Sweepstakes activity gameplay planning!

The low threshold and uncertainty of lottery operation gameplay often stimulate users' deeper curiosity and higher willingness to participate, and it has always been one of the most attractive products for users.

But as time goes by, lottery products have gradually become too familiar and ordinary. With the rise of more operational products, we often need to think about whether to abandon lottery products and plan a more novel way of playing? Or if you continue to use the lottery product, how can you adjust it to make it more attractive to users.

In this article, I hope to use the Octagon behavioral analysis method to briefly talk about my analysis of the lottery gameplay and my personal optimization strategy. I hope to think deeply about the lottery product from the user's perspective, optimize the operation method, and let this product maintain its classic and excellent vitality.

1. It’s 2021 now. Are lottery products out of date?

For APP, the conventional method of using lottery products is:

1. Individual lottery products are mostly used for user activity and retention. This type of lottery product is often tied to sign-in, which gives users a chance to win a grand prize at no cost every day, thereby driving user participation and retention ;
2. One of the sections of the Points Mall, as a channel for consuming points, its main goal is to consume points quickly . Everyone knows that points are essentially liabilities. If they are simply redeemed for goods, the cost is often high for developers. However, point lotteries allow developers to control and reduce overall costs through probability control.

However, with the popularity of lottery operations in current Internet products, especially the proliferation of some interactive advertisements, lotteries have become overused. Many products have added lottery operation products, but in fact they have not achieved very good results.

In other words, the lottery game is becoming less and less attractive to users.

So, it’s 2021 now, are lottery products out of date? Other products are pursuing more innovative gameplay such as cultivation-based gameplay. Should we also abandon the old gameplay such as lottery?

We have previously tried out a variety of new products and gameplay in some interactive advertising products, and found that users still have the highest participation rate in lottery products; we have also tried different lottery formats, and ultimately the ones with the highest user participation rate are still the most traditional lottery formats such as the roulette wheel, scratch cards, smashing Easter eggs, and lottery machines.

So we can draw a conclusion that may not be comprehensive (based only on previous product trial experience):

• Poor activity results are not just a problem for lottery products, but a problem for all operating products - as the operating methods become more popular, users are less and less interested in them;
• Although the gameplay of lottery products is old-fashioned, compared with other operating products, the corresponding user habits and even muscle memory have been formed, and there is no need for too much learning cost to participate, so it is still the most attractive product to users among many operating activities.

2. Psychological Research on Lottery Products

There is a very classic theory in the field of game studies - the Octagonal Behavior Analysis Method. Friends who don’t know about it can search and learn it by themselves. This expansion is a very long content.

As for why lotteries can attract users to continue playing, the user psychology behind it is mainly the "unknown and curiosity", the core driving force of the Octagonal Behavior Analysis Method, that is, people are obsessed with unpredictable experiences.

The picture is from Baidu Encyclopedia, please delete if it infringes

Regarding the unknown and curiosity, there is an experiment called Skinner's Box.

In this experiment, uncertainty is introduced into the test variable - after the animal presses a button, sometimes food appears, sometimes nothing, and sometimes multiple servings of food appear. The animal will continue to press the lever regardless of whether it is hungry or not. Satisfying rising curiosity is actually an intrinsic motivation for the primitive brain, and sometimes it is even more effective than external material rewards.

It can be seen that the charm of the lottery is greater than any certain reward, and people prefer the excitement of being in an unknown state.

Therefore, for lottery products, it is not the gameplay of the product itself, but the “unknown” experience it brings to users that can truly get users invested.

3. Negative Cases and Optimization Strategies

Then let’s take a look at some common products on the market and see how users can truly experience the “unknown” experience. Here I will give you an example of a negative experience that I have had, which is also a common teaching material in lottery products (sorry, it’s “Dianping” again):

The attached picture shows the real experience of the lottery section of Dianping.com. As the gif corresponding to the entire process is too large, only a small part of it is captured.

In this experience, I participated in 10 lucky draws in total. The first one was free, and each participation from the 2nd to the 10th required 3 points. The prizes were 1 point 8 times, and coupons for unpopular sections 2 times. Complete 10 times to get an extra 1 point gift.

The overall summary is as follows:

From the above probabilities, we can see that the lottery section of Dianping uses 3 points for the lottery, and the probability of winning a prize is about 80% for 1 point, and the probability of winning a platform unpopular ticket is about 20%.

The business goal of using up user points and preventing the points pool from over-accumulating is understandable, but the probability setting is too obvious, and there are no uncertain expected prizes, so the purpose of harvesting is too obvious to users.

Although the ideal situation is that users participate 10 times, a total of 27 points are required to be invested, and 9 points + some platform advertising coupons are obtained, so 18 points/person/day can be consumed through the lottery section, and the issuance of advertising coupons may also obtain business conversions.

However, these algorithms should only be very ideal states. Users constantly receive less prizes than they put in (and they always get the same prize). Based on our previous experience, it is difficult for them to be willing to continue spending gold coins to participate. Assuming the product participation rate is 4 times, then based on the setting of free participation for the first time, we can calculate that the actual number of points that can be consumed is 18/9*3, that is, 6 points/person/day.

Suppose we adjust our operating strategy and raise the threshold for participation points to 5 points, and divide the points obtained into 1, 3, 5, and 8 points for probability setting, so that users have a certain sense of uncertainty and a certain sense of surprise that gain > investment , thereby enhancing the fun of gaining. Then, as long as the probability is controlled well, we can not only increase user participation, but also achieve the corresponding point consumption target.

