareness.

M&M launched a gamified campaign during the release of new pretzel-flavored chocolate. Like Candy Crush, users had to find a hidden pretzel among M&Ms on their device screen. This campaign helped the company boost its digital presence and increase sales. This shows gamification is not complex, and even a simple ‘Fine the object’ game can entice customers and give you fantastic output.

If you want to start implementing gaming elements, here are some ways to take your digital coupons to the next level.

Scratch and Win
Scratch cards can add a zing to your promotional campaigns by allowing customers to win exciting prizes. Scratch and Win coupons have gained a lot of limelight, especially since online payment merchants like Google Pay and Amazon Pay offer scratch coupons to encourage more users to use their apps. It’s simple–once you scratch on your smartphone or desktop, you receive a unique coupon code that you can redeem on your current or next purchase.

Retailers use this gaming element to reduce cart abandonment and give something, so customers make that purchase. It is also a good way to attract new customers by giving them prizes and retaining existing customers by rewarding them with special discounts. Additionally, when new customers sign up for a scratch-and-win contest, brands can collect customer data and build their email database.

Spin the Wheel
Spin the wheel is helpful when brands have multiple products or want to promote a new product or segment. It helps you increase brand awareness better than your competitors because you always win in this game! By spinning the wheel, customers will land on the prizes determined by the brand and get free goodies or exceptional discount offers. This is a great way to give customers a guaranteed win and increase brand interest, attracting new customers.

Brands can even offer personalized offers considering customer shopping experience and buying habits. Our platform can help you build customized wheels and integrate them with your app or website to provide a unique experience. You can even send automated personalized winning emails to users and make them feel valued.

Slot Machine
A slot machine game can keep your users engaged for a long time as customers will keep trying to get three same pictures in a row. Retailers integrate the slot machine on their websites, and it will pop up to entice new and existing customers. They can give coupons to winners that can be redeemed on any of the customer’s preferred channels.

Brands can give away unlimited prizes, set the odds, and define rewards by studying their behavior on the website or the shopping history of existing customers. CRED, a leading fintech company in India, typically rewards its customers with slot machine games. For any payment that you make, you can get a chance to get a reward by playing the slot machine game.

Memory Game
All the above games mentioned are based on your luck, but memory games rely on your skills. Typically, 8-10 cards are displayed on the screen, and you have to memorize the back side of the card to match them in pairs. The challenge here is you get limited chances to get the cards in pairs, making it more intriguing and exciting. Memory games work very well when you have multiple product categories under one segment; for example, the fashion segment consists of several products like clothing, footwear, accessories, etc.

Many people find memory games interesting as it helps them to sharpen their skills and focus. They spend more time playing the game on the website or app, allowing marketers to study customer behavior. It helps brands to increase their conversion rate as users will play it carefully to ensure a guaranteed win.

Match and Win
This is similar to the memory game–you have to match 2 items/cards to win the game, but you don’t know what’s beneath the card and have to memorize it as you keep opening the cards to get a perfect match. This is an entertaining and interactive game to play and build a deeper connection with your customers. You can integrate this with your loyalty program and let members play the game to increase their rewards. It helps to increase customer engagement and, eventually, conversions.

Do it the Right Way Whatever the kind of game you choose, OptCulture platform helps you with the correct integration and gamification strategies to help you grow. Moreover, the sky’s the limit in creating gamification content–get creative with what you wish to offer, and our platform will help you implement them. It’s simple, quick, and impactful!