Optimising customer relations requires careful attention at every stage of the sales funnel. From discovery to conversion, not forgetting retention, brands need to multiply the points of contact with consumers and provide them with an impeccable service.

Gamification is an excellent way for brands to strengthen their relationship with their audience. By offering interactive, playable activities, they can give their customers a voice, promote their opinions and reward their interactions with personalized prizes.

In this article we invite you to discover 10 ideas for marketing games to improve customer relations. At each stage of your customer journey, you’ll find examples of effective animations that will increase buyers’ interest and boost their attachment to your brand.

SUMMARY

• 1. Discover the brand universe through immersive marketing games
• 2. Enhance the shopping experience with marketing games
• 3. Onboarding new customers with a marketing game
• 4. Collect preferences and feedback to improve customer relations
• 5. Reward the loyalty of your best customers with a gamified program

The customer relationship begins even before a person has made their first purchase from a brand. This is known as the discovery phase, during which the challenge for companies is to strengthen their branding. Consumers want to know more about the brand, its offering and the values it stands for.

At this stage of the customer journey, the company can allow prospects to discover its world by offering immersive marketing games. Trivia, for example, will enable consumers to find out more about the company’s history or become familiar with its product.

But other techniques can be used to make this discovery phase more interactive. The Puzzle or Word Scramble can be used to get participants to guess the company’s differentiating features, such as its commitment to solidarity or the innovative features offered by its products.

To encourage consumers to take an interest in the brand and its catalogue, the company can offer participants rewards. Vouchers or gifts will have the main advantage of encouraging prospects to extend their relationship with the brand and move up the sales funnel.

Marketing competitions can also consolidate customer relations at the time of the first purchase. At this stage of the customer journey, the key is to be able to recommend a selection of personalised products, thereby enhancing the shopping experience.

Brands can, for example, offer a personality test at the start of the purchasing process on their e-commerce site (or via an interactive game terminal in shop). By answering a series of questions, consumers can tell the company what their main interests or needs are. The company can then use this data to suggest items that match their expectations (or even offer them a discount voucher on a personalised selection of products).

Other interactive activities, all geared towards customer knowledge and collection of product preferences, can also be used at this stage in the relationship between buyer and brand. The Gift finder is particularly interesting during peak marketing periods for gift buying (Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas, etc.).

The Customizer is also an excellent marketing game idea to make the shopping experience more personalised. Shoppers can personalise their product (by changing the color, for example) and walk away with a unique item.

The onboarding phase is also crucial to improve customer relations. This is particularly the case for companies offering a service (or a digital product such as software, for example).

Retail chains are also sensitive to the issue of onboarding, as their customers are encouraged to create a personal account (via a dedicated application) to manage their purchases and loyalty program. The same goes for the banking sector, which offers a similar customer experience.

A marketing game such as Treasure Hunt can be proposed to simplify the creation of a customer account. The company can also improve the demonstration of its product or service to give users all the keys to the best way of using it.

But whatever the sector of activity, onboarding can also take place when people sign up to a brand newsletter. To reward new subscribers, and encourage them to become active customers, the company can incorporate an instant win into its e-mail address collection form. By launching a Wheel of Fortune or playing the Pinata game, new subscribers can win a promotional code, valid only on their first purchase (and for a limited time, which will boost the conversion rate of this marketing game).

Good customer relations also mean knowing your audience. Companies need to collect data on their audiences so that they can personalise their experience with the brand and offer them content that is better adapted to their expectations and needs.

Interactive mechanisms such as Polls, Quizzes and even Battles are highly effective for collecting feedback on the shopping experience itself or on the products marketed by brands. The latter can then use this to personalise future campaigns (emailing, for example).

But it can also use this feedback to make the e-commerce and in-store customer journey smoother. For example, an interactive survey shared on-site or by email once the order has been validated can identify any areas of friction that need to be improved (checkout taking too long, lack of information on delivery arrangements, etc.).

Generally speaking, consumers will be sensitive to the attention the brand pays to them and its desire to boost their satisfaction. But it may also be a good idea to reward this sharing of feedback by offering rewards (extra loyalty points, discounts) to customers who play along.

The main way for companies to prolong their customer relationship as long as possible (and thus boost the lifetime value of each buyer – or BLV) is to reward loyalty. To do this, they can create a gamified VIP program, offering marketing games exclusively reserved for their best customers. Each interactive activity (such as an instant win or a puzzle game like Memory) will earn new points and unique rewards.

Companies can also gamify their affiliation program to turn their customers into brand ambassadors. By creating a competition between each of them, the brand can encourage them to talk about its products or services around them in order to convert new customers. The best ambassadors will be able to unlock exclusives prizes or benefits (such as invitations to brand events, visits to the company’s premises, etc.).

Conclusion

Playable Marketing is an excellent way of improving customer relations. By offering animations at every stage of your sales funnel, you can create a unique bond with your audience, get to know them better and offer them a unique and personalised shopping experience. Multiply the points of contact with your customers thanks to our interactive marketing games !