Gamification in Marketing

Gamification is not a new concept. We all remember having that one friend who always checked into restaurants on Foursquare for bragging rights. And we also knew someone who prefers to fly with one airline so they can reach their frequent flyer program’s next membership tier and all the amazing perks it offers — perhaps that someone was you.

Today, marketers are starting to realize that gamification is an effective way to create engagement with consumers. Gamification involves integrating game mechanics into an existing platform such as a website, online community or app in order to encourage participation, engagement, and loyalty. It is a great way to make your brand stand out, especially if none of your competitors are doing it.

Gamification also increases the amount of time a consumer spends in your app or website, increasing their engagement level with your brand. More importantly, gamification allows marketers to use their customer’s emotional high of social recognition or winning to generate a valuable lead or sell a product or service. All these factors go a long way toward influencing their decision to purchase.

Ready to add gamification to your marketing strategy? Follow these 5 tips before you press play:

Know your audience

It’s important to figure out what sort of gamification strategy will work with your customers. Duolingo is a popular language learning app that uses gamification to encourage people to log onto the platform every day to practice their skills. To lure people into using the app frequently, Duolingo rewards experience points (or XP); users learn XP by completing lessons or strengthening skills, allowing them to reach the next level.

Source: Pat Howe

Duolingo’s gamification strategy may be extremely effective in retaining travelers who are interested in learning the native language of the country they are visiting, but not so much for people who have no interest in learning a second language.

Ensure your incentive is enticing enough

To convince users to get involved, you must establish clear and enticing rewards. They could be as simple as social recognition on social media or a larger investment such as a physical prize. It is a good idea to see what incentives seem to be working with your competitors and shape your gamification strategy accordingly. Alternatively, you can ask your audience what they would like to receive; you can do this easily by adding a Headsup pop-up on your website.

Don’t make things too complicated

With attention spans dwindling these days, it’s important to keep things simple. It’s important not to make your gamification efforts too complicated or ask too much from your audience. If you do, they are less likely to engage with your brand. You don’t want that. Ensure that your campaign is easy for people to pick up, but challenging enough for them to keep coming back.

Set deadlines and goals for your team

Executing a gamification strategy can be a time consuming and resource-intensive task. If gamification isn’t something your company does regularly, it may be a good idea to outsource this project to a company that specializes in user experience.

Make sure you also set clear expectations, budgets, and timeframes so you can quantify the outcomes of your gamification strategy. Analytics tools provide valuable insights such as how many people have clicked through to your campaign and how long users spend engaging with it. You can even treat this as a lead generation tool simply by asking users to sign up using their email address before they can opt-in.

Don’t be afraid to evolve

Artificial Intelligence and augmented reality are set to become more prominent in marketing, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that gamification is already a staple in many brand's strategies. In order to avoid falling behind, it's important to stay attuned to how new technologies like gamification can be incorporated into your strategy to keep your marketing fresh and your audience stimulated.