14 Cyber Monday marketing contest ideas to supercharge your BFCM campaigns
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You could be forgiven for wondering where on Earth Cyber Monday came from. It’s not a classically themed holiday with its own assortment of characters and tropes like Valentine’s Day 💗 or Halloween 👻, but for online retailers and consumers alike, whether for selling in volume or making the most of big discounts, it’s a huge deal. It was reported as the biggest online spending day in the US in 2014, a feat it’s often repeated, including last year.
Unlike those previously mentioned classic occasions, Cyber Monday has no root in religion or folklore – it started as a PR stunt in 2005 as eComm’s answer to bricks-and-mortar stores’ Black Friday sales, and somewhere along the way, the two occasions bookended to create the Black Friday-Cyber Monday period of trading (BFCM), an Americanism that’s been gradually exported and adopted worldwide with impressive global results.
So, on the Monday after Thanksgiving, when every eCommerce business and omnichannel retail operation is giving it big guns to try and carve out the biggest slice of the pie 🥧 for themselves, how can you supercharge your marketing and connect with your audience? The answer lies in gamification: the universal appeal of good old fashioned play, combined with the sophistication and adaptability of widespread mobile technologies.
Here are our top contest ideas you can use to engage your audience and wrest their attention onto your offerings this Cyber Monday.
1. Deal detectives: BFCM edition (Dynamic Path™)
Users must solve mysteries 🕵️♂️ to unlock different levels of mini-games, Quizzes, and contests for a chance to win prizes, and to receive promotional codes. The keys to solving the mysteries which reveal pass codes that unlock the different levels of play? Hidden across your various strategic eCommerce site pages!
Everyone loves to play the sleuth, and fancies themselves up to going full Sherlock to save the day, so play on that and make your audience the veritable Jessica Fletcher, Hercule Poirot, or C. Auguste Dupin of your storyline, and set them to task! And as they engage with your content, and are exposed to your targeted Cyber Monday deals, you raise awareness of the offers you have on hand.
Let’s get phygital: While Black Friday and Cyber Monday may have started out as opposites, they’ve really become the beginning and end of their own concentrated spell of commerce.
Your version of Deal Detectives could easily incorporate both your eCommerce sites and your in store operations, whether you’re looking to drive footfall to stores, or promote your omnichannel capabilities. The game could start in stores on Black Friday, accessible by QR codes on posters and shelves, and after gamifying the physical space of your store, could continue on to Cyber Monday to gamify navigation of your strategic pages.
2. Welcome to the future: Cyber scratch and save (Scratch Card)
Tech up your Scratch Card game with a Welcome to the future: Cyber scratch and save instant win experience. Players scratch away at the black and white static of an old school TV screen billowing with black and white static, only to reveal the new state of the art home cinema system they’ve just won!
Of course, only one lucky participant will see the grand prize on the other side of the static, but you can reward all participants by revealing a promotional code or a special offer.
▼ Try the demo ▼
3. Cyber solvers word finder (Crossword and Word Search Game)
The crossword puzzle has been something of an international pastime since the early 1900s, so customise one to engage your audience through Cyber Monday.
Create clues that pertain to your products on offer and brand trivia, and reward completions with promotional codes.
Include videos on intermediate screens to further educate your target segments on your brand.
4. Cyber Monday free throw frenzy (Basketball Game – Free Throw)
Invite your target audience to hold their nerve and hit nothing but net with a Basketball – Free Throw Game in the run up to Cyber Monday. An engaging mini game that’s as appealing to sports fans as it is to more casual enthusiasts.
This sort of marketing game is best customised by eCommerce brands selling sporting goods, or even for network, app, or subscription providers selling specific sports coverage.
See also: In addition to the Free Throw Game, the Drimify platform has Football, American Football, and Rugby, and other sports set to be added in the near future.
5. Blocks bargain blitzer: tech edition (Blocks Puzzle)
As well as eCommerce, Cyber Monday tends to be the go-to for brands making reductions on tech products.
Create a space-age, high-tech motif and invite users to get the highest score possible in your customised Blocks Puzzle. Upload different images of the top tech offers or products (or logos of the brands) and follow up the end of the experience with promotional content.
Engaging and addictive, this game and approach ties in thematically for any eCommerce brand selling state of the art tech products.
6. Cyber memory match: discover the discounts (Memory Cards Game)
Use it or lose it! That’s what they say about your short term memory, and whether it’s frustrating or fun (or a bit of both), people can’t help but test their mental plasticity at any opportunity.
As users uncover the cards to view them 1 at a time, they have to remember where they’re placed on the board to match the items as quickly and as accurately as possible to climb the leaderboard.
With every turn of the card, they engage with another offer or product you’re promoting, and with every match, they’re presented with a screen that says what it is, and what the deal is. At the end of the experience, they’ll remember the discounts that spoke to them as consumers.
7. The ideal deal finder (Product Recommendation Quiz)
Take the pressure off of your target users by embedding an ideal deal finder on your homepage! There’s so much to see, and so much noise from all the different brands, you can help your customers time travel to find the bargain they didn’t know they were looking for.
