Gamification in email marketing: CTR boost for your outbox

Gamification: making email marketing fun

“Gamification” doesn’t automatically mean “gaming” – you don’t have to develop games for your marketing to make it fun. Gamification actually entails giving your messages a playful tone to motivate customers to carry out certain actions. It’s about cleverly tapping into people’s deep-seated enjoyment of playing so that you can achieve serious goals. Over recent years and decades, marketers have gained plenty of experience in appealing to customers’ reward mentality, giving you countless best practices to draw inspiration from. Gamification can be a real game changer for your email marketing, especially for all-important KPIs such as your click-through rate.

Experts rave about the possibilities offered by gamification, since it allows you to carve out USPs and boost interaction with your campaigns – even during peak marketing periods like the Christmas season. This theory is also supported by André Görmer, Chairman of the “E-Mail” focus group at the German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW) and Senior Director (Solutions CE, Services & Deliverability) at Mapp Digital Germany GmbH:

“Gamification can generate impressive results in email marketing. One favorite is the use of seasonal campaigns with interactive Advent calendars that offer small rewards or discounts each day, leading to a significant increase in open rates during the holidays. Another effective approach is incorporating quizzes that let subscribers test their knowledge and receive exclusive offers in return. Forms that are designed as decision trees can boost interaction and engagement by giving users personalized recommendations. One practical tip is to integrate wheels of fortune that subscribers can spin in emails to win instant prizes, thus greatly improving the click-through rate. For best results, the design should be appealing, with clear rules and attractive rewards.”

What is gamification in practice? 5 tips and examples for your email marketing

What actually works? Most marketers answer this question through years of work and multiple A/B tests. But to spare you the expense and effort, we’ve prepared a cheat sheet for you based on the experiences of other marketers, companies, and agencies. In the following, we present five popular gamification elements that have proven effective in practice.

#1: Forms

Interactive forms may not sound like a lot of fun, but they actually allow your email recipients to respond directly to your surveys or send feedback. By integrating a progress bar or offering rewards for filling them out, you’ll encourage almost everyone to take part.

#2: Image galleries

If you want to present new products or launch a photo competition on a specific topic, then incorporating interactive image collections into your emails is an effective strategy. By also announcing hidden rewards, your subscribers will be even more inclined to click through your portfolio.

#3: Quizzes

Interactive quizzes challenge your subscribers and immerse them in your content – while making it fun. Points, ranking lists, and rewards are also great motivators in this context. You can use quizzes to gather data about your customers’ preferences and more.

#4: True or false?

If you want to tell your email recipients more about certain features of your products or services, “True or false” games promise amazing results. This format uses short statements to encourage your readers to test their knowledge. Points or rewards can provide an added incentive here.

#5: Wheels of fortune

Not only do wheels of fortune attract long lines at carnivals or company parties, they also give your email marketing a boost. You can incorporate this gamification element into your newsletter, where subscribers can spin the wheel virtually and unlock instant prizes or discounts – a sure-fire way to keep your audience entertained and engaged. Digital scratch-off cards work according to the same principle.

Have the advantages of gamification been researched on a psychological level? You bet!

There is a psychological reason for the success of gamification, explains Lars Leiwesmeier, Deputy Chairman of the BVDW’s “E-Mail” focus group and Head of E-Mail Marketing at AZ Direct GmbH: “It’s really basic. The brain’s reward system strongly influences our behavior. It’s responsible for rewarding certain types of behavior with positive feelings like joy or happiness. As a result, we like to do things that promise quick gratification. Games support this mechanism really well because we are rewarded with a positive feeling when we’re successful. Gamification motivates us to carry out certain actions influenced by advertisers.”

Leiwesmeier uses an example to demonstrate how this reward system works in practice: “The pizza delivery chain Papa John’s ran a really successful email campaign in England when it invited subscribers to take part in the ‘Score Twice Half Price’ betting game on Premier League match days. The reward system worked as follows: participants could get 50% off their pizza order if a team they selected in the email then went on to score at least two goals on that game day. By implementing the betting game, the company was able to generate significantly more orders compared to a discount campaign without a betting game – proving how gamification can act as a conversion amplifier.”

First impressions count: What should gamification look like in email marketing?

As is often the case, presentation also plays a key role when gamifying email marketing. If you’re planning to incorporate gamification elements, make sure you stick to the following four principles:

• Use an appealing design.
• Define clear rules that are easy to understand.
• Choose suitable difficulty levels to avoid frustration.
• Offer attractive rewards.

And now it’s your turn to take your email marketing to the next level using gamification. Hopefully our tips will make it child’s play for you. Attractive rewards await you in return: a higher click-through rate, a wider reach, and more interaction from your subscribers. So, have we unlocked your playful side?