A Step by Step Guide to Gamification Marketing
There is no better way to learn and stimulate a thought process than through interaction. Interaction can be in various forms – socially or technologically. By “technologically”, we mean interaction such as quizzes or games on a smart device.
For the purpose of this article, where were hope to showcase the importance of and steps involved in running gamification marketing, in a bid to raise the game of your business and promote user engagement on your app. To begin with, you need to understand the concept of gamification.
What is Gamification about?
It is an idea that deals with making your customers advanced users of your mobile app – if you have one, of course. Gamification is simply the act of adding gaming elements to a non-gaming activity. It is a creative way to get your customers more involved with your product and/or services, and it is a healthy way of projecting the fun side of your brand to them while retaining all the characteristics that make your business what it is.
Recently, more marketers are taking note of the effectiveness of gamification, and they are leveraging it on newer levels to maximize this effectiveness. So, how exactly do you go about gamification marketing? How do you apply it to your own business effectively?
Identify your goal and target audience
This is the obvious way to start any marketing strategy/campaign. There is no way that you can develop a message or an idea effectively when you do not have enough knowledge about the users that your campaign is targeting.
Apart from identifying the target audience, your campaign should also have a purpose. What is the reason behind your decision to run that campaign, and what do you hope to achieve from it? Are you trying to get your customers to be more engaged with your social media content? Are you trying to increase the level of your business’ customer retention? Are you trying to improve user engagement on your app? There should be a purpose. A goal. It will help you to assess the success of your campaign while it is running, and when/if it ends.
Make it look appealing
When you develop the idea for your gamification campaign, the next thing to focus on is making it as appealing as possible to your target audience. You may have great content, bit if your approach is not creative or appealing, it will not be as effective as you may want.
To put it into perspective, take, for example, a company that wants to build a game. The content of the game is good enough, maybe the entire concept is a new one too. However, if the company fails to pay attention to the visual aspect of the game, believing that the content is enough to make it succeed, they may be in for a big surprise.
For one, people mostly only share content that looks good to them, and if they do not find your game appealing visually, they may not put in the effort. This does not mean that you should come up with an elaborate design. A simple design is fine, as long as it is visually appealing. This applies to other types of applications too.
Take advantage of trends
A great way to get people to notice your campaign is by tailoring it to current trends. Review running trends and choose one that is suitable for what you are trying to promote. This way, people that are following these trends will take notice of your campaign, and will be intrigued by it.
Take, for example, running an Easter egg hunt on your app during the Easter season. You could hide “Easter eggs” on strategic places all over your app and challenge your users to find them. It is a gamification strategy and a great way to improve user engagement.
Build a team
Do not attempt to run your campaign all on your own. Sure, the original idea may come from you, but you need the help of other people to execute it. Build a team and assign tasks to each member.
There will be a number of activities for each person to handle, and you can choose team members from different areas such as content management, marketing, social media management, app development and product management. You do not have to choose all these people, but build a team of specialists in all the areas where you will need them.
Avoid making too many errors
Nobody is perfect, and you are bound to notice a few things that could have been handled better, whether during or after your campaign. It is perfectly normal. However, you should try not to make avoidable errors, and the only way to achieve this is through careful planning and structured quality assurance processes built into your workflows.
There is no concrete “rulebook” guiding how to create the perfect gamification campaign. However, this guide should set you off on a good note, and with time, you will make improvements in consequent campaigns. For more insight into the topic, you can reach out to us at any time.
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