What Are Instant Win Games?
Gamification uses game mechanics to engage consumers, and instant win gamification takes it a step further. By rewarding participants immediately, brands satisfy the human drive for instant gratification while boosting engagement and conversions.
Instant win games can take many forms, from digital scratch-offs and spin-to-win wheels to surprise giveaways and time-based campaigns.
But how do instant win games work and how can they make your marketing strategy successful?
How Do Instant Win Games Work?
Online instant win games reward players with real or digital prizes in real time. They create suspense and excitement while providing measurable engagement data for brands.
Instant Win Campaign Mechanics
Players perform a desired action, like clicking, spinning, or scratching, to instantly reveal if they’ve won.
5 Ways to Use Instant Win Gamification to Amplify Promotions
Here are five ways to take your promotions to the next level using instant win gamification:
1. Combine Suspense with Instant Gratification
You would think these feelings would cancel each other out, but when used correctly (see the prize allocation section below), they can work together. The suspense comes from what kind of prize is won (or if they win a prize at all), and players are not left waiting to see if they’ve won a prize or not.
2. Create a More Robust Engagement Experience
Instant win promotions can create a more engaging experience for potential and current consumers. It doesn’t feel like advertising because the game is interactive, and there’s a chance the player will win something.
3. Provide Branding Opportunities to Eager Audiences
People love to play games.. Using an instant win campaign can strategically elevate your brand with consumers through extrinsic motivation to engage with a value exchange that more intentionally grabs their attention.
4. Make Interacting with Your Brand Fun
As mentioned, consumers are more intelligent and ignore a good percentage of traditional ads.
Tying in instant win gamification can grab consumers attention within a crowded marketplace by making the interaction more fun. People love playing games, and when playing the game provides the opportunity to win a real prize, it makes the engagement even more enticing.
5. Create the Opportunity to Reach More People
Instant wins are the perfect marketing strategy to increase your customer base. Instant win games are very shareable. Consumers can become very excited about an instant win game, especially if they win. Tying in another chance to win by taking the action to share the game is a great way to expand the reach of your promotion.
Instant Win Prizing Best Practices
Follow these three best practices to make the most of your instant win campaign:
Pick Prizes that Matter to Your Audience
You can’t just create an instant win game and hope for the best. The most effective way to make your instant gamification strategy more effective is to distribute instant win prizes with a curated eye.No one will want to play even with the instant factor unless you offer compelling prizes.
Cinemark is a perfect example of choosing the right prizes for a targeted audience. Partnering with CataBoom, the movie theater chain created an instant win/sweepstakes campaign. Players could instantly win Marvel merch or movie tickets while being entered for a chance to win tickets to the grand premiere of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
This successful campaign gave away 12,000 prizes and had 120,000 unique plays.
Remember Your ROI
There are many ways to enhance your instant win campaign to get the most significant ROI. One tactic is deploying smaller instant win games that act as an entry to a larger sweepstakes prize.
This creates instant gratification and the opportunity to build suspense for the bigger prize. Smart CTAs can also build buzz t, like “Over 100 prizes!” or “Only 50 prizes available!”
Use Timing to Your Advantage
Whether seasonal or event-specific, you can build extra excitement for your instant win campaign by timing it with tentpole moments..
For example, during the National Retail Federation's Big Show exploring tech in retail, Intel premiered a gamified blockchain game through CataBoom’s game engine platform. The game included a PepsiCo blockchain object transfer from video to mobile screens. This program was SO successful, Forbes called it one of the top five digital experiences at the event.
2 Types of Instant Win Prize Allocation
Two ways to distribute instant win prizes are time-based and odds-based allocation.
1. Time-Based
A brand can offer time-based prizes to gather consumers at a specific moment of your choosing. For example, you tell your customers that at 2 PM, 100 instant win prizes will be available.
You could also split up the distribution of prizes so the first 20 people get the biggest prize, the next 30 get the second prize, and the final 50 get the third —driving timely competition among your consumers.
