Success Story

How gamification generated 2.8 million sessions for the Football Association of Finland

The Football Association of Finland (FAF) was concerned they might not have time to make enough campaigns on the Playable platform. Then they made +130 pieces in 9.5 months.

“We already had a platform and weren’t getting enough out of it. With limited resources,  we had doubts whether we had time to use the Leadfamly platform enough to get value for money. But we realized that you can automate a lot, and ended up making over 130 different games, landing pages and pop-ups in 9.5 months.”

– Hanna Korpimäki, CRM & Data Manager at FAF 

But how is that possible?

FAF works smartly by re-using and automating campaigns. A campaign is embedded on the website once, and updates itself automatically whenever a match ends, to include  the next one. Because it’s automated, there’s no need to embed a new campaign. 

“The Leadfamly tool saves us a lot of time. Basically, we can re-use campaigns and automate the process one time for the whole year. The campaign runs in the background without the need to interfere. It makes the whole process more efficient. That’s a big win for us.”

– Hanna Korpimäki, CRM & Data Manager at FAF 

This sort of automation means FAF can use always-on marketing to stay ever-present in their audience’s minds, and keep them engaged throughout the customer lifecycle. 

The challenge

The Covid-19 pandemic prevented many fans from traveling to stadiums during Euro 2020. So how could FAF make a great digital tournament experience for their fans? 

In 2019, the Finnish national men’s football team qualified for the European Football Championship final tournament (the Euros) for the first time. FAF wanted to see if they could use that Euro 2020 momentum to grow their audience and digital database, and create a great experience for their fans. They wanted to maximize the number of digital touchpoints they had around the Euros to ensure their digital offer would be prominent at every opportunity. 

“Just before the Euros, we decided to start using gamification. We wanted to change to a more versatile platform that could support our goals of collecting data more efficiently, grow our database, and engage our audience more. We got that with Leadfamly.” 

– Hanna Korpimäki, CRM & Data Manager at FAF 

Go-to-market activities

  • Poll – prediction games for match scores + player of the match 
  • Landing pages with a draw to win prizes, e.g. signed jersey  
  • Pop-ups 
  • Games created around the national teams 
  • Organic and paid social media 
  • Newsletter linking to games 
  • Marketing automation linking to games  
  • Campaign confirmation pages driving e-commerce and ticket sales

“With gamification we are able to maximize the interaction opportunity and engage fans in a fun way. The games are usually the most popular elements and they work very well in both newsletters and on social media. That’s a huge benefit for us.”  

– Hanna Korpimäki, CRM & Data Manager at FAF 

The results

FAF’s gamified campaigns generated almost 3 million sessions – in a country with a population of 5.5 million people! FAF aimed to grow the national team email subscribers by 40%, but they actually doubled their email subscriber list – increasing it by 100%.

“During the Euros, more than 50% of the participants opted in to the newsletter, so Leadfamly was the main thing to support our goal of growing our email list. Our biggest outcome is that we are able to collect data so much more efficiently from different marketing campaigns.”

– Hanna Korpimäki, CRM & Data Manager at FAF 

The results in numbers

+130 Different games, landing pages + popups in 9.5 months

2.8 million

Sessions in 9.5 months

100%

Newsletter subscriber list growth

+50%

Of participants opted-in, during the Euros

Gamification supports the brand

Playable’s gamification platform supports the FAF brand in both looks and communication.

“With Leadfamly, you can easily make campaigns that are really on-brand, engaging and work well from start to finish. Therefore, we are now able to support our brand better. We also make branded campaigns with our partners, so we have new ways to create value for our partners and more visibility in the campaigns than we could offer before.”

– Hanna Korpimäki, CRM & Data Manager at FAF 

We asked Hanna how the organization felt about gamification before they started using  it – and if that has changed. 

“Before we started to use gamification, we were hesitant that it might be too complicated and time-consuming. But it’s actually quite simple to use, but still effective. The results we get with gamification significantly exceed our goals.” 

– Hanna Korpimäki, CRM & Data Manager at FAF 

Is gamification worth the investment?

FAF certainly thinks so! 

“We have been really happy with the results: with the increase in revenue attributed to  gamification, but especially the results you can’t directly measure in EUROS, such as engagement and the data collected. Even with small resources, gamification can definitely give you a lot.”

– Hanna Korpimäki, CRM & Data Manager at FAF 
Carlsberg's win with the team playable campaign
Carlsberg's win with the team playable campaign
“The Leadfamly platform has given us a clear competitive advantage. Without it, the campaign would have taken too much time, been too difficult, and we would have risked operational problems and breakdowns during the campaign. With the platform it all works – I don’t have to worry at all.”
— Allard de Wijkerslooth, Media & Digital Manager, Carlsberg Read the success story