Gamification marketing is a tool that helps businesses attract customers to love, use and seek out products and services. Specifically, what is gamification marketing? How does this form work, what are the risks and benefits? Let’s find out the details in the following analysis article.
1. What is gamification marketing?
Gamification marketing is a term that is incorporated into the marketing industry and is applied to businesses and organizations operating on digital platforms. The purpose is to increase the number of users.
1.1. Definition of Gamification marketing
Gamification marketing is the process of incorporating games into practical applications in marketing, business, management or education. Accordingly, administrators implement game mechanics such as progression, rewards, roles, results, etc. to make audiences and customers feel attracted, remember the brand image or learn more about the business’s products and services.
The term Gamification marketing is becoming a favorite trend in many different fields. Businesses such as media, software product development, product design, business management and operations… all apply this form to their special campaigns.
Gamification is a competitive marketing tool that creates uniqueness and great difference between a business and its competitors and the whole industry. Many large corporations and strong businesses use this tool on Tet or major holidays such as Nike, Pepsi, Coca, Dominos, Tiki, Shopee, Starbuks.. Each company has attractive information, stimulating users to use and participate.
For example: frequent customer programs such as lucky draw, loyalty points, frequent shopping points, lucky coins, etc. Participants are encouraged to play regularly and increase their points by rewarding continuous consumption. Some restaurants also organize small games for customers when they go with close friends, groups, or families such as hopscotch, darts, and wooden blocks.
1.2. 3 elements in Gamification marketing
There are three motivational factors in Gamification marketing: purpose, autonomy, and mastery. These three factors are exploited based on the feeling of luck, the customer’s competitive emotions, and building long-term trust.
- Purpose: Gamification marketing exploits users’ gaming emotions. Everyone wants to play and brings with it the feeling of excitement, anticipation, and the desire to be lucky.
- Autonomy: The ability to continue playing the game or stop depends on luck. Therefore, the player has the right to choose the direction of the game. However, to continue playing, there must be conditions attached that are both beneficial to the business and create excitement for the player.
- Mastery: When players understand and master the game, they will be motivated to continue. This motivation helps them not only look at the material rewards but also benefit from the feelings of victory, satisfaction and fulfillment.
If marketers and leaders can apply these three motivations to business, they will certainly achieve high results.
2. How does gamification marketing work?
Gamification marketing provides players with instructions, feedback through games and game dynamics embedded into online platforms to complete goals. The game must be engaging, easy to play, and the results must be optimal. From there, customer decisions can positively impact the game creator’s goals. When employees or customers interact with the gamification model, they will receive feedback on the results, guiding the next steps to achieve new results.
The purpose of Gamification marketing is to appeal to human emotions and psychology. In which, human psychology is to want to try, want to have fun, want to receive rewards, want to win, and compete.
- Want to be rewarded: Players want to hunt for rewards from businesses and organizations. Businesses want players to use, know the brand, understand the service, product or further use their service, product.
- Envy: The joy of achieving something that others have not achieved is the most intense emotion. Therefore, if others have it and you do not, it will create a feeling of jealousy and desire to have it.
- Competitive: People always have a competitive spirit, when playing games they must achieve the highest results.
If you are a marketing campaign implementer, you must create a gamification that has all three of the above elements.
Any gamification marketing campaign that satisfies these three criteria will certainly be very successful and bring good results for the brand.
3. Advantages and disadvantages of Gamification marketing when applied in campaigns
3.1. Advantages
A marketing strategy always has certain benefits for both sides: business and customers or organizers and players:
- Increase engagement: Gamification marketing helps you increase your customers, leads, partners and loyalty to your service. Reward them with physical items, vouchers, recognition, motivational praise, engaging content.
- Competition: Gamification marketing creates competition for achievements. People will only want to get rewards so they will participate more enthusiastically and follow the instructions of the game.
- Identify your audience: Marketing games help your potential customers identify who they are. Businesses can segment their customers and offer different programs that suit their interests.