Visitors answer a series of questions about their preferences, and are ultimately presented with their ideal deal, and the link that takes them to the product page to make a purchase.
Pro tip: This approach works best when targeting specific ranges, so it might make sense to use multiple Product Recommendation Quizzes throughout your website on different category pages.
8. The Candledance film festival: best mini masterpiece category (Video Contest)
Your users are invited to channel their inner auteur 🎥 and summon up all their creativity to shoot and edit a mini masterpiece on their smartphone! They have a single minute to tell a story in the visual medium and captivate the public to win a brand new action camera.
A versatile format regardless of what you sell: Much like games, films are universal. The Rocky Balboas and Invincibles cover sport, you’ve got monsters and goblins with your King Kongs and your Lords of the Rings, and you’ve got romance, history, musicals, etc. etc. and on and on.
Whether you’re selling hockey sticks, kitchenware, skin care, or fine wine, you’ll have people in your audience keen to roll up their sleeves and make a mini masterpiece for the craic, and the rest will happily watch people’s best efforts in a connected Voting Gallery.
9. The MAFTAs: the Mini Academy of Film and Television Arts (Voting contest)
The engagement rate was so nice, you had to do it twice!
As alluded to, you can connect your Candledance film festival to a Voting Gallery, determine a shortlist of the best entries, use them as user generated content (UGC) on your social media to promote the game, and have the public vote for the winners.
The beauty of this is that as well as generating high quality UGC to keep your socials interesting and active at a busy time social media-wise, you can also engage both the doers and the viewers, exposing them to branded content promoting your offers, and doubling your chances to get marketing email opt-ins.
10. Cyber slot machine: a steal or a deal (Slot Machine)
Universally understood and enjoyed for its simplicity and potential stakes, a slot machine invites users to virtually pull a lever or push a button with their cursor to line up 3 matching icons for a shot at a prize.
By offering a grand prize, such as the latest hot piece of tech, or whatever your current hero product is, users are drawn in to play for a chance at a steal, but at the very least, they all walk away with a deal in the form of distributed promotional codes.
The chance at a high ticket item draws them in, the experience keeps them engaged with your brand for longer, and with time-bound discount codes, they’re far more likely to purchase from your online store.
11. Cyber Monday mastermind: retro tech edition (Quiz)
People shopping for deals on the latest tech products are a pretty savvy bunch, but what would they do if you asked them about 8-track tapes? Floppy disks 💾? Dialup internet?
Engage your techhead target customers with blasts from the technological past to test their general knowledge.
Pro tip: If your brand is focused on more sustainable practices, the retro-tech angle not only makes for good trivia, but helps to refocus customers on your core values at a time of year that’s heavily commercialised.
12. Deal of the day digital calendar (Digital Calendar)
Running from Black Friday right the way through to Cyber Monday, invite your customers to play a different contest each day, whether that’s using a combination of the ideas suggested in the list, or your own original creations.
Make the most of the highly concentrated BFCM trading period for eCommerce by encouraging your audience to come back day after day for chances at prizes, each time engaging them in your branded promotions and spreading awareness of your special offers.
13. Bargain Quest (Spin the Wheel)
Use the backdrop of space to deliver astronomical discounts and hurl prizes from the sky like meteors…
Well – maybe not astronomical, and maybe not hurling them, but certainly distributing promo codes and gifts through a space-themed instant win game is on point for Cyber Monday.
If the goods seem like they’re alien technology put in the hands of mankind ahead of time, lean into it. Turn a customised Spin the Wheel game into a flying saucer, give it a space video backdrop, and you’ve got a high concept, visually engaging marketing tool on your hands.
14. Space Viking Smash-o-rama (Whack a Mole)
Invite your audience to don the horned helmet and wield the mighty hammer of the Space Viking! They smash aliens, rack up points, climb your leaderboard, and hope their number comes up in a prize draw for your best performers!
So it’s Whack a Mole, but it’s aboard a spaceship, and instead of moles, they’re pulverising space monsters, alien warlords, and other miscellaneous scum and villainy from across the galaxy.
Don’t forget, enable the leaderboard: Because what’s the point of atomising aliens if you’re not striving to be the best? It also triggers people’s competitive natures and encourages repeat plays and repeat exposure to your branded environment.
Expert advice
Cyber Monday and the weeks leading up to it are statistically where you’re likely going to be able to make a huge impact on your yearly sales, so an organised and innovative approach is essential. With eCommerce, particularly with gifts and recreational items, you’re competing with more than just your direct competitors – you’re competing for people’s disposable income.
The latest tablet at a great price is wonderful, but it’s also potentially carrying the same cash value as 4 date nights, or 3 days out for the family. Last year’s top of the line GPS watch with 40% off is objectively a great deal, but for the same money, someone could buy themselves a new games console, or a designer outfit.
The point is, people’s hobbies and how they spend their free time is mercurial, and this carries over to how they spend their disposable income, particularly in the period between black friday and Cyber Monday. Adapting the contest suggestions listed here can serve as starting points to making your on BFCM campaigns more impactful and more effective on your bottom line.
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