From childhood on, games spark people’s attention and excitement. The sheer act of playing any game can bring back exciting memories with family and friends, and break up the monotony of daily routines.
In the professional world, gamification has the power to both engage people in the short term and forge a deeper connection to a brand. Because gamification can take numerous forms, though, the possibilities are endless. One wrong turn, and you can confuse or frustrate customers instead of intriguing and motivating them.
In this guide, we’ll look at what gamification is, how we’re hardwired to play, how companies successfully implement their strategies, and how you can do it too.
Note: The brands discussed below were found during our online research for this article.
What is gamification?
Gamification refers to the art of changing customer behavior via game design. By turning undesirable tasks into a game, you instill loyalty through a positive and, ultimately, rewarding customer experience.
Companies in any industry can use gamification to make processes more efficient and engaging. For instance, HR might implement it to speed up the onboarding process for new hires. A sales department might use it to spark competition and improve quotas.
But some of the most dramatic success stories are in marketing, particularly digital marketing and e-commerce. These campaigns often introduce simple hooks and incentives, tapping into people’s desire to block out distractions and focus on strategy.
Gamification in retail is not the only way to fully engage a customer, but it can be a powerful tool to start interactions off on the right foot and give existing customers a reason for sticking with the brand. A fully engaged customer amounts to around a 23% profit premium, while a disengaged customer is equivalent to a 13% discount. These are powerful numbers when multiplied across the board.
When gamification is proven to hold people’s attention in a competitive market, few brands can afford to ignore its benefits.
The evolution of gamification in the context of business
Gamification in business evolved alongside everything from technology to customer preferences. We’ll look at how business owners used the concepts historically, and how it’s changed to fit the sensibilities of today’s consumers.
How gamification gained traction
Gamification has been on the rise for centuries, even if business owners may not have called it that. You can track the first known customer loyalty program back to the 1700s. Repeat customers have long appreciated getting rewarded for their loyalty, and they’re usually happy to adjust their behavior for a few extra incentives.
In 1793, a New Hampshire merchant handed out copper coins for loyal customers to collect and use for future purchases. By the 1800s, copper coins were largely replaced by stamps. At the turn of the 20th century, the biggest manufacturers devised custom, collectible boxtops to entice repeat purchases.
In the 1980s, we saw the blueprint of our modern gamification strategies, with airlines offering free miles to build more reliable customer bases. Gamification gained traction because marketers and merchants alike could trace a straight line from implementation to heftier bottom lines. In addition, they noticed the positive reactions of customers who enjoyed the game.
Its initial impact on businesses
Merchants may have originally implemented gamification without the R&D to back up their decisions, but the subsequent statistics back up their instincts. In the past several hundred years, there have been endless iterations of the idea, leading to modern-day campaigns, such as the wildly successful McDonald’s Monopoly.
While hard customer data for these (often) limited-time campaigns goes largely unpublished, programs like Betty Crocker Coupons continue to be studied from both economic and emotional angles. This program highlights that customers may be initially motivated by the rewards but, over time, they develop a much stronger devotion to the brand.
In the case of Betty Crocker, the company became beloved for its daily integration into home life and habits. People with an emotional attachment to a brand are 52% more valuable than those without.
How brands use it today
Today, marketers continuously adapt the gamification market for customers who are on the go and on their phones, but the overall fundamentals remain the same.
Before designing the game, marketers must first determine what motivates the customer. For example, the LinkedIn app features a progress bar to motivate users to finish their profiles. Professionals log in and see they only have a step or two to go before they can check it off their to-do list.
Brands like Starbucks and Nike introduced innovative gamification programs that constantly ebb and flow with their brand. Starbucks might offer additional bonus points to try a new menu item, or Nike might introduce a contest that challenges people to stretch more before their workouts.
How does gamification work?
Gamification incorporates multiple engaging game elements into your marketing:
- Rewards: Gamification provides an incentive, whether it’s a free coffee or a free car at the end of the rainbow. People will take extra steps to maximize their rewards, making it the key driver in any successful strategy.
- Competition: People like to win, even if it’s a low-stakes friendly contest. Gamification ideally taps into people’s healthy competitive side, giving them just enough of a boost to go the extra mile.
