The concept of including gamification in sales has become very popular among businesses these days. Gamification includes gaming techniques, such as badges, competitions, leaderboards, etc, which encourage customers to make more purchases in order to win prizes. In short, gamification can be defined as including gaming techniques in non-gaming fields, such as sales and marketing. By implementing it properly, you can boost your sales and make your business more successful in short periods of time. Other sales gamification benefits include increased brand awareness, higher customer engagement, etc. Let us help you understand what are some top gamification strategies and how you can implement them in your business.
Best Gamification Ideas to Boost Sales
Here are some top gamification sales strategy ideas to boost sales and improve customer engagement in your business:
1. ‘Spin To Win’ Contests
The ‘Spin to Win’ contests are among the most simple yet effective gamification strategies to attract more customers and boost sales. In this, customers can spin the wheel containing different reward options and win prizes. This type of contest works for online as well as offline retail businesses. Offline stores can place a physical wheel at their store and allow customers to spin it every time they purchase something from the store.
You can include discount coupon options (like 5% discount, 10% discount, 20% discount, and so on) in your physical wheel and allow customers to spin it before billing. For example, suppose a customer purchases items worth Rs. 2,000 from your store. Before billing, you ask them to spin the wheel and they win a 20% discount coupon. You apply the coupon and your customer gets a 20% discount, which means they can now get the same items at Rs. 1,600.
If you run an online business, you can also include a digital wheel on your website. Online stores can use this wheel in more creative ways. You can either keep it similar to the example mentioned above, i.e. add discount options to the wheel, or run a different contest. You can encourage your customers to log in to your website/app regularly by offering one chance to spin every day. By this, you can boost your website log-ins and also drive more sales. Customers will more likely make a purchase when they get a discount coupon, a BOGO deal, or any such prize by spinning the wheel.
2. Scavenger Hunts
Organizing scavenger hunts is also an interesting and unique way to boost customer engagement and drive sales to your business. This gamification strategy works better for online businesses but can be effective for offline ones as well if implemented correctly. In a scavenger hunt, you ask your customers to find a hidden word or object on your website (or in your offline store) and reward them if they are able to find it. This is a great way to get your customers to explore your website and look into the sections they might not notice otherwise.
To make a scavenger hunt successful, make sure that you keep great prizes that are exciting enough for your customers to participate in the contest. To make your customers aware, you can announce the contest on your social media accounts, send personal SMS/email to all your customers, and add a banner on your website as well. Make sure to define the terms and conditions while launching the contest, such as the number of winners and the process of finalizing winners, etc.
As many participants will be able to find the hidden clues, you might not be able to offer premium prizes to each customer. What you can do is include multiple hidden clues in the contest and the more clues a customer finds, the better the chances of their winning. Even after this, if multiple participants find the clues, you can select the top winners randomly or just offer some basic rewards or coupons to all of them.
3. Top Spender Leaderboards and Prizes
Everyone loves to see their name on top of a list when the list is related to some positive reinforcement. You can run a top spenders contest for a week, a month, or even a longer period. Adding a leaderboard to your website or giving social media shoutouts to the top spenders is a great idea to encourage your customers to spend more. Allow your customers to track real-time top spenders via the leaderboard or just update it on a daily basis. To make the contest more interesting, you can add filters to check top spenders of the day, week, and month, on the leaderboard. Add different rewards for daily, weekly, and monthly winners.
For example, daily spenders get basic rewards or discount coupons, weekly top spenders get a Buy 1 Get 1 deal, and monthly top spenders get the most premium prizes. Keep exciting prizes for monthly top spenders, such as complementary merchandise, up to 70% discount coupons, free movie tickets, complimentary lunch/dinner coupons, etc, for monthly top spenders. If the prizes are exciting enough, your customers will definitely try to become top spenders and as a result, they will spend more on your brand.
4. Tiered Reward Programs
Tier-based programs are one of the most popular ways of including gamification in loyalty programs to retain customers. These do not just boost loyalty but are also very effective in boosting sales for a business. In a tiered rewards program, there are multiple tiers with different types of rewards and benefits. As a customer gets into a higher tier, he/she becomes eligible for more premium rewards. With such a rewards program, customers are encouraged to make more purchases to get promoted to higher tiers and get more rewards.
Let us help you understand this with the help of a simple example. Suppose you run a tier-based rewards program with three tiers. Your customers enter the first tier on making their first purchase and they get a 5% discount on every purchase under this tier. After making 10 purchases, they enter the second tier and get a 10% discount coupon after every purchase in this tier. Finally, they enter the third purchase after making 25 purchases (or achieving a certain spend threshold) and in this tier, they get a 20% discount coupon after every purchase.
5. Referral Contests
Referral contests are one of the greatest ways to boost sales and attract new customers. You can encourage your customers to recommend your brand to their friends and offer them exciting rewards for the same. Acquiring new customers can be very expensive otherwise, but using your existing customers for this purpose makes it much more cost-effective and convenient. Many businesses run such contests under which the customers as well as their friends get rewarded after a successful referral.
You can even divide your referral contest into different stages in order to make sure that your customers’ friends don’t just sign up but also make purchases. For example, offer some basic rewards or a 5% discount coupon to your customers when they refer a friend. Once their friend signs up, your customer as well as their friend gets a 25% discount coupon. By offering this discount coupon, you can ensure that the friend makes a purchase to redeem this coupon. Once they make their first purchase, offer the final reward or discount coupon to both of them.
Include Gamification in Your Sales Promotions with RewardPort
Gamification makes your sales promotion strategies much more interesting for your customers to participate in. It builds healthy competition among your customers and they are encouraged to spend more to win more rewards. To include gamification in sales promotions, you can connect with top reward companies like RewardPort. RewardPort has a team of experienced marketing experts who keep every detail of your business into account and run sales promotions accordingly. By combining sales gamification benefits with the best strategies, you can achieve your business objectives faster.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does gamification increase sales?
Yes, gamification strategies can be very effective in improving sales productivity and boosting customer engagement for a business. Instead of running traditional loyalty programs or sales promotions, you can make your marketing strategies more interesting and effective by including gamification. Gamification in loyalty programs can also be equally effective.
What are some examples of gamification in sales?
Some of the best examples of gamification in sales include referral contests, Spin to Win contests, Scavenger hunts, Leaderboards or top Spender contests, tier-based reward programs, etc.
What are the key elements of a successful gamification strategy in sales?
Some key elements of a successful gamification sales strategy include: reward points, leaderboards, badges, timers, etc. A gamification strategy for sales should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound).
