How Marketing Gamification Can Ace Your Marketing Game
Gamification is the usage of game mechanisms for non-gaming activities and contexts. In this article, you'll find out how gamification can boost up your marketing activities to the next level: how to use games in marketing, what are reasons to change marketing, examples, and checklist to use gamification successfully.
Marketing is the crux of every business, and the marketing methods are the tools that help enhance the outreach radius. To target and attract quality traffic towards your business, you need to create highly interactive content. And these days, one of the primary ways to market content is through gamification.
Gamification is a great method through which you can spread brand awareness and build customer loyalty. Moreover, integrating gamification in marketing can give your competitors a cut-throat competition.
What are the latest trends in gamification in marketing?
If we talk about the trend of gamification, many businesses are fostering the power of gamification to engage their customers. As per Marketsandmarkets, the Gamification market is expected to go up to USD 30.7 billion by 2025.
This is a really big number, and there is no one type of game that you can make. Gamification can vary based on the niche of your business. Here are some of the best examples that will explain how trending gamification is.
So what is gamification and how does it work?
Gamification is not exactly about games. It means undertaking such marketing methods that allow your brand to connect with the people in a meaningful way.
For example, by developing an e-learning website. You can create quizzes for students that reward them with money or other exciting prizes.
Well, if you are playing a game and you win, you feel delighted. In this scenario, if we introduce a variable of rewards. Users who are used to winning the game will definitely play. And moreover, they will play it more than before as they are winning rewards.
This way, brands can give their users the reason to interact with their content through gaming as a part of the customer journey. And as long as you are able to satisfy that emotion of winning for the users, you will always be ahead in the competition.
Best marketing gamification examples
This is a great method to make people aware of your brand by sending them targeted emails.
1. McDonald’s (MCD) Elections
No matter if you eat junk food or not, everyone has heard about McDonald’s. But, you may not have heard what’s coming next! The Malaysian McDonald’s took its sales revenue to the zenith by organizing a meal election.
What they did was, for every meal the customer ordered, the customer was asked to vote for their favorite among the four burgers on the menu. To make their favorite burger win the title of Malaysia’s favorite McDonald’s meal, customers ordered meals. And this election gave a perfect sales booster to McDonald’s.
2. DuoLingo
Duolingo is also another example of gamification in marketing. The app helps its users learn different languages and also provides a paid text translation platform. It awards users with skill points and time bonuses on completing their work on time.
It also keeps a record of performance and provides them timely feedback. DuoLingo is one of the best examples of gamification in education.
7 steps to begin incorporating gamification in marketing
Impressed by the idea of gamification? Well, if you have made up your mind to incorporate gamification into marketing. Here are some of the crucial things that you need to consider and work upon.
1. Know your audience
Knowing your audience is the number one goal. Gather information related to user demographics on your website like,
- What they bought
- What they are looking for
- Age
- Interest
- Location
After you have a clear idea about all these factors, then only develop the game that will suit the best.
2. Research different types of games
Games are not just like you ask them to play and give them rewards. You need to research about different types of games that most of the users play these days. This will not only help you attract the maximum audience but will also help you give an edge over your competitors.
3. Games must connect with your brand niche
Your brand and your game should go hand in hand. For example, if you have a business of spectacles and lenses, develop a game or app that lets users try frames on it. It will save the user’s time for visiting the store and boost your revenue.
4. Let the goals be known, for you and the users both
Make your marketing through gamification completely transparent. Tell the user what they will get and what they have to do. For example, some android games provide coin bonuses for watching ads. The user and player exactly know what is going to happen. This helps in building trust. Avoid including a long set of rules in the game; keep it simple.
5. Inspire social competition
The best way to fire up the competition is to take your game to social media. Social media websites and apps like Instagram and Facebook are the hotspots of marketing. Hence, they are the best places for you to organize a gaming competition.
6. Add deadlines
Adding deadlines to your gamification task will spark-up the competition and will lead to faster results for you. It will also increase user participation.
What are the various benefits of gamification in marketing?
Gamification can turn the tables for you by:
- Boosting customer engagement
- Yielding high ROI
- Building brand value
- Broadening outreach radius
- Building customer loyalty
- Increasing your website browsing time.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, we can say that gamification is one of the best and engaging ways to market your business. Apart from online game hosting, you can also look into in-store gamification. It is also an innovative way to boost your sales and revenue. Through large interactive touchscreens and digital signages, you can engage your customers and market your product. Lastly, you need to take care of certain factors that govern the success of your gamification in marketing.