Black Friday: 6 marketing contest ideas to boost your promotions

Black Friday is a day your customers not only anticipate, but often hold off making purchases until, with eyes laser-targeting the best discounts and sales. Held every November on the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States, it’s been one of the biggest trading opportunities on US shores since the 1980s.

Over the last 2 decades, the American tradition has spread worldwide, and kicks off the global maelstrom of commercial activity 🌎 that is the BFCM period – the week between Black Friday and Cyber Monday (Black Friday’s eCommerce cousin).

It’s a period where marketing noise hits eardrum-shattering limits, and calls for real ingenuity in the marketing strategies of any business wanting to maximise their slice of the pie. This makes it the perfect opportunity 💯 to grab customer attention through tailor-made gamification experiences, so here are our top contest ideas to help you capitalise on this period of heightened trade.

1. The curious case of the crazy (but hidden) discount code (Dynamic Path™)

Fancy a mystery to solve 🕵? Obviously you do! Who doesn’t?

Use the Dynamic Path™ to create an investigation by combining a series of experiences like customised Quizzes, games, and pop-up text and video content to reveal your offers, and gradually unveil a larger discount code to reward users who complete the challenge.

Invite your audience to don the deerstalker of Sherlock Holmes, or sit behind Jessica Fletcher’s typewriter with a carefully crafted piece of gamified storytelling. Users will have to find clues 🔎 and solutions as they’re fully immersed in the case.

If your brand doesn’t do detectives: Make it a treasure hunt with pirates and sea monsters, or give it an Indiana Jones-Lara Croft vibe against an archeological backdrop. The format can be adapted to a narrative that will most effectively engage your audience.

2. Black Friday bargain hunt (Memory Game)

Create a digital bargain hunt for your customers this Black Friday with a customised Memory Game. Participants must turn over and match all the cards as fast as they can, while making as few mistakes as possible to maximise their final score.

Each card turned over can highlight a product you’re promoting, and when the cards match, you can include pop-up messaging pertaining to the related product. Reward completions with promotional codes and enter the top 100 players into a prize draw.

3. Spin to win (Spin the Wheel)

Setting up a customised Spin the Wheel game is always an effective and winning formula.

With a simple spin of the wheel, customers can win 🏷️ discounts on their Black Friday purchases 🏷️, creating greater interaction and encouraging higher basket sizes. Appreciated for its simplicity and the excitement it creates, the aim is to highlight the possibility of getting an irresistibly better deal.

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As Black Friday is typically more for stores, and Cyber Monday is more for eCommerce, you could make the codes in-store only if your aim is to drive foot traffic to your physical location.

Pro tip: You can set up a Spin the Wheel for your eCommerce site to encourage users to complete their purchases instead of abandoning their baskets 🛒. The chance to make extra savings is too good an excuse for a customer to not complete their order.

4. The winning recipe (Photo Contest)

Invite food lovers to share pictures their best recipes or their most original 🧑‍🍳 recipes with a Photo Contest.

Amateur chefs and creative foodies will be drawn to show off their creations like Greg Wallace to a buttery biscuit base! Afterall, everyone who puts any time into cooking and coming up with their own recipes feels a certain pride about their culinary prowess..

Reward the most innovative and appetising recipes with special prizes or gift cards.

Pro tip: Double your engagement by connecting your Photo Contest to a Voting Gallery, approve a shortlist of the best entrants, and put it to your audience to choose the ultimate winner!

5. Retro-gaming party (Pacman)

Invite your audience to a classic game of Pacman! As one of the key purchases in the BFCM period tends to be tech products, offering them a branded retro experience is a really on-trend way to capture attention on social media, distribute promo codes and targeted messaging, and entice users to opt into your mailing list.

While there are plenty of savvy shoppers expertly navigating the maze of Black Friday offers, how good are they at gobbling up all the collectibles while evading those pesky ghosts?

Think outside the box: Some customers are uncomfortable with the rampant consumerism that occurs from the end of November right up to Christmas, and respect and patronise businesses trying to be the change they want to see in the world.

The retro concept of a Pacman game can be reframed to highlight sustainability (afterall the original Pac-Man was released in 1980, and it’s still a winner today). You could adapt the campaign to benefit your corporate social responsibility strategy (CSR), and raise awareness of promotions that recycle older tech, like console trade-ins for discounts.

6. Black Friday night lights (American Football Game)

What game campaign has clear eyes, full hearts, and can’t lose when it comes to audience engagement? 🏈

Create an American Football Game tailored to your branding in which players have to score as many field goals as possible by slotting the ball between the posts.

You could reward players with tiered discount codes based on the number of goals players score, or have a leaderboard, and then do a prize draw from the top 100.

Pro tip: Many sports franchises are expanding their traditional lineups to ride on the hype of these big commercial days, and with a growing list of sports games on the Drimify catalogue, it’s all there for sports teams and related companies to inventively compliment the fan experience.

Expert advice

At a time when the digital landscape is saturated with offers, organising compelling marketing contests is an incredibly effective marketing strategy you can use to set yourself apart.

Don’t forget, the aim of gamified promotions is to create a memorable experience that leaves participants eager to come back to you, even after this crazy promotional period has come to an end.

It’s about more than just offering discounts, it’s about telling a story and building relationships, so get ready to make your mark, and make this Black Friday your most successful yet! 🚀

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