Gamification may sound like just another marketing buzzword, but it has become more than that now: a proven strategy to increase customer loyalty and sales for various businesses. Its popularity is growing exponentially as many companies and brands (from large enterprises to boutique brick-and-mortar stores) realize that gamification can help them attract and engage customers, boosting sales. Helping brands and businesses jump on the gamification bandwagon with its proven gamification software is Contest Factory.

The company’s management and technical teams have over 100 years of cumulative experience in digital media, gamification, marketing strategy development, promotion administration, entertainment, and technology industries. The sheer breadth of knowledge and power of this human capital has contributed to Contest Factory’s multiple U.S. patents for its gamification technology, which is a vital attribute of its solutions portfolio. The company offers gamification platforms and ancillary services like game customization, legally compliant Official Rules, winner verification, and prize fulfillment to position itself as a full service gamification agency.

“As a nimble and boutique gamification service provider, we act as a one-stop shop for clients and help address any gamification-related concerns, from the first to the final step of their journey,” says Dr. Iman Foroutan, Chairman and CEO of Contest Factory. To this extent, Contest Factory offers over 20 gamification products, which can be customized to meet the various use cases of a multitude of clients. These gamification products include User Generated Content (UGC) photos, videos, essay contests, Instant Win Games for trade shows, hashtag contests, and Sweepstakes. Contest Factory also provides moderation and judging services for UGC contests to assist clients in ensuring superior content quality. Included in all Contest Factory products is Viral DNA^®, the company’s proprietary success measurement dashboard that provides clients with real-time promotion metrics, including registrations, promotion submissions, votes, and social shares.

The benefits of such all-around support can be best explained through a case study. Recently, Contest Factory assisted a large retail chain with hundreds of stores in the U.S.

The client approached Contest Factory to help them run an impactful promotional event with an international record label. The planned promotion comprised of a contest where customers had to sing a particular song for a chance to win a record deal. Contest Factory designed the entire contest strategy in a way that ensured a significant boost in overall participation. Contest Factory developed the necessary online platform and enhanced user engagement by installing video booths and contest banners within client stores across the country. Once set up, the banners encouraged shoppers at the retail stores to go in the video booth and sing the selected song, similar to performing karaoke. The contest was a massive success, receiving thousands of song submissions within two weeks. But it didn’t end just there. Contest Factory’s moderation team even assessed the submitted content on behalf of the clients and shortlisted the top 20 submissions to make it easier for the client to vet the entries.

“As a nimble and boutique gamification service provider, we act as a one-stop-shop for clients and help address any gamification-related requirements, from the first to the final step of their journey”

With many similar success stories under its belt, Contest Factory is now poised to play a critical role in the future of gamification. The company, in this regard, will soon be launching a self service platform where Contest Factory’s prospective clients can get off-the-shelf, legally compliant, and customizable games for a fraction of the cost and launch the promotion on their websites within minutes. The new platform will allow clients to leverage Contest Factory’s ever growing portfolio of gamified content and achieve tremendous success in their marketing or promotional endeavors. Above all, Contest Factory is perfectly positioned to help clients make the most of retail gamification and stand out as a modern entity.

With the advent of the internet, many pre-existing notions of business-customer relationships and interactions have gone out the window. Traditional advertising channels such as TV and newspapers are facing a decline, and consumers are flocking towards the interactive, social, and rewarding entertainment options of the digital world.

One popular example of this is the “Angry Birds” mobile app, which had an average 80 million monthly active users to its name in 2017. On a similar note, mobile gamers spend an average of about 2 hours every day playing games on their handheld devices. Hence, it is imperative for businesses to welcome the digital consumer quickly by learning to speak their language.

Contest Factory’s innovative gamification platforms promise to solve this challenge. The company uses time-tested and gratifying gaming concepts like Sweepstakes, Instant Win Games, and UGC Contests to provide premium publicity to brands and makes them an inseparable part of the joyful experience of millions of consumers in the digital world.

A Key Pillar of the Rising World
As mentioned earlier, marketing and advertising is changing quickly. On one hand, it has become more difficult for marketers to enter the advertising space as the conversations happening online are social.

On the other hand, the online medium is creating a level-playing field for all different sized companies by significantly lowering the cost of advertising compared to traditional mediums such as TV and newspapers. Hence, the new world of branding, advertising and marketing can be challenging as well as provide abundant opportunities with the right direction.
Contest Factory is a pillar of strength for businesses and advertisers alike in the rising digital world because it is the right comprehensive solution for all their needs. It is a one-stop-solution firmly rooted in a well thought out and reliable method of successful promotion.

In order to help its clients achieve the goal of successful promotions, the company provides a wide variety of products and services, such as strategy, creative design, custom development, legally compliant official rules with client indemnification, prize procurement, and prize fulfillment. The company provides its clients with over 20 different gamification choices including sweepstakes, trivia, user generated contests, and many more. Additionally, using the promotional strategy of the company, brands can integrate their online campaigns seamlessly with their offline marketing campaigns.

A Never-ending Path of Innovation and Progress
Innovation is the key when it comes to staying ahead of consumers and competitors today, and the foundation of Contest Factory is built on the very idea of innovation, talent and achievement.