If you want to make suspense the focus, include a countdown timer that customers can watch as they tense up, preparing to be one of the first 100 people to click on the prize link.
2. Odds-Based
Odds-based prize distribution includes random wins, so players understand everyone has the same chance. Deployment of odds-based prizes in instant win gamification includes spin-to-win and scratch-off games.
Odds-based instant win prize distribution is based on probability ,offering both suspense and instant gratification. When there are different prizes to win, the player will be excited to know which prize they’ll walk away with—if they win at all..
Benefits of Instant Win Games for Brands
Increases Engagement
Since it’s obvious that people love to win prizes, instant win gamification can create more engagement for your brand and traffic for your site. Allowing multiple entries into your game increases the likelihood that people will keep coming back for more chances to win.
Creates More Loyalty
More engagement creates a more robust brand connection, increasing loyalty. As this connection continues to grow, your customers see you as more than just a preferred brand—they see you as part of their lives.
Increases Brand Awareness and Advocacy
Increasing your brand presence online means constantly getting your name out. Utilizing instant win games to engage your customers keeps your top of mind and can encourage your most loyal customers to share more about your brand.
Creates the Potential for Virality
Who doesn’t want to go viral? Deploying an accessible game that offers instant prizes gives any brand an excellent chance to get millions of eyes on their product.
Who wouldn't want to share an opportunity to win prizes with their friends and family?
Uses a Fixed Budget Productively
When a campaign has a small budget, instant win games are a great resource. The enticing factor is its speed, so a prize as simple as a discount code can take a single campaign far.
How Does Instant Win Gamification Influence Consumers?
Instant win gamification gives consumers a dopamine rush by instantly rewarding them when they perform a brand’s desired behavior. This differs from other gamification strategies that may require a customer to wait before learning the results.
Instant win gamification can influence consumers in very specific ways, increasing clicks, purchases, and engagement.
People Are Loss-Averse
Nobody likes to lose, but waiting around only to find out you lost is even worse. Instant win games create an opportunity to know right away, making it more likely that a consumer is going to play.
CataBoom's instant win campaign for Shoe Carnival is a perfect example. The promotion featured a “Yeti Railroad” for Shoe Carnival’s consumers to “ride”. Returning daily to play, consumers were engaged to instantly win gift cards, discount codes, or a grand prize.
This successful campaign had 250,000 unique plays and drove 120,000 registrations.
Immediacy is Key
There’s no instant win without instant answers. This type of gamification satisfies consumers’ need to know NOW if they won to create an atmosphere of immediacy.
By making consumers feel they might miss out without playing, instant win games can drive them to behave as a brand prefers.
CataBoom used immediacy to Ruby Tuesday’s advantage to help celebrate their 50th Anniversary. Through the use of a slot-machine mechanic, consumers experienced a rush to see where the wheels landed for a chance to win a mix of instant win and sweepstakes prizes. This promotion gained Ruby Tuesday 900,000 impressions throughout the campaign while earning a 50% increase in website returns.
Low Commitment Culture
One of the best aspects of instant win gamification is there’s no extended time commitment for players-no forms to fill out, timeline to keep track of, or email to look for. All they have to do is take one action, and they’re done.
Value Equation
The value equation is how much effort is needed to play a game versus a player’s chance of winning. Instant win gamification solves this issue by requiring minimal effort.
Players don’t need to know trivia or show off their fantastic gameplay skills. They just have to do the one action a brand requires to learn whether they won.
Using CataBoom’s Catapult platform, Southwest Airlines gained 1.07 million unique players in a simple scratch-off instant win game, motivating consumers to play for a chance to win round-trip airfare, companion passes and bonus loyalty points.
CataBoom’s Catapult Platform Includes the Most Powerful and Dynamic Instant Win Prizing Engine on the Market
With CataBoom’s Catapult platform, not only can you create an instant win experience uniquely branded for your campaign, you will have the flexibility to allocate prizes in a way that will be most meaningful to your audience. So, no matter your marketing goals, CataBoom can help you create instant gratification opportunities for your customers more accessible and impactful than ever before.
