GAMIFICATION CAN IMPROVE YOUR MARKETING

Heidi McIvor-Allen - Owner of McIvor Marketing LLC

BY HEIDI MCIVOR ALLEN

Gamification is an exciting and relatively new marketing technique which can help improve user engagement, drive more conversions, and increase sales. Watch your marketing performance skyrocket by adding in this hot new marketing strategy! The expert team at McIvor Marketing is here to partner with you to implement a targeted gamification strategy tailored to your target audience.

“When you change one thing, you have the ability to change EVERYTHING.”

WHAT IS GAMIFICATION?

Gamification is the concept of using game design elements in non-game applications to make them more enticing, engaging, and fun. Gamification offers the perfect opportunity to include friendly competition into your events to drive engagement efforts and boost attendee connection. Leading event management platforms allow for customizable games so event planners can create challenges customized to their brand. And, offering irresistible prizes is a great way to ensure a high level of participation!

BENEFITS OF GAMIFICATION IN A CORPORATE SETTING

Gamification in corporate event training helps make work days more interesting for attendees and helps to avoid the snooze factor. It incentivizes and accelerates learning, encourages social connections, and motivates action in the workplace. One of the best ways gamification can be used in corporate settings is during the onboarding process when new hires seek high levels of engagement . Building relationships among team members is another way to connect attendees through gamification. Using gamification to promote sales performance is a great way to reward top performers and generate friendly competition between employees. Gamification can also be used as a tool to effectively reward employees points for completing tasks and reaching milestones that can then be cashed in for rewards.

BENEFITS OF GAMIFICATION IN DIGITAL MARKETING

There are numerous benefits to gamifying marketing campaigns. This technique, which became popular over a decade ago, has tapped into customer behavior and the need for them to have fun, adventure, and the excitement and instant gratification that comes from winning.

IMPROVE USER ENGAGEMENTS

From waking up to working out, from long drives to quick showers, Spotify
People love to play games as an interactive form of entertainment. Therefore, gamifying content on your website is an effective way to improve engagement among your audience.

Gamification makes it possible to make your campaign both interactive and engaging at the same time. When your target audience sees gamified content on your website, curiosity gets the better of them and they can’t resist clicking on it. When people become aware of your brand, they are more likely to read your marketing emails and blog posts, refer you to their friends, and proceed along the client journey.

SKYROCKETS YOUR CONVERSION RATINGS

When your user engagement increases, your conversion rates should equally increase. With gamification, improved engagement leads to higher conversion rates, if done properly, because playing games hardly feels like marketing to your target audience. Therefore, they are more likely to respond to your call to action than a traditional marketing method.

If you attach rewards to your gamification methods, your audience will be more encouraged to take actions that drive conversion rates. Consider an instance where a user wins a 30% discount from a spin-to-win game on your website. The user won’t see any reason not to proceed to use the discount to make a purchase in your store.
So, if you aren’t using gamification yet, you’re leaving a lot of conversions on the table.

INCREASES BRAND LOYALTY

While getting new customers is good, retaining existing customers is even better! Acquiring new customers can cost five times more than satisfying and retaining current customers. Now that you have valuable loyal customers, the trick is learning how to not only attract but keep them.

Adding gamified content to your website or campaigns is the easiest way to attract and keep loyal customers through brand loyalty gamification strategies. Gamification content works by using gaming integrations to increase engagement with web users. As customers interact with your gamification efforts, they’ll likely be interested enough to continue patronizing your brand. Sometimes, they will even keep coming back just to keep consistent wins.

When customers interact with your gamified content, they get a sense of familiarity with your brand. When they are ready to make a purchase, they are highly likely to opt for your brand due to this feeling of close awareness.

Gamification can also reward your existing customers, thus increasing the chances they’ll become advocates of your brand.

GAMIFICATION IS FUNCTIONAL ACROSS ALL PLATFORMS

Are you wondering if gamified content will reduce the mobile friendliness of your website? Well good news, it will not affect the user experience at all! Gamification is adaptable based on the device being used; therefore, customers can be targeted on both mobile and desktop platforms, to reach a wider audience.

EASY COLLECTION OF CONSUMER DATA

Data helps business owners understand which campaigns are likely to succeed and which ones are not. It also helps them to make the right choices when it comes to marketing strategies. Marketing efforts have a higher chance of succeeding if they are based on data, especially when it’s collected in real time. One of our favorite sayings at McIvor Marketing is “You can’t manage what you don’t measure”. Data analytics is of highest importance among digital markets and business owners should be paying attention.
Easy Collection of Consumer Data - Gamification Blog - McIvor Marketing

And, the means of getting this data is equally important. Data needs to be accurate to be effective. For example, if you’re looking for a way to entice web visitors to provide personal information, try gamifying some aspects of your website. You could ask them to provide their information to have their names on a leaderboard, a badge or even to unlock levels of a game.

You can then use this data for your marketing and business strategy.

IT’S AFFORDABLE

Gamification is a cost-effective marketing strategy. Don’t be misled by the fancy appearance of most gamification elements – they are not as expensive and time consuming as they may look. And, the ROI on gamification is notably high according to Statista.

GAMIFICATION CAMPAIGNS ARE NOT STOPPED BY AD BLOCKERS

Popups are annoying – they are known for interrupting the flow of the user’s web experience. Due to this, a lot of people use ad blockers. According to Statista, in 2019, roughly 25.8% of internet users were blocking advertisements on connected devices.
Gamification Campaigns are not stopped by ad blockers - McIvor Marketing Blog
This typically leads to a limited reach with marketing campaigns and a waste of money for many businesses. Thankfully, gamification campaigns are not affected by ad blockers!