The company was founded in 2000 by Dr. Iman Foroutan, the Founder and CEO. During its initial phase, the company launched the first ever professional online talent contest. Its signature platform, MakeAstar.com, connected the brightest music talent with the most eager and receptive ears from around the world.

The creation of this platform and the experience of connecting talent with demand and advanced technical platforms allowed the company to see a bigger picture where online contests and voting for User Generated Content (UGC) had several important applications for other industries as well. The launch and operation of MakeAstar.com provided many useful lessons to build a solid foundation for Contest Factory.

Today, the company is firmly committed to the ideals of delivering the highest level of client satisfaction through technological advancements and second-to-none customer service. This commitment to innovation has also successfully established it as a unique and leading gamification solution provider, with many patented systems and products.

An Experience to Remember
Instant gratification drives sales and spreads a word-of-mouth about brands. However, it is also important for brands to consider whether these targeted and focused campaigns affect their consumer experience over the long term. Contest Factory has a focused vision that enables it to engage consumers and retain their loyalty and trust for the long haul.

The company has been developing all types of online contests and promotions for the last 18 years. During these 18 years of operation, Contest Factory has implemented a simple method to stay ahead of the curve: building specifications to match the present and future needs of its clients.

Although developing new technologies and constantly innovating is time-consuming and costly, Dr. Foroutan’s leadership provides a special edge to the company. Dr. Foroutan was a principal consultant within the Defense and Information Systems industries, providing advice to the United States Air Force and Navy. Additionally, he has made significant contributions to the area of Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision.

It is his expertise in leadership and the dedication of his team that has made Contest Factory a top-notch gamification platform, attracting consumers and engaging them on a continuous manner. Due to their combined efforts, Contest Factory continues to receive admiration and appreciation from its clients, who keep returning to the company to avail new products, features and services to take their promotions to the next level. Overall, Contest Factory is not just a one-stop solution to meet all marketing objectives but according to the testimonials of its clients, working with the company is a very pleasant experience to remember.

“This is the best promotion we have ever done in the 25-year history of SanDisk,” read the note from the Marketing Manager of SanDisk to the Contest Factory team. The occasion: celebrating the storage company’s 25th anniversary. The idea: acknowledging loyal customers and conducting market research to assess people’s knowledge and perception about SanDisk. The challenge: adhering to the legal and compliance mandates during promotion. California based Contest Factory was in charge of the design and execution of the campaign. Buyers and loyal customers participated in this gigantic campaign by visiting the custom website, created by Contest Factory for SanDisk, as well as through email and product packaging. The promotion went on for one year during which over 10,000 prizes were distributed summing up close to $800,000. SanDisk’s case is one of the many grand success stories that Contest Factory has been able to deliver with its thought leadership and expertise in offering custom gamification solutions.

“We are a one stop shop for all the needs of an organization in engaging their targeted audience. Be it engaging consumers and lead generation online and offline, or gamifying training courses and material, we can build promotion strategy, content creation, ideation, and drafting official rules, effectively to generate greater response,” proclaims Dr. Iman Foroutan, CEO and Chief Promotion Strategist, Contest Factory. The company works with the client’s teams and agencies in charting a gamification roadmap. From there, the company builds the platform, administers the promotion and indemnifies clients, their sponsors and partners against any liabilities that may arise from the official rules.

Content Factory’s core gamification offerings include a large variety of Contests, Sweepstakes and Instant Win Games, customizable both in terms of content and industry vertical. Through these products, companies can build customized promotions with attractive prizes for the winners, which helps in building people’s interest in a brand and improve their knowledge about the brand’s offerings. Additionally, Contest Factory offers gamification solutions that can be readily deployed at events and tradeshows to engage visitors and drive foot traffic.

“We are a one stop shop for all the needs of an organization in engaging their targeted audience”

Realtors, for instance, by leveraging SpinZone Realtor, can reward points to potential clients for ‘checking out’ their properties. A combined offering such as SpinZone Trivia that can keep players ‘hooked’ to a fun-filled learning experience. Besides, the company has also developed products that are tailored for in-house training where they offer gamified learning courses. All Contest Factory’s offerings are delivered over the cloud and are embedded with multiple layers of security, fraud detection, and more importantly analytics capabilities that endorse lead generation.

For small and medium businesses (SMBs), the company has developed customizable and ready to deploy mobile app that clients can license at a fraction of the cost associated with developing an app from scratch. Realizing the value proposition of a self-service delivery model, Contest Factory has recently launched its Self-Service Promotion Suite that requires minimal ‘knowhow’ and time for clients to integrate them in their preferred web and social network platforms while having Contest Factory as an aid for delivering support. With Contest Factory, SMBscan access gamification initiatives driven by analytics capabilities.

A visionary in every respect, Contest Factory patented voting in online contests long before TV contest shows with public voting components made their appearance. The company holds multiple patents associated with online contests and integrating online voting with virtually any type of contest, even across the ‘hybrid’ online-TV channel. A reality show that leverages Contest Factory’s patented system for online voting is currently in production. In effect, Contest Factory is adept at utilizing gamification as the ‘Swiss knife’ for client’s end-to-end audience engagement.