Gamification in Marketing: Why and How?

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Our whole life is a game. Those who understood this simple truth must have developed their own rules long ago, making everything around them simpler and more exciting. Marketers, for example, applied this decades ago. When monotonous and annoying advertising stopped working, and boring field research cost a pretty penny, it was necessary to look for new sources of collecting information and reduce the cost of attracting new customers. And then games and gamification came to the rescue!

Gamification is the use of game elements in non-game areas. We will focus on their implementation in marketing, but games are widely used for training, team building, finding new ideas, collecting information, increasing motivation and productivity within a company. The potential of the method is enormous, especially in the era of digital and social networks. You just need to set the right goals, decide on the form and turn on your imagination.

Gamification – Why is it Important in Marketing?   
The game method of learning and obtaining new information is not only effective, but also extremely exciting. Gamification in marketing allows you to involve more representatives of the target audience, associate the brand with something non-standard and fun, achieve a high level of recognition and discussion (virality). Moreover, it remains a powerful tool for forming and strengthening loyalty.

Today, many companies can afford to use game elements in PR campaigns. Gamification is even easier and cheaper with the spread of social networks. The standard prize draw for a repost from store N is a bright and simple example. As a result, the company can choose the most suitable project in terms of funds, scale and degree of involvement, while getting impressive results.

Finally, the implementation of such strategies is necessary in on page seo service modern realities. Representatives of Generation Y (millennials) are people “raised” by TV, video games, music videos and mobile applications. It is difficult to surprise them, and a regular advertising message in their eyes is boring, an attempt to foist off another piece of junk. Today's generation of consumers is tolerant of diversity, self-expression, craves originality, interaction. It is impossible to compete successfully without keeping up with trends, and therefore, gamification should become part of your marketing strategy.  What is needed for this and what is the best way to organize everything? Let's look at some examples!




Gamification in Marketing: Examples  
Let’s look at some of the most famous examples of gamification, starting with loyalty programs. Starbucks’ “My Starbucks Rewards” campaign was aimed at increasing sales and strengthening customer loyalty to the brand. The idea behind the campaign was simple: collect stars in a specific app for every purchase at Starbucks. There were 3 levels of customer loyalty, and according to each level, coffee lovers could receive different rewards: from a free cup of coffee to a customized product in a Starbucks store.

My-Starbucks-Rewards-gamification
Another interesting example of gamification in marketing was offered by Victoria's Secret. Their PINK Nation app offers customers fun games with rewards such as discounts in online and offline stores, gifts, free shipping, and branded stickers and wallpapers for smartphones. For example, one of the games, dedicated to spring break, offered its users to participate in this interactive activity: find the letters P, I, N, and K in Victoria's Secret retail and online stores. This campaign significantly increased website traffic and increased the number of visitors to the stores. The company still uses gamification to its fullest extent.

gamification examples
Finally, sometimes gamification helps create an unusual product that can literally become valuable to the consumer. All you need is to think about what elements and features of the game can diversify a particular product. A good example is Habitica, a task planner whose core mechanics copy the leveling mechanics of RPG video games. By achieving daily goals, you improve your character’s “skills” and open up new interesting opportunities. There is also a business version for tracking your colleagues’ successes.

gamification examples
Rules of gamification   
So, what are the requirements of gamification and how can it be implemented in the best possible way?

1. Define goals and target audience

No marketing campaign can do without a planning stage. And, as a rule, for such serious implementations as gamification, the company must conduct a survey and identify compelling reasons during the analysis. That is, perhaps the brand lacks recognition, competitors are more active in social networks, a new product will soon enter the market, it is important to increase sales and conversion - in all the above cases, gamification is an excellent tool.

By limiting the goals and objectives, we can define the target audience. Having clearly defined it, we will clearly get rid of unnecessary problems in searching for a concept.

2. Think about motivation

gamification practices
A game is meaningless without a goal (such as winning) or a certain value that the consumer (the "player") expects. Users must be motivated to interact. Based on your budget, goals, and target audience, you can determine the game format that is right for your company (a humorous test, a contest, a flash game, a funny photo editor, etc.).

Having analyzed these factors, it is easier to form motivation – what we are going to use to entice and delight users. This is not necessarily a material prize. The race for ratings, bonus content or special benefits when using the product (for example, free or early access to the program) also work great.

3. Simplicity and thoughtful design  

The success of any game is determined by the time spent learning its key mechanics. Fun quizzes with answers are built on a very simple rule: you answer a series of questions - you get a funny result with recommendations from a certain brand. A full-fledged mini-game is much more difficult to develop, but can offer more exciting mechanics.