Level Up Your Email Campaigns: How Gamification Transforms Email Marketing

Email marketing plays a significant part in content and product promotion. It is not only about sending an email with all the promotions but also creating it this way so that the person who receives it would want to open and read it through. There are many ways to do it: create attractive email design templates with engaging email titles with some mystery or put personalized content for each receiver.

Today, one more option is becoming more popular than ever – email gamification. It is a relatively new concept that means putting interactive elements in the email, thus increasing the reading time, making the user experience better, and, in the end, keeping and attracting new customers faster.

So, what is the concept of gamification, and how to use it? Let’s find out!

Key Principles of Gamification in Email Marketing

When a business uses gamification as its email marketing strategy, it is good to understand some key principles and important elements that need to be included. Here, we will walk you through some of the popular ones.

Interactive content: The main point of gamification is to make the content interactive and engaging. You can include quizzes related to the industry or the product you promote. Another nice thing is the scratch cards that reveal the discounts or the spin-the-wheel games that test the receiver’s luck in getting the discount, thus increasing engagement.

Personalization: A fun email should also be personalized, often promoting special offers to different people based on their previous experience with your company. For instance, offer a personalized quiz that suggests products based on the user’s responses. It is an excellent way to make the experience more engaging and relevant.

Reward system: To do this principle, you can try it this way: implement a points system where customers gather points when they do some kind of action (open emails, click on links, or complete challenges). In the end, the user will gather points that will be switched with the offers based on the number of points they get.

Strategies for Implementing Gamification in Email Campaigns

So, once you know the concepts, how do you implement them the best to not only attract the readers to the product but also keep them engaged in the email game?

Creating Compelling Gamified Email Content

Creating games by email requires a blend of creativity, strategy, and understanding of the audience you want to send those emails to. Here are some tips and best practices you can use.

Start with clear objectives. Define what you want to achieve with your gamified content (better open rates, boosted sales, or increased customer loyalty).

Make it simple and fun. The game should be easy to understand and engage with. It is recommended to make simple puzzles, trivia questions, or guess-the-product games.
Visual art is a must. Do not make the game plain and boring. Use colors and animations to make the game visually attractive so you can try it out.
Make sure it is mobile-friendly. As most emails are opened with mobile devices, it is better to think of making it useful here as well.

Test and optimize the template. Try to regularly test different elements of your gamified emails (subject lines, game types, and rewards) to see what is more interesting for your audience.

Measuring the Success of Gamified Emails

There are a few metrics you should always keep in mind when creating and monitoring the gamified content of your emails. Here are a few important ones.

High open rates suggest effective subject lines, while high CTRs show that the gamified content is good enough to receive action.
Conversion rates- A high conversion rate shows that the gamification strategy effectively creates the needed actions and lets you get conversions.
User engagement– Metrics such as time spent on the email, interaction rates with the game, and completion rates of the game or challenge provide insights into engagement levels and what exactly you need to change in the next campaigns.

Sentiment analysis- You can collect user feedback and, based on it, find out what type of games are the most attractive, what to avoid, and whether your audience is engaged enough.

Final Thoughts

To wrap up, email gamification is a perfect way to attract attention to your products nicely and engagingly. When implementing the game elements, personalizing content, and always monitoring the receiver’s behavior, you will be able to create an experience that will resonate with each of your customers and give them pleasant memories.