- Achievement: Unlocking rewards is the ultimate payoff for both existing and new customers. Whether that’s winning, getting to the next level, or scoring a free hotel room, the achievement is directly tied to engagement.
While the term gamification is largely associated with technology, it refers to a concept as old as time. Gamification triggers the chemical release of dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins, all of which prompt the brain to stick with the activity. These are the same chemicals that give us tunnel vision, and they can be harnessed (in moderation) to keep customers tuned into your brand.
Ideally, your customers should be intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated. This way, their actions are tied to their own desires, rather than a friend or a community board insistence. Just remember that extrinsic motivation can quickly turn into intrinsic motivation.
For example, a customer may originally find a game after hearing about it through their sister but gradually develop brand loyalty because they genuinely enjoy the user experience you’ve created. The longer you can keep that quality interaction going, the more devoted the customer is likely to be.
Can gamification drive better customer engagement rates?
Gamification has the power to draw customers in on a basic level. From there, you can stretch its engagement benefits for long-term gains. Here, we look at exactly how that breaks down across the spectrum.
Customer retention
Gamification engages customers, which in turn, sets up repeat interactions. Around 75% of customers favor a brand with a loyalty program, and 60% of customers purchase more frequently from their preferred companies.
Brands like Sephora, LEGO, and Barnes & Noble all implement gamification in loyalty programs for growth hacking and to keep people coming back to their brand. Sephora’s Beauty Insider Community alone boasts more than 30 million members.
User interaction
Gamification elements like challenges and leaderboards encourage people to interact with one another and the brand. For example, a marketer might post which users advanced to the next bracket in a competition.
FourSquare is famous for encouraging its users with coins, badges, and boards, and using clever titles to single out those who put in more effort. This brings people back to the digital asset again and again to share information and opinions. The company’s revenue stood at over $100 million in 2020.
Brand perception
Gamification strategies can alter consumer perception of a brand, which can lead to better engagement and brand loyalty rates. Brands that may have appeared old-fashioned to consumers before can successfully pivot when they use innovative and customer-centric strategies.
So, if you’ve already run several unsuccessful marketing campaigns promoting the product’s low pricing, you could pivot to a gamification strategy that offers people badges to sign up, complete a survey, or make a purchase. These elements place more emphasis on the customer, which may help them pay more attention to the product’s pricing.
Digital vs. physical asset testing
When you leverage your physical and digital assets, you offer your customers more value without investing more money into the project. Use landing pages to explain the game, virtual badges as goals to work toward, and reward counters for easy ways to track progression.
You can also make use of in-store kiosks, physical loyalty cards, and coupons to extend the game into the physical world. These assets engage customers outside of a screen, which can be a memorable experience when so many of our interactions are virtual.
When integrating digital or physical assets, you can use A/B testing to track engagement, feedback, and conversions. For example, you might limit customers to either a physical or virtual loyalty card and then track the demographics and conversion rates of each option.
If you’re looking for a way to bridge the physical and the virtual, Bitly’s product suite can help. With handy QR Codes, branded links, and Analytics, you can launch and track your gamification ideas and monitor their success.
What are the core elements of a gamification strategy?
A gamification strategy is fairly simple at its core: marketers set up a task, create the terms, and then provide an incentive for successful completion. This straightforward equation is fairly fluid though, so it’s important to master the elements.
Point systems
Points are simple and sustainable, and they’re known for driving customer engagement. Typically, for every purchase the customer makes, they receive a certain amount of points in return. The number of points and their value will vary based on the type of business, but the general earning structure will be familiar to most customers.
In some point systems, customers earn points without a purchase. For example, American Express offers points to customers who open bank accounts, which can then be redeemed for cash, hotel stays, airline tickets, etc. Regardless of industry, the points need to offer real value to customers.
Badges and achievement icons
Both badges and achievement icons recognize the milestones and achievements of customers. These visual rewards are the byproduct of people’s effort, time, and (often) money, so it’s important to issue them with care. In other words, a virtual badge isn’t worth much if everyone gets one.