For workplace gaming strategies to improve work performance, the benefits of Gamification marketing include:
- Increase the application and use of management tools.
- Help employees set expectations for their work, their KPIs, and the company.
- Enhance employee knowledge sharing, improve service levels.
- Increase employee performance and satisfaction.
3.2. Disadvantages
Gamification marketing , despite its many benefits and successes, also has its drawbacks and risks.
- Too generic or samey: Many companies do gamification marketing in a generic way, without any uniqueness or differentiation like leaderboards or badges in some processes. Businesses need to have a balance between games and competition.
- Coercion: Sometimes businesses that want customers to participate in the game unintentionally create coercion. From there, the fun and competition are gone, people get bored and do not want to continue participating.
- Boring Games: Games can be boring, leaving players unmotivated. Poorly designed games can be distracting. It is a challenge for developers to keep games fresh, fun, and motivating.
- Addictive Games: Gamification marketing can be just as addictive as other video games. This increases the risk when used for commercial purposes.
4. Notes when applying Gamification marketing
When applying Gamification marketing, you need to keep in mind the following: Understand your target customers, determine campaign goals, and set up attractive rewards.
4.1. Understand your target customers
Identifying the right target customers – The key to building an effective marketing strategy : To build a successful marketing campaign, marketers need to clearly understand the customer group that the business is targeting. This not only helps shape the appropriate scenario and rules of the game but also optimizes the customer experience, thereby increasing the conversion rate.
Target customers should be identified based on their needs for the product, their age demographics, and the keywords they search for related to the product/service.
Draw a portrait of your target customer
Customer analysis is not simply about identifying who they are, but also about clearly sketching their portrait:
- Who are they? (Age, gender, occupation, income…)
- What do they look like? (Lifestyle, taste, personality…)
- What are their preferences and consumer behavior?
- What platforms do they frequent? What content are they interested in?
Examples of potential customer groups :
Generation Z (Gen Z) – Loves individuality, difference and values community: Gen Z is mostly still in school age, has a limited spending budget but they are willing to share products/services with friends if they see it brings benefits to them. They love uniqueness, difference and are often attracted to creative products that express their own personality.
Suggested strategy: Take advantage of unique gifts (although not too expensive but must be trendy), create promotional programs with viral elements such as “share to receive gifts” or challenges on social networks.
Generation Y (Gen Y – Millennials) – Prioritize quality and experience : This customer group has a stable income and has experience with many brands, so they are not easily attracted by poor quality free gifts. They understand the value of the product and are willing to pay if they feel it is reasonable.
Strategy tip: Instead of giving away physical gifts, offer discount vouchers, exclusive deals , or integrate gamification to give them the chance to own the product at a better price, creating a more fun and engaging shopping experience.
In short, understanding target customers will help businesses design appropriate marketing campaigns, meet their needs and create strong connections with customers.
4.2. Determine the campaign objectives
Before doing any campaign, you always need to have goals that are appropriate for your business, marketing industry, products, and services. For example, goals are within the scope of:
- Clear inventory, liquidate old products.
- Collect customer information from gamification marketing
- Increase brand awareness and customer engagement.
- Customer appreciation.
- Sell, increase revenue.
4.3. Set up attractive rewards
What are the actual rewards in gamification marketing ? What value do they bring to customers and businesses? Are they exciting and engaging? If it were you, would you participate and use the game?
Check out some of the rewards you can apply such as: vouchers, discount codes, products, physical items, good and meaningful compliments, extra plays, etc.
Best practices when applying Gamification
Implementing gamification effectively isn’t something you can do overnight. To ensure your strategy delivers real value, here are some key principles to keep in mind:
Evaluate the appeal of your content : Before implementing gamification, carefully consider your content and platform. Gamification cannot “save” a bad experience, but it can enhance a good system, making it more engaging, appealing, and attracting more participants.