The following is my small adjustment to the operation strategy of this section of Dianping.com. After the adjustment, assuming that the interesting results can increase the number of participations from 4 to 6, then 7.78 points can be actually recovered per day , and the consumption target can also be improved. Use "unknown experiences" and "uncertain surprises" to bring excitement to users, make them willing to continue participating, and achieve corresponding business goals by the way.

Of course, all of the above are still conceptual ideas. You can try them out in your own products to see if they are effective.

4. How to better play the lottery?

Judging from the current lottery games on the market, they all stimulate user participation through very direct benefits. Although the attractiveness of the game is improved by increasing the uncertainty through probability adjustment, it is still easy for users to figure out the routine after a certain amount of experience. If users are not given different stimulations in other aspects, it is still very likely that they will be abandoned.

Since it is a gamification method, we can also refer to the "Octagon Behavior Analysis Method" and develop some ideas around its concept to optimize the lottery product. We hope that after attracting users to participate through external rewards (prizes), we can also stimulate users' internal rewards to transform their interests and behaviors, thereby promoting longer-term user participation. By adjusting the lottery product strategy, users can enjoy the activity itself rather than just the benefits , thereby retaining users.

Of course, these ideas are not directly used in real products, and we can try them in the future.

Assumption 1: Implanting a special “meaning and mission”

As we all know, the gameplay of Ant Forest is actually a copy of the vegetable-growing gameplay of Kaixin.com more than ten years ago. Why is it that a product that was popular for a while and then quickly declined can be reborn on Alipay and maintain its vitality for many years? A very core change is that Alipay has adopted a public welfare reward. The user's virtual behavior can eventually be transformed into actual tree planting (public welfare) behavior for the border , making it not just a game, but also a product that carries the user's mission.

Therefore, whether it is participation or final advancement, it will bring users a very strong sense of honor.

For the enterprise (Alipay), it not only achieves the goal of retaining active users, but also serves as a public relations promotion for corporate social responsibility, killing two birds with one stone.

Therefore, we can consider participating in this category in the setting of lottery products. For example, we can set a prize as "X hearts". There is a certain probability of winning in the lottery. After accumulating 50 hearts, we can donate 1 love children's lunch.

Of course, this requires companies to allocate a certain amount of money to carry out real public welfare activities and cooperate with public relations promotion. But for enterprises, it can not only effectively consume users' points, but also use a very effective positive incentive such as a sense of mission to keep users in the product for a long time and promote it spontaneously, which is also a multiple use of the budget.

Idea 2: Add more “creativity and feedback”

In general, every click of a lottery will bring a result feedback. Although the result is unknown to the user, it is known that each action will have feedback.

We can consider adding some creative ideas of uncertainty beyond what is currently known, such as randomly dropping an Easter egg (in line with the "unknown and curiosity" in the black hat driving force), which corresponds to some lottery props, such as a 100% winning card. After using it, users will definitely not win a non-winning prize such as "Thank you for participating".

Another example is adding 3 chance cards, or "surprise time", where there is no limit on the number of draws at this moment, and the user can draw as many times as he or she clicks, etc., so that users can enjoy this sudden surprise and pleasure as much as possible.

At the feedback level, whether it is props or the success after the lottery, it increases the strong feeling of gain, amplifies the perception of gain, and satisfies the user's psychological demands. Similar to live broadcast gifts, the brilliant effect is ready to happen, providing continuous feedback and reinforcement in the visual senses.

Assumption 3: Using the “loss and avoidance mentality” to adjust product features

Users refuse to give up. When faced with a short but effective opportunity, they will seize the opportunity even when they are losing money and have an escapist mentality to avoid losing it.

Therefore, you can set a countdown on the product, such as a countdown for a lottery opportunity, a countdown for a grand prize, etc. If you miss the prize within an hour, you will no longer be able to get it, etc., to stimulate users to participate immediately.

Of course, there are some other ideas, but after thinking about them, I feel that they are not quite appropriate, such as the idea that N enhances the sense of ownership and belonging by collecting cards. For example, at the end of the year, major manufacturers have a lucky draw game where there is a certain probability that a card will appear in the lottery prizes, and collecting several cards can get a certain prize. This gameplay imitates the "Water Margin Cards" gameplay we played when we were young, using the scarcity principle + social relationships to promote large-scale user participation.

However, since card collecting and other gameplay methods are currently too prevalent, it is difficult for ordinary planned card content to have a strong sense of show-off. Therefore, in the past two years, users have been playing and exchanging social activities based more on interests. Unlike when the product first appeared a few years ago, the scarcity of the product could give users a strong sense of ownership and possession, which led to users spontaneously sharing and showing off. Therefore, it has gradually moved away from this part of the attributes.

5. Final Thoughts

It is undeniable that the lottery itself is a product that purely stimulates users to use it with benefits, so the most important thing is to give users real rewards.

The various strategies mentioned above are all aimed at making the lottery gameplay more attractive and making users more willing to play, which is the icing on the cake on the product operation side. If there is no budget investment and no proper user feedback, then no matter how many strategies there are, they are just routines. Treat users with care, make products that bring pleasure to users, and indirectly achieve our goals. This is the core of all our product strategy thinking.

It is a pity that most of the ideas in this article are still at the planning level, and there are no very suitable projects to implement them. But I still hope that my ideas and concepts can inspire partners who are also engaged in operating products. I will be honored if they can be implemented in your project one day.

Author: Burning Bean Man

Source: Burning Beans