Success story

How Würth uses targeted and always-on gamification campaigns

“In marketing, we all know you need to have something to get people’s attention and to get people to interact with your brand and products.”

– Martin Schmidtmann Holden, Digital Marketing Specialist, Würth Denmark

Würth Denmark was looking to increase their email marketing permissions and get even more engagement with their online customers, which also led to an increase in revenue in their online sales. They also want to continually gather warm leads of new businesses that can become customers.

They have a wide range of personas — from one-person business owners like carpenters and mechanics to very large construction companies. Würth Denmark’s Martin Schmidtmann Holden explains that regardless of company size, they treat all customers the same and have more of an online ‘B2C’ strategy for their primarily online B2B business, because at the end of the day, they are trying to reach consumers, even if those consumers are purchasing on behalf of their company.

About Würth Denmark

Würth Denmark is Denmark’s largest B2B sales organization and is a subsidiary of the German, family-owned Würth group which has a presence in over 80 countries. The Würth Group is well-known for its German quality of products.

Würth Denmark is a supplier of the market’s widest range of products within fastening, tools, chemistry, safety equipment, and more, and they offer more than 50,000 products.

How Würth uses gamification

For Würth Denmark, a business with an offering of over 50,000 products and a lot of competitors, it’s essential that they catch attention while making their audience aware of the full suite they offer. Würth Denmark has integrated gamification into their marketing in two ways: (1) always-on campaigns like pop-ups that run for longer periods of time and (2) targeted, shorter campaigns that are often tied to a product like the recent Cobra game.

Pop-ups work especially well for Würth Denmark because most of their audience doesn’t visit their website every day so it helps nudge them towards purchase and because it encourages an increase in basket size (the pop-up vouchers vary according to the page they’re placed on), which has worked very well. Of all website visitors who clicked on a pop-up, 25% end up purchasing through the shop, so Würth Denmark is seeing a boost in online sales. 

A recent targeted campaign that was created in the platform was a play on the well-known Snake game. Würth used this to amplify awareness of a product upgrade on Cobra, Würth’s new multi 2000 lubricant spray. Because a big part their target audience is of the age when their first phone was the infamous Nokia 3100 (which had Snake), Martin Schmidtmann Holden knew that the game would tug on the nostalgia strings of the main audience for the game. It worked well and had high engagement!

For targeted game campaigns, Würth uses a combination of social media and email marketing to spread brand and product awareness and get new customers to their homepage. They see quite a lot of success with gamification in email marketing.

800+

email sign ups from Cobra game
in exchange for product sample

25%

of website visitors who interact with a pop-up
end up making an online purchase

Why gamification works for Würth

Gamification campaigns provide a way to cut through the noise:

“In marketing, we all know you need to have something to get people’s attention and to get people to interact with your brand and products. So gamification is part of the machine that marketers can build, along with using email marketing, social media, and retargeting that your audience experiences as the brand’s universe.”

– Martin Schmidtmann Holden, Digital Marketing Specialist, Würth Denmark

Gamification works well for Würth Danmark and the team because they know what triggers their customers and target audience, and they know how they want to be engaged. In addition, Würth has a lot of unique products that are often hard to find, so they are valuable. Because of that, prospective customers are willing to share their data in exchange for a chance to win the product.

Masai Customer Story with Playable
“Game mechanics give us a way to listen to our customers’ preferences and use that information to direct products to the markets that they’ll perform best in. Gamification campaigns have also lowered our CPL and reduced a new customer’s first time to purchase. In addition to all of this, the data we gathered also enabled me to write a brief to our organization about what our audience wants from Masai.”
— Maria Stigsnæs-Eriksen, Head of E-Commerce Sales & Campaigns, Masai Read the success story