The Spin-the-Wheel game has been one of Vanson’s more successful promotions. Everyone likes to spin a wheel to earn points or prizes, especially when they can win something on every spin — there are no losing spins on our platform. This promotion works particularly well for sales teams or other competitive environments. Here’s a three part design approach for Spin-the-Wheel promotions:
Earn: During the Earn period, participants engage in activities that will earn them future spins of the wheel. The Earn phase can last anywhere from a couple of weeks to a several months - the duration depends on our clients and their promotional requirements.
Determine the participant activities that you want to incentivize, then set a budget for the promotion. Once the budget is established, calculate the levels for the different wheel slots. For example, using a wheel with 24 slots, you might pick different point values, such as 10 slots earn 500 points each, 5 slots earn 1,000 points each, 2 slots earn 5,000 point each, and 1 slot earns either 10,000, 25,000, or 50,000 points. Once you determine the number of spins earned by all participants, you can calculate the total budget/spin. The spin values are then randomly generated
Spin: Design the wheel to visually reflect the likelihood of winning by filling the majority of the wheel ‘real estate’ with the lower values. Give participants the ability to see their odds on the screen. Each participants is given spins based on what they’ve earned. Participants are typically given one or two weeks to spin.
Note that not all of the spins generated will get used. Participants may forget to spin or may choose not to participate. We saw on a recent promotion that our biggest value (with only one shot of winning) went unused, which of course is unfortunate but sometimes unavoidable.
Win: All Spin-the-Wheel promotion participants will receive points or prizes. A final audit is completed to ensure no fraud took place during the wheel spin and that points are correctly distributed into member accounts. It is critical to complete the audit & award process quickly and accurately. We recommend providing points or prizes to participants within a few days of earning. Too much long and your customer service team may be flooded with inquiries from participants looking for their points or prizes.
Another element to consider is the design of the wheel itself. We recommend making it flashy and fun, but also practical and easy to use for the participant. For example, having confetti pop up after every wheel spin is fun and flashy — but think about the participant who earns 100 spins! Confetti means a lot of time for them to wait after each spin; consider having the confetti fly after all of their spins have been completed!