Build a long-term roadmap : Gamification is not a short-term campaign that can be set and forgotten. Plan a suitable time frame that helps users gradually discover, interact with, and stick with your system.
Determine the right time to deploy : Don’t rush into gamification without a clear strategy. Do thorough research on your market, user behavior, and choose the ideal time to introduce a game to your website or app to ensure maximum effectiveness.
Measure and optimize results : Every gamification strategy needs to be tracked and evaluated. Clearly define business goals, measure success, and continuously optimize to improve user experience and increase operational efficiency.
In short , gamification is more than just adding game elements to your platform, it requires careful planning to deliver valuable and engaging experiences that last.
5. Some inspirational Gamification Marketing campaigns for reference
5.1. Domino Pizza
Domino’s Pizza released a gamification called Pizza Hero in 2012. The idea is that players can create and customize their own pizzas. If someone likes and wants to buy the pizza you created, you get a certain profit.
The effectiveness of this campaign brought the brand:
- Increase sales by 30% during campaign.
- 059,325 million pizzas have been made through the Domino’s app
- More than 328,610 app downloads, reaching the top 3 most downloaded apps on the iPad appstore at that time.
- 800 people find jobs at Domino’s pizza stores near their homes
Following the success of this campaign, Domino’s Pizza released another app called Piece of the Pie. Accordingly, the program allows users to accumulate points, with every 60 points you can exchange for 2 medium-sized pizzas.
5.2. My Starbucks Reward
Starbuck brand has applied Gamification marketing to bring expected sales, 3 billion dollars per year. The brand has used gaming tactics, players register for My reward accounts on mobile applications, when buying Starbucks products, users accumulate stars.
They divide users into 3 different levels depending on the number of accumulated stars. When users come to Starbucks frequently, they will be upgraded to a higher level. For example: An extra cup of coffee, a birthday gift, a special offer designed for users. As a result, there are up to 4.5 million users registered for My Reward accounts of this brand.
5.3. Shopee Gamification Marketing
One of the successful gamification marketing campaigns is Shopee’s coin shaking program. With each friend invitation, adding friends to the group will increase the coin for consumers. Therefore, users check in every day, pick up their phones on time to shake coins and surpass many competitors in the same industry faster to increase annual revenue.
5.4. Nike+ Fuelband
Launched in January 2012, the Nike+ Fuelband is not only a technology product but also a sports icon, inspiring users to change their lifestyle to become more active and healthy. From a brand specializing in sports products, Nike has expanded its role to become a “companion” to help customers maintain their exercise routine.
The star product in the Nike+ line is the Nike+ Fuelband —a smart bracelet that tracks the user’s movement. When paired with the Nike+ app , users can track their workouts, measure calories burned, and get visual feedback on their performance.
In particular, Nike also takes advantage of social networking platforms to expand the user experience. The feature of challenging friends helps motivate physical exercise, while increasing the level of interaction with the brand. Thanks to that, Nike+ Fuelband is not only a technology product but also becomes a gamification tool to help customers maintain excitement and raise awareness about health training.
5.5. Coca-Cola’s Shake It
Coca-Cola has always been at the forefront of creating innovative marketing campaigns that turn simple actions like drinking a soft drink into enjoyable and memorable moments.
In Hong Kong, Coca-Cola launched a “Shake It” campaign aimed at teenagers. Users were given a free app on their phones and then joined an evening TV show. During the show, viewers were encouraged to open the app and shake their phones to win Coca-Cola coupons and other exciting prizes from partners like McDonald’s.
This campaign is more than just a promotion; it embodies Coca-Cola’s mission —to bring joy and optimism to consumers. By creating an exciting form of interaction, Coca-Cola has made its brand a part of young people’s lives, driving engagement and creating memorable experiences.
Gamification marketing is a useful tool for brands and businesses that want to attract potential customers and loyal customers. However, managers should consider attractive, unique programs that create a difference from competitors. The special thing is to bring good results for the purpose of brand development, traffic, and increasing commercial value.
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