The Michigan Lottery is driving engagement with frequent players by adding several new features to its mobile application, including special promotions and interactive social media.

The upgraded app is designed to make it easy for users to stay on top of winning numbers, jackpot totals, in-app promotions and giveaways in addition to browsing lottery content. The goal is to drive more in-app activity and mobile loyalty and make it even easier for users to access the lottery.

“Many lottery programs are faced with political challenges, or simply are late adopters in the mobile marketing game,” said John Latham, vice president of business development at ePrize, Pleasant Ridge, MI.

“But forward-thinking lotteries like Michigan and New York Lottery – and their respective partners – are using mobile to activate and engage a younger demographic, drive adoption and sales of newer or more complex products like Keno, increase retail traffic and capitalize on sponsorships,” he said.

The Michigan Lottery worked with social and mobile engagement platform ePrize on the new app.

Ticket scans
Key new features in the app include a retail finder that taps into location-based services to present players with nearby locations they can visit to play their favorite lottery games as well as more seamless and intuitive navigation features.

Additionally, the revamped app includes ticket scanning capabilities and a new rewards catalog to give players more accessibility to the lottery while on the go.

There is also a new promotions page where users can view and play the latest Michigan Lottery promotions from the app.

The Michigan Lottery used ePrize’s Mobile SDK to help it integrate promotions and campaigns within the app.

The Michigan Lottery has had an official app since 2011, enabling users to watch Club Keno drawings, check winning numbers and jackpots for all games, submit ticket codes and redeem rewards points for the Michigan Lottery Player’s Club.

Users can also generate easy picks with a number generator.

Entertainment on-the-go
While state lotteries have been slow to adapt to mobile marketing, others are looking for ways to leverage the strong interest in both lotteries and mobile.

For example, 7-Eleven is piloting a program designed to drive traffic into its stores in Texas, where it is the exclusive retail partner for YooLotto, a free lottery-management app that stores and tracks individual lottery ticket information as well as notifies users via push notifications of their results in the lottery within minutes of drawings (see story).

“The Michigan Lottery is tapping into the mobile channel knowing that people like to get their information on the go, even when it comes to entertainment,” said Sara Kowal, vice president of product innovation at ePrize.

“The team came to ePrize with a desire to create a mobile app experience that draws in players and offers additional content, special promotions and interactive social media activity to make mobile users feel more vested in the lottery experience and ideally coming back to the app to engage more regularly,” she said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York