The best way to use badges and icons is to customize them based on your brand identity. For example, if you market environmentally friendly products, you might issue tree-themed badges. These little touches aren’t just a big part of your brand consistency; they often honor and reinforce the very value that attracted the customer to the brand in the first place.
Leaderboards
Leaderboards measure people against one another, introducing everything from competition to social recognition into your gamification strategy. They’re often particularly useful if you already have high rates of engagement because the inherent interest of the hardcore users creates a domino effect for casual customers.
The downside of leaderboards is that they can create a negative experience for those who aren’t as competitive. To appeal to both demographics, you might set up a tiered competition or you might offer a more casual loyalty program (that isn’t fueled by winning).
Quests or milestone challenges
Quests or milestone challenges set up more obstacles than straight purchases for points, but they can also be more rewarding. Marketers can not only infuse stories into their games, setting up brand-related narratives, but they can highlight some of the best features of the customer’s relationship with the company.
For example, you might design a virtual scavenger hunt where people need to find certain items across your website. If you make some assets harder to find and increase the rewards accordingly, you give customers an extra incentive to check out your pages. Not only is the customer apt to learn about the brand in the process, but they’ll associate the thrill of the hunt with your company.
Progress indicators
Real-time feedback and progress indicators keep customers informed and motivated. They can check whenever and wherever they want, so they can strategize their next steps. (Plus, it cuts back on unnecessary questions from customers who want to see how far they’ve come.)
There are also real psychological benefits when customers assess their progress. Every time the counter increases or the bar progresses, it represents the payoff of their efforts, so it’s rewarding to see it. From leaderboards to reward trackers to point banks, there are numerous tools that clearly display the customer’s status and provide motivation to keep going.
A step-by-step guide on how to build a gamified strategy for better customer engagement
The best gamification strategies cover numerous bases, and each one is a stepping stone to long-term customer loyalty. Before you develop your ground rules, keep the following in mind.
1. Identify your engagement goals
SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals are critical when designing any marketing campaign. With gamification, start with user data to determine what makes the most sense for your brand.
For example, if you were launching a loyalty program to encourage app signups, you might set a goal for 500 new profiles in two months based on your current social media following. Keep in mind that business goals will always be estimates, so it’s important to leave some leeway. You can always adjust your figures in the next campaign.
2. Consider your audience’s behaviors
A target audience’s preferences, expectations, and motivations will vary from demographic to demographic, so you’ll need to gather as much information as possible before designing the game.
So, if you have a mostly younger clientele, they may be motivated by discounts, while an older demographic may be driven by early access to limited-edition items. No matter what’s causing your customers to sign up and stick with the program, you should have a general idea of what keeps them coming back and then integrate it into the gamified elements.
3. Design engaging game mechanics
You can think of game mechanics as the vehicle for engagement. The better the design, the more compelling it will be for the customer. Too simple, and the customer may assume it’s an amateur operation. Too complex, and the customer may become confused, frustrated, or bored halfway through.
Whether you’re designing the points, challenges, or levels, the visuals and rewards should align with your business objectives and users’ interests. For example, if you’re catering to an older demographic, you don’t necessarily need a splashy interface with silly characters to gamify your system. It can be as simple as three reward tiers with memorable objectives.
4. Consider technology or platform requirements
Whether you’re gamifying an app or website, the platform and tech stack will affect customer perception. The technology should be both adaptable and responsive, regardless of how customers access it.
We recommend using automation and analytics to make it easier to issue rewards, track engagement, and adjust your strategy. For example, you might use predictive analytics to tailor customer rewards based on previous buying habits.
There are numerous gamification platforms available, though in some cases, you may need to start from scratch. If you’re planning a complex quest game, an in-house IT department may be able to craft the right parameters.
5. Launch your gamification strategy
Launching a gamification strategy is more than just posting a link on social. Before you go live, you’ll need to beta test the user journey to spot potential bugs, gather feedback on the flow, and brainstorm how to introduce the games to your audience.
As you and your testers QC, pay close attention to how people react to different features. A single lackluster reward or overly complex rule can make or break the experience. For example, if several people feel the sign-up process is too time-consuming, you can look for ways to streamline the customer experience before you launch.
