GAMIFICATION: Marketing for to Motivate, fun and Loyalty

Hello friends!

Some of You will ask this is the Gamification, The Gamification is the use of games in non-recreational environments in order to maximize the motivation, effort, fun and loyalty as well as other values.

Today we are surrounded by communities in social networks, websites and other digital media, but it is often difficult to keep up or stimulate activity and interaction of the members of that community, from here we can guarantee that gamification is the activity which provides greater interaction and user involvement with the brand, product or service.

We are hooked to the games, or what the millions Candy Crush players would say

The gamification has become an important tool for different areas such as Digital Marketing, Training, Customer Experience, or plans of productivity in the company, because it offers interesting qualities:

• Engagement
• To improve the user experience (UX)
• To incite interaction and activity
• Loyalty

 

The spinal column of gamification is composed of mechanics and dynamics that are a fundamental part of the objective of the games.

 

Mechanics

 Points

This is about assigning a value to an action in the game. To get  and accumulate points motivate us and that´s why we get hooked on the game all the time. They can also be used to change the level or status, receive gifts…users love winning something.

Levels and rankings

The levels are the steps by which you progress through the game as you go getting points, this engine gives users recognition and respect motivating them to get activity, interaction and loyalty. With rankings to finish the game we get the competitive level of the user who wants to be the first. This gives the desire or aspiration of every human, to get fame, recognition and so on.

Missions and challenges

The missions or challenges looking to make the user feel that the game has a purpose or an ultimate goal, and we can create competitions between communities or rivals making the game more interesting and interactive.

Awards

These are targets that users seek with the game may be virtual (trophies, medals) or physical (invitations, discounts …) and the purpose is to obtain recognition of the winner and feed the motivation of other players.

The dynamics are those human needs that motivate us, as the status, achievement, reward… the gamification offers use these dynamics covering any area or activity.

Dynamics

Status and Achievements

Achievements satisfy us, who doesn’t feel happy after getting pass any test or standard that has cost us through «sweat and tears“. Status gives us recognition and prestige that we got with the achievements, and at the same time most people need to engage with what gives us that prestige.

Competition and Reward

The competition is a motivating element for anyone and the rivals are feeding performance and after getting some achievement, which is what we want, reward is the benefit that we earn after getting achievements, to win competitions and so on.

More dynamics such as altruism or self-expression which they are important and that the gamification gives us.

More Info: WIKIPEDIA

What does it contribute the marketing?

As I have mentioned earlier, the gamification, provides very dynamic associated with Marketing as the engagement, loyalty, the interactions are very important in providing products or brands. This is another technical to achieve our goals in our marketing strategies.

Another possibility for the Inbound Marketing becoming a powerful tool in managing customer care, content creation, stimulation of social networks …

There are currently many Marketing teams, Communication and HR of major companies and different sectors, who have used and continue using gamification in their business and internal strategies, such as Google, Nike, Siemens, Correos (mail Spain), Volkswagen, Toyota, Coca Cola, Mc Donald’s, Heineken…

Here an example of gamification, Coca Cola, invite you to dance and get your favorite drink.

 

What does it contribute a company?

In a company we can offer depending on the utility that you want to give and focuses on two objectives:

• Impact Plan for our Customers, which would be more focused on marketing and sales.
• Impact design a plan for our Employees, which would be more focused on human resources.

Customers

The purpose of using with our customers and get more conversions and sales, which element is the customer loyalty, rather than being passive customers and becoming motivated and linked with our brand or product customers.

The goal of gamification is that our customers through the game, to feel part and feel they are in control, as they feel more responsive and confident throughout the game. With this we obtain our goals, leading them towards our goals as a company.

If our customers are involved with the game and gives them value and entertainment, will be responsible for spreading our brand, through play, family, friends, colleagues, social networks …. becoming ambassadors of our brand and creating a viral effect with our product.

Finally, it gives us vital information for our marketing strategies, knowledge of our customers.

Employees

If gamification is used to motivate and engage customers, in the same way, it serves for employees of a company.

For a company it is important that employees identify themselves with the values ​​of the organization and are motivated in performing their duties. A good strategy gamification, taking into account the profile of employees and availability, break the routine of the internal procedures and will be a welcomed initiative.

Gamification strategies in employees can be done individually or in groups, which gets a very positive inter-departmental union for companies.

Finally, it has created a new branch called gamification, Gamification of behavior that focuses on improving employee motivation, and expanded to improve certain skills such as collaborative portals that promote ideas to improve a particular process of the company. Employees are called to contribute ideas and they are rewarded with trophies or awards that are posted on these portals or intranet.

In short, the gamification will get motivation, competitiveness and good cheer of employees contributing to business involvement and commitment. At the same time the Department. HR takes on a deeper knowledge of the characteristics of employees in terms of competitiveness, effort, commitment, ambition, teamwork ….

Another Success cases

The Speed Camera Lottery: another initiative that was launched by Volkswagen and the National Road Safety Agency of Sweden in Stockholm. The radar system warning you of speed and it takes a photo of your license plate, only that in addition to fine those who exceed the speed limit, it rewards those who don’t. Those who respect the limit became part of a lottery in which you could play all the money collected by fines from speeding.

The initiative was a success and got to change the vials habits of the citizens of Stockholm, making the average speed in the capital passed from 32 to 25 km/h.

 

Bottle Bank Arcade : Finally another initiative that was launched by Volkswagen with their proyect which was called The Fun Theory.

They are trying to find a creative way to make people recycle and care about the environment while «having fun». The ad is definitely motivating people to participate in the experiment and recycle bottle in the Arcade machine. However in the long run I do not believe this ad will significantly improve the rate of people recycling their bottles because eventually they will get tired of the machine. In addition the whole idea of environmental consciousness is separated from the brand of Volkswagen.

So; Is the gamification interesting for you? Would you apply to your company or business? I’m sure.

I hope you liked this post and will encourage further research in this trend ….

Thank you very much for your attention.

Greetings and a hug,

Nacho.