
Gamification is generally defined as a strategy that uses game mechanics in a non-gaming context to boost your conversion rates. It is one of the most used strategies across the digital marketing industry.
If you are to use a game in your marketing campaign, your game will be accessible to almost everyone at this age. A well-designed game will be a source of fun and entertainment for your customers. Also, games attract more attention to your website and your product.
There are two basic dynamics making gamification work – challenges and rewards. People generally love to compete and solve the problems given to them. It is in our nature to handle this type of task.
Moreover, rewarding them is also of high importance. This can be accomplished by either in-game rewards or external rewards; such as discounts. If people are to get a badge or level up after completing a task, they will be more likely to spend more time on the game.
Gamification, like everything else, has pros and cons in marketing. If we are to list advantages first, most well known are;
However, you should also keep in mind that making a game has cons for your brand. Some of them are;
There are ways to refrain from these disadvantages. For example, one of the ways to refrain from the latter problem is to use the wheel popup brought to you by Popupsmart. Instead of spending your money and time on a designing project, you can effortlessly integrate this popup into your site.
Back in 2013, M&M launched pretzel-flavored candy. They have modified a pre-existing game which has been quite famous and played by many – “Where is Waldo?”. They posted an image containing a pretzel guy on their Facebook page.
The number of likes, shares, and comments of this simple, almost costless idea can be considered high. The original post is still up if you want to check it out.
As a new take on 2D Mario Games, Magnum launched a game called “Pleasure Hunt” in 2011. In this game, you control a character named “Magnum Woman” and your goal is to collect chocolates throughout the internet. You can visit a number of different sites such as YouTube and Samsung.
After you finished the hunt, you could share the score you got with your friends via social media platforms. The results were awesome. In just five days, the site got 725 thousand unique visitors. The Magnum URL was the most shared URL on Twitter.
The average time spent on the site was eight and a half minutes. This is without a doubt one of the best examples of gamification in marketing.
Starbucks incorporated your real-life purchases into a gamification method. It is a great way for Starbucks to ensure customer engagement and increase customer loyalty. Every purchase means stars for Starbucks Rewards members.
With these stars, customers can receive free food or drinks. As you get more stars, you get to reach gold status and you can have the best rewards. This is a method that makes customers loyal to the company via the rewards they get for being loyal.
Related Terms