It’s no secret that I’m an avid reader. My nose is buried in a book more often than it’s not.
I recently saw Kindle Challenges in the app - I don’t really care about them because I don’t need any motivation to keep reading, but I do love completing a challenge and getting my virtual gold star.
Their challenges are things like ‘read for 45 of 90 days’ or ‘complete 2 books’. But in the current challenge, they added ‘read one of our editor’s picks’.
Again, not something I would normally care about, but… I want that virtual gold star.
I picked a book from their list and opened it to find a note that this title will be turned into a movie through Amazon MGM Studios.
There’s a really subtle marketing play that Amazon did here to hype up their upcoming production.
- They used gamification (the challenge) to get me to look into a book list I wouldn’t normally care about.
- In this list, I found a book that wasn’t on my radar.
- And this book will become a movie.
What’s cool about this marketing tactic is they’re building hype for an upcoming production, without doing the traditional advertising/trailer playbook.
They’re hoping that if I like the book, when I see it available for streaming, I’ll remember it and subscribe to Prime to watch it.
They’re using my own interests (books + virtual gold stars) to let me know about something that I’m not likely to know about, because I’m a reader, not a watcher. Based on all of the movie adaptations of best selling books, they know the odds are pretty good that if I like the book, I’ll want to watch the movie.
Now, I don’t love Amazon, but this subtle hyping is a pretty smart marketing play. It’s not them telling me that I want something (which they know I’m likely to resist). Instead, it’s me seeing something that piqued my interest and giving them a chance to tell me more about what they’re up to.
Our society loves fandoms (sports, ACOTAR) so it’s not a hard jump for them to get me to think it’s my idea to watch this movie when it comes out.
Gamify your marketing
The Amazon play works because there’s something being delivered every step of the way, with a prize at the end.
This can be a lot for a solo business owner, but there are ways to bring interactivity and fun to your marketing.
A quiz is a great example - we love to know more about ourselves, especially if it will help answer a problem in our business.
Think about the quiz as more than just an entry point to your world. Use their answers to funnel people to a selection of resources on your website, like a blog collection.
It’s a win-win, because you’re getting people into your world and they’re getting answers to their questions, while learning more about you. If you’re setting up your quiz well, people are segmented based on their answers. You can send them offers that make the most sense for them, instead of them having to filter through a bunch of things to figure out what they need.
Use a quiz as an interactive guide map to your offers, one that they’ve already chosen for themselves so there’s less resistance when you start selling to them. It’s a way to help guide people through your website in a way that feels like they chose it, just like Amazon did with the book selection it pushed to me.