It's time to land on ice! Because your audience will be around very soon.

The thrilling atmosphere of the upcoming Ice Hockey World Championship in Tampere (Finland) and Riga (Latvia) is an opportunity for you - marketers - to leverage gamification marketing and online branded games to not only engage fans but also grow your company's customer base.

In this blog post, we'll explore how to make the most of the ice hockey spirit by using gamification and other simple tricks to reward your current and loyal customers, attract new fans, benefit from the event atmosphere, learn about your customers, and capitalize on temporary loyalty.

Let's have a look at what you can do to stand out on the market!

5 Simple Ways to Connect with Your Audience

Reward Existing Customers 🎁

During the major annual ice hockey event, you have a great opportunity to show appreciation for your most loyal customers by offering special rewards and campaigns. Reach and reward the most loyal customers with a Mystery Box campaign giving them tickets. For other customers, use an online branded Scratch card game to combine ticket give-aways (scarce) with prizes related to your business (discounts, merchandize, other special offers).

Implement basic gamification tactics like points systems or leaderboards to encourage customers to participate in promotions and boost their loyalty. Some great examples can be final score or first scorer guessing (works for most businesses), or hot dogs eating (or other items from your restaurant portfolio).

But maybe you are just a company like Delete which has 💩 to handle - let's make a Drop game where you need to avoid all hockey pucks to not clog your tube. There are ways to turn boring into entertaining!

Attract New Customers 🎣

Use online branded games to draw in potential new fans of your brand. For example, host a ticket competition in your social media campaign. Remember that targeting the right audience is important in this case to ensure you're not attracting irrelevant participants. This applies when you are using prizes irrelevant to your brand, mostly utilizing overall vibe in the society. Utilize engaging content and interactive games to catch their interest and convert them into future followers and customers.

You can use this approach to grow your emailing list, offer better experience than competitors, as well as to communicate some key messages relevant to your business.

Any campaign you would do needs to carry your branding. Ice hockey theme is just implemented into it. It's time to be creative. Let's say you need to communicate how fast you service is - combine data about the fastest ice hockey shots from various countries. How about addressing reliability? Look for statistics of matches interrupted due to broken ice, plexiglass, or zamboni. Then show the element of reliability of your business (for example in a Memory game).

Relax the Atmosphere 😌

Instead of constantly pushing sales, take a step back during the ice hockey tournament to create a more relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere for your customers. Offer engaging ice hockey related content in a form of interactive games to entertain and delight your audience. It's time to start building much stronger connection between your customers and brand.

You can use some of the examples mentioned above. You can even remove the elements of your brand, except for the overall campaign visual presentation. It's a great opportunity to activate your customers. Go for a Quiz of your city's or country's ice hockey history, try a famous players Word Search game, or an arenas Memory Game.

Or how about an ideal match experience through My Favourites campaign? It could consist of Who you visit the match with, What do you wear (no fan items, just scarf, also a jersey, etc.), and How do you spend the game (silently watching, fanatically supporting, drinking and eating, chatting, or yelling at refereees).

This is your opportunity to bring some fresh air into your communications. It's your opportunity to remind your target audience about your company existence, while delivering a different type of experience. It's about bringing something where your brand will be visible through visuals, but the overall experience will be relaxing and non-pushy. Extra points for you if you wrap a nice story around it!

Learn More About Your Customers 📊

Gamification marketing can help you gather valuable insights about your customers. By engaging them in interactive games and activities, you can learn if they follow sports, who they attend events with, and what kind of comfort they prefer during their experience. Yes, similar to what was mentioned above! You can use this opportunity to get more insights about your audience. This information will enable you to tailor your marketing efforts and create more personalized and engaging campaigns in the future.

Depending on the type of your business, you can gain insights about consumption or free time habits. It can help you sell more in the future, or extend and improve relations with your current customers. Imagine you could reward your most loyal customers with something 100% relevant to them. You wouldn't waste money on a food basket for those who would appreciate a hockey game ticket. You wouldn't send your most loyal customers a ticket to the city's biggest rival game. Enriched data can help you avoid waving a red flag in front of a bull.

Hit the Temporary Loyalty Jackpot 🎰

Capitalize on the influx of foreign tourists during the Ice Hockey World Championship by offering promotions tailored to their short stay. Make a 1-week special Bingo Card or a Coffee Pass (yes, you might aim for another drink - ask your legal first 😉). You can also encourage repeated purchases with a fully branded Advent Calendar type of a campaign, just adjusted for the ice hockey theme. Drive repeated visits with daily surprises and special deals throughout the week.

By providing an engaging experience, you can create a memorable impression and encourage tourists to return or share their positive experience with others. Gamification marketing is a great way to boost your average order value (≈20% growth is statistically the average improvement you will see).

However, nothing will work without excellent customer service. That especially matters for hotels, cafes, restaurants, and bars.

By harnessing the power of gamification marketing, you can ride the wave of ice hockey excitement to engage, grow, and monetize your customer base. There are numerous of online branded games that can be implemented through your social media, email newsletter, as well as on-site marketing.
A QR code or a short link can be your big friends, depending on what type of a business you are. Consider doing something extra to stand out!

With the right implementation in place, you can create unforgettable experiences for your customers, attract new ones, and strengthen your brand's connection with its audience (read about the IRROPS Model). You can also be very spontaneous and react to whatever happens during the event. It takes just a few hours to build an online branded game from your pictures and texts, so you can be ready overnight during the play-offs stage with 100% relevant gamification marketing campaigns. I've got you covered!

So, gear up and get ready to stand out with gamification marketing when it's highly likely that your audience will have their eyes and brains focused on ice hockey! 🥅🚀