6. Monitor, analyze, and iterate
Gamification is often an ongoing process, so you’ll need to monitor, analyze, and iterate campaigns to keep customers engaged. Whether it’s boring challenges, insufficient rewards, or a frustrating user interface, the data often reveals where your games could use some adjustment.
Investing in quality monitoring and analytics tools is the best way to understand how your customers respond to the games in real time. For example, you can use brand-mention alerts to see real-time customer conversations across platforms from Facebook to Reddit.
Just keep in mind that this is an ongoing project. Even the most popular games require monitoring and iteration to keep content and rewards fresh.
Examples of successful gamification strategies that drive customer engagement
Gamification strategies are everywhere today, thanks largely to their undeniable results. Here, we look at the best tactics across industries and sectors, why they worked, and how to apply different elements of the campaigns to suit your company’s needs.
Retail and e-commerce platforms
Retail and e-commerce platforms of every variety largely introduce gamification to improve engagement and sales. For example, the mattress company Casper posted rebus puzzles alongside its logo on New York subways to improve brand awareness. With nothing else in the ad besides a puzzle and a logo, it instantly piqued curiosity among the brand’s core demographic.
Sephora’s Beauty Insider Program famously issues points for every purchase, which can be used for products or experiences, such as trial-sized products or makeovers. These freebies are enough for millions of people to keep racking up points at the store or on the website.
Interactive discovery games, limited-time challenges, and reward points can stimulate anything from exhilaration to FOMO. For example, you might hold a flash sale for new products for people only at the top echelon of your loyalty program. Or you might use 2D Barcodes on consumer packaged goods (CPG) to advertise the campaign and provide an easy bridge from the physical product to the virtual game.
Educational platforms
Physical and virtual games are everywhere, and kids from all backgrounds love to test their skills. It’s only natural to see gamification cross over into edtech.
Quizzes, badges, and leaderboards are popular gamification elements that turn dry lessons into thrilling sessions. For example, Alleyoop personalizes its videos and missions to make math more fun, fight math anxiety, and boost student performance.
Plus, gamification is just as effective after elementary or even high school. An MBA created Beat the GMAT and introduced it via game mechanics. The exciting badges and leaderboard helped increase page visits by 195% and time on site by 370%.
Fitness apps
There’s been a major push for gamification in health and fitness initiatives, because it can lead to healthier habits and better quality of life. Health insurance companies, government initiatives, and tech startups alike issue points, financial incentives, and limited-time challenges to motivate people to make smarter health choices.
Pokémon GO was arguably the most famous fitness app, with millions putting in the steps to find virtual surprises and earn rewards. On Fit for Bucks, members earn freebies from local retailers after hitting a certain number of steps. Both apps illustrate the importance of finding a new angle on an old exercise.
Corporate or employee training programs
HR may run multiple corporate or employee training programs throughout the year, and it’s not always easy to get employees on board with seemingly nonstop paperwork and testing.
With the help of leaderboards, achievement levels, and rewards, you can boost employee engagement and productivity. Gamification can also captivate employees during some of the duller moments during training programs, which can contribute to reduced turnover.
For example, IBM implemented digital badges for course competitions, leading to a 226% increase in completions. Similarly, HP introduced a point-based program for its training modules where employees could trade points for swag in their virtual store. This tactic increased completion rates by 50-fold.
Healthcare programs
Similar to fitness apps, gamification can improve engagement on healthcare and wellness platforms. The tactics help people look forward to hitting milestones, such as trying a new exercise, limiting processed foods, or adding meditation to their routine.
On the mobile app Prehab, physical therapy patients can track their exercise performance and get professional tips and recommendations from their therapists. The status bar further motivates users as they slog through workouts.
Happify, a mental health app, integrates science-based activities and games to improve emotional well-being and lower stress. This healthcare program allows users to track progress over time and measure skills as they build up better habits.
Financial services
The financial landscape is more confusing than ever, thanks largely to the explosion of fintech. Banks and financial service companies implement gamification to educate customers, encourage saving, and improve customer interactions. In a crowded landscape, gamification is a smart way to break through the noise.
