How Instant Wins Elevate Loyalty Program Engagement

A loyalty program is key in acquiring and retaining customer relationships for your brand.

But since consumers have countless options to consider, brands should consider offering loyalty amplifiers to retain customers and achieve loyalty goals like increased member acquisition, increased sales and brand advocacy.

Loyalty amplifiers are incentivized engagements that create excitement and anticipation around your loyalty program and excite your members. Elevating your loyalty program with incentives assists your brand in heightening its customer engagement levels.

An instant win loyalty amplifier tied to your loyalty program can help you drive repeat engagement by giving your customers a chance at immediate gratification.

Here’s how instant wins can help elevate engagement among your loyalty program members.

What Are Instant Win Loyalty Amplifiers?

Instant win loyalty amplifiers include turnkey games such as spin-to-win, scratch-to-reveal, animated reveals and video-based engagements that benefit your brand from an engagement and loyalty perspective. 

A chance of a “winning moment” that accompanies an instant win loyalty amplifier can entice consumers to join your loyalty program or reward existing members. When your loyalty program members participate in an instant win game it also allows you to collect valuable customer insights that can be used for future communications.

How Instant Wins Increase Engagement in Your Loyalty Program

Specifically, an instant win is a game of chance where your loyalty program members find out if they’ve won or lost instantly. That immediate thrill creates an immediate emotional connection with your brand that goes a long way toward customer retention.

And having an instant gratification component within an instant win loyalty amplifier will drive more engagement than a grand prize sweepstakes because having multiple chances at winning smaller prizes seems more attainable to more consumers. 

Consider that many loyalty program members believe it takes too long to earn rewards. Getting loyalty program members to engage with you and redeem their points for rewards is the best path to customer satisfaction and member retention.

Our new research on loyalty amplifiers shows that 74% of consumers agree that loyalty program rewards often feel unattainable, they require making too many purchases, require too many points and take too long to earn. As a result, nearly 90% of consumers said they engage with loyalty programs less often if they feel it takes too long to earn rewards.

And nearly 70% of consumers are likely to redeem smaller amounts of loyalty program points in exchange for rewards like the chance to win a prize, a customized digital product or a donation to a charity, instead of having to save their points for larger ticket rewards like free products or merchandise.

Instant wins lead to emotional loyalty, which all brands crave. The very nature of instant win loyalty amplifiers creates repeat engagement.

Brands That Have Successfully Used Instant Win Loyalty Amplifiers

Here are a few examples of brands that used instant win loyalty amplifiers.

Quaker created Cap’N Crunch Quest, which aimed to increase in-store traffic and sales. Shoppers check in on their phones at Dollar General stores to “explore” six virtual islands on the mobile-first site. Each island they visit gives them another chance to win a $100 Dollar General gift card.

And consumers receive a product coupon just for participating. Consumers could also play an instant win game from the comfort of their homes for a chance to win their share of the Cap’n’s treasure.

Subway implemented the Subway Footlong Frenzy to increase purchase frequency and in-store traffic.

With this instant win loyalty amplifier, customers can enter purchase codes, social codes or check in at Subway restaurants to earn instant win plays, progressing through three prize tiers—Footlong Fan, Super Fan, and Fanatic—based on repeat engagement.

For each action, fans also earn a chance to win an exciting grand prize: Free Footlongs for Life.​

Meanwhile, Redbox wanted to motivate its loyalty program members and increase engagement levels so it created the Summer and Winter Spin.

This twice-a-year program allows loyalty members to access their Redbox Perks accounts and receive a game board and a range of incentivized activities. Members complete each of the activities once to earn instant win game plays and sweepstakes entries.

Instant Wins Generate Brand Affinity

If you want to increase engagement among your loyalty program members, instant wins are incredibly effective because they create that immediate gratification for consumers and build emotional bonds with your brands.

Instant wins help you with member acquisition, member re-engagement and point burn.

Offering incentivized engagements like instant wins strengthens your connections with customers and generates brand affinity.

This article is part of The Ultimate Guide to Loyalty Amplifiers.

If you want to learn more about loyalty amplifiers, check out the previous article in the series, How Sweepstakes Can Increase Engagement Among Loyalty Program Members, or the next article in the series, How Trivia Helps Onboard and Educate Your Loyalty Program Members.