Different Ways to Empower Marketing Through Gamification

Games have always been able to captivate the human mind, and a smart business is going to find ways to capitalize on that.

For a long time, businesses did things like offer customers a card that had to be marked a number of times, and at the end, the customer would get something free. That won't work anymore, but the concept is very much alive, and the following are some ways a small business can use gamification.

What Exactly is Gamification?

Gamification, in business, takes on a lot of forms. In essence, it combines what makes games addictive with a specific business goal. A game is a voluntary activity that has boundaries even though it isn't too serious. There is always an objective or some kind of reward.

Sometimes, the shopping process can be set up like a game. For example, a business can use a progress bar whenever someone is attempting to purchase something, and the finish line is the actual order placement. It may not seem like a big deal, but people are naturally interested in finishing a game, which makes this work.

This is the reason more companies are investing in creating gamified website marketing funnels.

How are Businesses Implementing Gamification?

Businesses can implement games in a number of ways. The reality is that there are no real guidelines. If a business can make something work, then there is nothing wrong with that. Still, the following are some tips that may help guide businesses in the right direction:

Relate Marketing Goals

The only way to ensure that gamification of your website is effective is to identify your goals and success metrics. You want to make sure you understand your audience.

This can be identified by collecting data from customers, platforms, and analyzing it. Once you've gathered all the information, then you can develop a customer engagement plan to help improve sales. This part gets a little specific, so it's important that you are open to the gamification suggested by professionals.

Understanding Your Audience

The next thing you have to worry about is figuring out who your audience is. To do this, you'll have to work on developing a profile of your customers. You want to be able to answer questions about your customers and know the kind of games they might be interested in.

You want to know what kind of things your audience might be receptive to. Answering these types of questions can help you create a site that might be more engaging. If you think your audience has a common problem, then you can create a game that helps solve this problem, which can help them purchase your products or services.

Start Small Then Grow

If your business hasn't tried gamification before, then it might be a good idea to start small. Try to see where your audience is by testing them out. Introduce smaller games, like simple quizzes that your customers can take.

These tasks could be tallied up, and you can post percentages on your page. People like to see results of quizzes or polls, which could be rewarding. Try to use the data gathered from responses to develop the rest of your site.

Really Think About the Freebies

It's important to think about what you are willing to offer your customers. The gift or the incentive is going to play a big part in this marketing strategy. Now, not all gamification strategies have to contain a reward in the traditional sense, but if you are going to go down this road, it's important that you offer customers a real gift.

Think about what your customers come to your site for, and think about an incentive that would not only motivate them but feels a part of your brand. Maybe you can offer a free consultation or perhaps a gift basket with a few samples of your product. You can test out a few possibilities with a smaller group of customers to see which idea works best.

Don't Complicate the Game

If there is one thing businesses try to do, it is to be clever. This makes sense because there are a lot of online businesses like yours attempting to gain customers. Finding ways to stand out or be clever may sound great but not when it comes to games. It is in your best interest to make sure you keep an eye on how complicated or clever your game is going to be.

A game that is too complicated or hard will likely drive away customers, which could jeopardize the success of the gamification. A complicated game is harder to have fun with, and one essential factor needed to improve the chances of a good gamification marketing plan is your customers having fun with the new marketing concept. No one is saying you can't do something unique; just make sure the uniqueness comes from your brand rather than the game itself.

Marketing uses a number of tools to improve its customer services and customer engagement. This is just the newest example that is fun to do for your customers because all you are trying to do is make the experience more entertaining for them. It's important that you hire a team to help you bring your ideas to fruition after careful analytics is performed on your site.