5 BEST PRACTICES FOR IMPLEMENTING GAMIFICATION

To reap the rewards of implementing gamification discussed above, you’ve got to do it right. Below are best practices for implementing gamification that works:

KEEP IT SIMPLE

People associate playing games with fun. You don’t want to turn them away by making the gamified aspects too complex to enjoy. If your audience has to spend more time figuring out how your gamification campaign works than they would spend playing it, they might get frustrated and leave your website forever. To avoid this, keep gamification design as simple as possible.

UNDERSTAND YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

No matter the route you take with your gamification strategy, your target audience should always be your priority. If you don’t target them specifically, you can’t expect to receive positive results.

Research your audience. Factors such as gender, location, and age play a huge role in choosing the gamification strategy that will return positive results. Ask yourself questions like, “what will attract my audience?” and “what do my customers like?”. Using the right techniques will ensure your target audience will be receptive to and readily interact with it, thereby gaining you the engagement and high conversion rates you need.

GIVE REWARDS

If you were offered the chance to win a prize and the process was simple, would you turn it down? Probably not! Offering your visitors a chance to win a reward will make them more likely to interact with your gamification campaign.

If you are new to gamification, you can start by offering small prizes, and once you see the positive return, can start rolling out larger prizes. Make your audience curious about what they can win.

ENCOURAGE USERS TO CHALLENGE THEIR FRIENDS

Add options that allow your audience to invite their friends to play. Apart from making your gamified content more competitive and interactive, you’re also expanding your audience reach. Add buttons where users can share to social media platforms, making it so easy, there is no way they won’t do it.

PROMOTE YOUR GAMIFIED CAMPAIGN

Promote, promote, promote!!


Promotion is key to the success of any marketing endeavor.

If you’re hoping to reach a longer audience with your gamified content, you have to go all out with your promotion. Consider the best way to promote your specific gamified campaign based on your target audience research. Social media marketing is a great way to promote, and be sure to utilize all the platforms! Email marketing is another means you can use to invite your subscribers to participate in your new game.

EXAMPLES OF GAMIFICATION IN SHOPIFY & MARKETING

It’s no surprise Spotify users have spent over 2.3B hours streaming Discover Weekly playlists since the feature’s launch in 2015. Spotify gives listeners a direct connection to where culture is headed (and where it’s been) through editorial playlists, personalized experiences, and more. Some of the most popular Spotify hubs listeners tune include EQUAL, Black History is Now, Pride, and more to experience socially conscious curated content, in addition to their curated playlists. Listeners are twice as likely to view Spotify as “trend-setting” and “enjoyable” than radio and are more likely to pay attention to digital audio, because it’s both culturally and personally relevant. Spotify truly knows how to connect to their listeners in more ways than one.

FALLING GIFT GAME

Falling Gift Game is an innovative technology developed to enable you to gamify your visitor’s browser experience. Typically, less than 30 seconds after a visitor arrives on your site, a popup of the game appears where the visitor is prompted to type in their email address to play.
Falling Gift Game - Gamification Blog - McIvor Marketing

SPIN-TO-WIN COUPON WHEELS

Spin-to-win coupon wheels are another popular form of gamification. This technique rewards users with discounts to the website if they provide an email address. Adding spin-to-win coupon wheels to regular ads like popups, and floating bars add some excitement to a campaign.
Spin-to-Win Coupon Wheel - Gamification Blog - McIvor Marketing

LOYALTY REWARD PROGRAMS

One of the best ways to acknowledge your loyal customers is by starting a loyalty rewards program. Loyalty reward programs are gamified marketing methods that allow a customer to earn points according to the number of purchases they make. This strategy encourages customers to keep buying from the brand. One example of a well-known loyalty reward program is Starbucks:
Loyalty rewards programs - Gamification Blog - McIvor Marketing

DIGITAL BADGES

Digital badges are perhaps the most common type of gamification in digital marketing. Businesses award a digital badge, similar to a digital trophy, to their users as a sign of achievement. Achievement could be finishing a module of a course or making a certain number of purchases. People find it exciting to collect trophies and unlock new levels of challenges.

Badges promote brand loyalty by getting your users to continue coming back to earn more badges. If you decide to go the digital badge gamification route, make sure the badges have an attractive design that appeals to your audience.

Digital Badges - Gamification Blog - McIvor Marketing

HOW MCIVOR MARKETING CAN HELP YOU IMPLEMENT A GAMIFICATION STRATEGY

Whatever gamification strategy you choose, don’t forget that your target audience is your main priority. Here at McIvor Marketing, we know how to track your past data and audience’s characteristics to learn who your core client demographic is. We can analyze your data to ensure your audience has fun interacting with your gamified content. Rewards are good, but the fun that comes with playing a game is equally important – and we can figure out exactly what would be fun for your target audience.

We can implement these gamification techniques onto your website and help you start collecting even more useful customer data. We have skilled promotional experts who can help you promote your new gamification campaign on all social media platforms, through Google or Facebook Ads, and through email marketing. Contact us today to talk about if a gamification marketing strategy is right for your business and your brand.

What Business Services Does McIvor Marketing Offer?

We are so glad you asked! From setups to start-ups, to businesses in growth and transformation, McIvor Marketing specializes in a variety of services to meet your needs. Our Phoenix based digital marketing agency can help with website design & development, logo design, branding, off-line marketing design and strategy, paid search management, social media management, email marketing, display advertising and more! 

Not ready to dive into hiring a full-time marketing director? Maybe you’re just curious about how your marketing is performing. We can help you set up trackable ways to measure your marketing ROI with a project-based digital audit to gauge current performance. We can also help you get your social media advertising portals set up. We also offer training on Google Analytics, Facebook Business Manager, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Canva, as well as how to plan content and brainstorm ideas to help you grow through research.

Check out our full list of services and reach out with any questions. 

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