Spin the wheel games for email capture and lead generation

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For a lot of businesses to really move the needle in their day to day, it all comes down to email capture and lead generation.

Online retailer? That email marketing list is one of the richest and most reliable ways to generate business and promote loyalty, so getting all the email opt-ins to your marketing newsletter can pay huge dividends down the road.

Any kind of B2B organisation? A big chunk of your sales go through email outreach, so you better be building that list of leads and enriching your prospect data as you go.

We could go on, but you get the idea. Email has overtaken phone calls and business luncheons as the medium through which deals and decisions are made, so quality and quantity both count.

The modern challenge of email capture and data collection

Here’s the thing about emails though… people have become quite protective of them.

If you as a business want my email, I know you’re probably going to use it to try and sell me something, or persuade me of something, and the fact of the matter is, people don’t like being sold to.

There’s an implication of being duped, which nobody wants to invite, and there’s the very practical problem of finding an inbox backed up with special offers, miracle cures, and “exclusive, once in a lifetime” opportunities. People don’t have the energy and don’t want to create unnecessary admin for themselves.

So the bar is now a lot higher than it was in the early days of email and the internet.

But just because you can’t jump over the bar, doesn’t mean you can’t use a ladder.

Bait and hook: Improving email capture and opt-in rates

Let’s switch metaphors for a second and talk about baiting people to share their email addresses with us through discounts and prizes.

Ultimately, it all comes down to getting people’s permission, so you need to make it attractive to people to share their email address with you, and this is where well designed gamification in the form of spin the wheel games can come to the rescue.

How spin the wheel games work

A digital spin the wheel game comprises a disc divided into segments. Plates spin the wheel and whatever segment lands on the pointer is the player’s result.

It’s a simple and enduring design, with the earliest spinning games of chance dating back to the 1700s. Through the format’s frequent use in game shows and quick adoption into B2C marketing, it’s a widely recognised format that is universally understood.

Now, you can make digital spin the wheel games easily with gamification platforms like Drimify. These are accessible through their own URL, so can be played on any web enabled device, be it mobile, a tablet, or even a computer, with the dynamic design responding to the different screen sizes.

They can have as many prizes loaded onto them as you need, be customised to your branding, and you have extensive copy and content options in and around the game to tell your branded story.

Changing the game for email capture and data collection

A key feature of these modern digital spin the wheel games is that they come with customisable data collection forms. In addition to the usual name, email, and date of birth, you also have an opt-in checkbox for the all important marketing newsletters, and you have various other tickbox, dropdown, and open field options to enrich your CRM data.

Now, rather than just asking potential customers to sign up or give their details to potentially be part of your email list, it’s part of a game – it’s a quid pro quo. It’s free to play the spin the wheel game, but they are submitting data and their email for their chance at a prize.

On Drimify, you can make the data collection form mandatory, so to participate, target customers, clients, or partners will have to fill in your data collection form (although it should be noted that opting into a newsletter can never be compulsory).

Take an ecommerce website for an easy example. Visitors could trigger a popup of a spin the wheel game with the title, “Spin to win 15% off your order.” The game could be set to 100% winner, and promotional discount codes could be distributed to every player, but of course, to get to the spin, they have to fill in their email address and details.

Factor in that people love opportunities to win discounts, and they’re that more likely to opt-in to the marketing email newsletter, particularly if the field is labelled: “Opt in to our newsletter for more discounts and chances to win.”

To make this use case even more optimised, consider having the data collection form after the win, and have it titled: “Fill in your details to claim your prize.” With the guaranteed win in the bag, they’re no more likely to complete the form, and more positively disposed to opt in. (They have just won a prize, afterall.)

Keys to success: Optimised data collection form and start screen

Of course, the big hook here is the prize they might win with a spin – that goes without saying, but how you optimise your data collection form and the target customer’s first impression of the game will have a huge impact on lead generation and email capture.

Data collection form guidance

You really need to ask target customers for just what’s necessary. You don’t need to know what their first pet was called, their mother’s maiden name, or what city they were born in – you’re not running through security questions for someone to regain access to their bank account.

Ask yourself:

• What’s useful for your CRM?
• What’s pertinent to your campaign?

Like with any piece of content too much is too much. To go back to the 15 per cent off on an ecommerce site’s campaign, if someone’s having to scroll and fill in crazy amounts of superfluous information, that 15 per cent discount might cease to be worth the effort.

It’s also very campaign dependent on whether or not you will want your data collection form before or after the experience. Most of the time, it’s better before they spin the wheel, but some information may only be necessary IF the participant wins a prize.

Something like an experience-based prize where a preference might be useful, or a postal address which is only needed if something needs to be sent to the winner – these can be included on a second data collection form after the experience that is only seen by the winners of the associated prize(s).

Making a perfect first impression with your start screen

You don’t get mulligans when it comes to first impressions, and now that social media has decimated the average attention span and people are seemingly busier than ever and chasing faster feedback cycles, your spin the wheel start screen has to hit hard and hit fast to get any engagement.

Much like with your data collection, less is more. A large scroll depth on your start screen could lose people’s attention fast, so really trim it down to what’s essential.

When it comes to deciding what precisely is essential on your spin the wheel’s start screen, remember that nobody’s handing out prizes to be subtle. Your spin the wheel competition is an online contest, not a work of great literature and art. If you have a big prize on offer, make sure you don’t bury the lead. Make it unmissable, and try to create a sense of FOMO to minimise people abandoning the experience and making an exit.

A good principle is to frontload the user benefit of playing. “Spin for a chance at X, Y, or Z!” You can get into the branded story and your end in the middle and end of your experience through intermediate screen content.

Test your own custom spin to win game today

Creating spin the wheel games is easier than ever before, and available to businesses of all sizes through gamification platforms like Drimify.

Give the prize wheel template a try, turn your email capture and lead generation campaigns into games, and test your creations with all your various integrations as part of a free trial.

Want to know more?