For many financial companies, the focus is placed on saving. For example, the Qapital app integrates automation into its gaming strategy to encourage people to save for retirement. Members can easily round up to the nearest dollar on their purchases, putting all that spare change into a long-term savings account.
U.S. Bank also introduced the Start Smart Savings Program, which rewards customers after meeting certain savings goals. Both incentives can create long-term savers and instill trust in the brand, particularly as they start seeing their nest egg grow.
Environmental and social impact initiatives
Environmental and social impact initiatives tap into people’s sense of fairness, which is a powerful motivator on its own. The gamification aspect is there to motivate wider community participation and awareness, driving people en masse to do more for any given cause.
For example, ZeLoop uses cryptocurrency rewards for hitting recycling milestones, and it was such a hit that Nestlé adapted ZeLoop’s model for its corporate social responsibility programs. Nestlé eventually launched a challenge in the UAE where employees gathered 52,000 bottles, with the top collector at 6,000 bottles.
The RecycleBank app also made gamification its core focus, inviting cities and brands to join in on the action. From online learning to everyday sustainability, users can cash in their rewards for deals and freebies through their local partners.
How to use Bitly to measure the impact of a gamification strategy
Measuring success starts with comprehensive, accurate data. The more you can break down different gamification elements, such as conversion rates and website traffic, the fewer resources you’ll use to adjust different parts of the campaign. We’ll look at how Bitly’s tools help you track, analyze, and test your gamification customer experience.
Set up Bitly tracking for gamification campaigns
To assess the success of your gamification campaign, whether it’s financial services or retail, you need reliable tracking tools. With Bitly Campaigns, an advanced Bitly feature, you can create separate trackable links for each channel.
For example, you might market your game’s landing page on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, using unique links to track user clicks and engagement. You can also use Bitly links throughout the game to help users manage or redeem rewards.
When you’re marketing in multiple channels—whether it’s email, SMS, or social—it’s crucial to align all your campaign efforts. Build, manage, and measure your links, and coordinate gamification campaigns with your larger marketing strategy.
Analyze user engagement through click data
Bitly Analytics reveals the number of clicks on your links, times of engagement, geographic distribution, and device type. This way, you can see where your customers are, which elements sparked engagement, and when customers are liable to tap.
As you iterate, you’ll know what to post, when to post it, and who to post it to. We encourage our users to use a more detailed tool alongside Bitly, such as Google Analytics, for more granular information like click-through rates. Ideally, you’ll use the two in tandem, with Bitly monitoring the initial impact and Google Analytics taking the deeper data dive.
A/B test your gamification features
Your audience has its own gaming preferences, honed over a lifetime of testing different kinds of games. Some might want to earn badges, while others prefer a point-based system. Some people may want free low-cost items, while others want discounts on larger purchases.
With A/B testing, you can theorize, test, and compare strategies to get a better grasp of your audience’s expectations. And you can use Bitly links to track the best-performing features. For example, a healthcare app might challenge new members to either three-minute or five-minute meditation challenges and then track the engagement results. Or you might experiment with QR Code placement on consumer packaged goods products.
Report and visualize your strategy successes
Reports and visualization go a long way toward identifying the wider patterns that lead to the success or failure of your campaigns. They can simplify some of the more complex findings and provide even casual viewers with the gist.
For example, you might use pie charts to illustrate the overall impact of the campaign and bar graphs to break down demographics and engagement rates. With Bitly Analytics, you can create custom reports and show them to key stakeholders for smarter resource allocation. So, if your latest gamification campaign is blowing up on social media, you can make the case to divert time, attention, and budget away from less successful marketing strategies.
Measure your gamification success and drive customer engagement with Bitly
Gamification has a positive impact on both customer experience and brand engagement, and it’s powerful enough to form strong brand attachments. Of course, it can take a few iterations to find the winning combination.
If you’re ready to experiment with gamification techniques, Bitly has tools to help you build, track, and optimize your strategy. No matter what industry you’re in, you can monitor and improve results from start to finish.
If you’re ready to engage customers with exciting rewards, get started with Bitly to drive your gamification success.
