Gamification in marketing: strategies, benefits, and how it works

The modern marketing landscape is full of tried and true methods, buzzwords, and flash-in-the-pan strategies — the one thing that’s constant is that marketing is always evolving. The ever-changing spheres of business, culture, and technology all affect how customers receive your marketing efforts. Gamification marketing was once considered a flavor of the month strategy, but it’s stood its ground since entering the marketing world years ago. Gamification is no longer a marketing enigma; it’s a road to success.

Related: The Gamification of Shopping

What is gamification?

Gamification is the application of game-design elements and principles in non-game contexts to enhance user engagement, motivation, and participation. It involves incorporating aspects such as points, badges, leaderboards, challenges, and rewards into activities or processes, with the goal of making them more enjoyable and interactive.

Gamification is all about taking the fun and interactive elements of gaming and applying them to everyday interactions. But how does gamification fit in with marketing?

What is gamification in marketing?

Adding games to your marketing strategy helps encourage potential and current customers to participate and engage with your brand, helping to promote your products or services. In return, they get entertainment and rewards — coupons, prizes, points, trophies, spots on a leaderboard, etc.

In marketing, gamification is used to attract and retain customers, encourage specific behaviors, and foster a sense of community around a brand or product.

Gamifying your content can help boost sales, create more engagement, improve your marketing ROI, drive in new customers, strengthen brand loyalty, and foster customer satisfaction.

Some of the largest brands in the world have seen incredible success with gamification marketing — and yours can, too.

 

Benefits of gamification in marketing

People love games — that’s why gamified marketing works. They’re fun and interactive; they can be challenging and competitive or relaxing and simple.

And with 60% of consumers saying they would rather buy from a brand after playing a game, it can bring many benefits to your marketing campaigns.

Gamification in marketing:

• Improves user engagement — Many people turn to screens for entertainment during their downtime. Users are more likely to engage with companies that incite fun and excitement through strategies like gamification that give them the sense of achievement they crave.
• Increases conversion rates — Interactive marketing methods like gamification make users more likely to respond to your CTAs. And attaching rewards to your campaign encourages them to convert faster — 70% of marketers have success converting more customers with interactive content.
• Grows brand awareness & loyalty — Gamification makes people think more about your brand, influencing their buying behavior. Because most customers don’t associate games with marketing tactics, they’re typically more receptive to this type of branding. It also helps brand recall, encouraging people to purchase from your brand while shopping.
• Works on multiple platforms — Because consumers can (and do) access the internet from any device — smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, etc. — multi-platform functionality is essential. You can adapt gamification marketing strategies for any platform, helping you reach a wider audience.
• Helps data collection — You know that your customer data is a valuable asset for your company; however, gathering it isn’t easy, and you must comply with laws like the GDPR. Gamification in marketing makes capturing personal data ethically and with consent much easier; if you offer users the chance to win a reward or prize, they’ll be more willing to share their information with you.
• Gets past ad blockers — Over ¼ of people in the US use ad blockers, limiting your marketing reach and wasting your budget. However, most ad blockers don’t have a problem with gamified applications; even your audience that relies on ad blockers will still see your games.
• Entices your customers — Gamification can be a more fun way to inform your audience about how your brand can help their pain points. While users play, have fun, and learn, you gain answers to market research questions and valuable customer data.

 

 

• Educates your audience — Gamification can be a more fun way to inform your audience about how your products or services can solve their pain points. While users play, have fun, and learn, you gain answers to market research questions and valuable customer data.
• Reaches more people — Over half of the global gaming market revenue comes from mobile applications. And what does everyone carry with them all the time? Their phones; with the right gamification, you can make your games appealing to people of all ages and reach a broad demographic in any industry.
• Fosters positive associations — Gamified marketing has a simple basis: people play your game and earn rewards. Then, they feel a sense of achievement, leading to a positive association with your products and brand. It’s a win-win for both parties.
• Creates a community —  Social media platforms are one of the best places to generate social buzz around marketing campaigns. Releasing gamified apps with human-centric design elements (like allowing users to share their scores on social) is an excellent way to create a community of play and competition while driving user engagement.
• Keeps people coming back — It’s common knowledge for marketers that retaining customers costs less than finding new ones. Loyal customers are invaluable for businesses. Gamification offers them replay value to come back, beat the high scores, and win bigger, better rewards.
• Provides entertainment — Your audience is full of social creatures who crave amusement, achievement, and adventure. Gamification offers your customers entertainment that speaks to the foundation of their humanity. Games are fun, enjoyable, and marketable.

Related: Escape Room Marketing & Events

Challenges of gamification in marketing

 

Designing the right gamification for your marketing strategies is difficult — every company would do it if it were easy.

The goal is to create a game that not only do people want to play but also helps your company achieve its marketing goals.

One size doesn’t fit all: A game that works well for one company (even in the same industry) won’t necessarily work for yours. You must know your target audience inside and out.

Gamification is complex, and perhaps the most difficult aspect is finding a partner who can create a game tailored to your audience that hits every objective of your brand. Your game needs to be about more than rewards and prizes; it needs to create a personal, emotional connection with your customers.

Overcome these challenges with Emeraude Escape

Examples of gamification in marketing

Now, let’s look at three real-world examples of businesses succeeding through gamification:

1 – How Chupa Chups increased awareness and Loyalty with gamification

At Emeraude Escape, we developed a gamified digital experience for the world-renowned Spanish candy makers at Chupa Chups.

Following the style of Netflix’s international success La Casa de Papel, we created a game where fans of the show and candy lovers could come together, imitating the characters of La Casa de Papel.And the results were astonishing.

Maintaining the brand’s image of fun and adventure throughout the gamified app, Chupa Chups brought in many new customers, maintained its industry-leading position in the market, and increased its brand awareness by linking its name with one of the most successful international series and joining forces with Netflix and Emeraude Escape.

View more about this game here.

2 – How Martini Fiero found success with gamified marketing

In the summer of 2019, our team at Emeraude Escape created and launched something unique to introduce the new Martini Fiero drink: an escape game.

Here’s what was so special about this escape game, though: it was set in a 20-meter train car at La Felicità restaurant at Station F.

The gamified marketing campaign was such a success with Martini Fiero that they ended up extending the escape game for another month because their customers couldn’t get enough!

See more about this escape game here.

3 – How Diptyque brought its team together using gamification

Gamification isn’t just for your customers; it can help your marketing team, too.

To celebrate Diptyque’s 60th-anniversary creating perfumes and candles, we developed a digital treasure hunt for their team.

The global team at Diptyque played together, bypassing the language barrier and going on a digital trip to the brand’s signature destinations to learn more about the products and company.

This gamified experience allowed Diptyque to educate, entertain, and bring its team together through a unique, fun journey.

Not to mention that the digital game (Le Grand Tour) won Teach On Mars’ innovation prize for mobile learning.

View more about this treasure hunt here.

How to implement gamification in your marketing campaign

Every gamified marketing campaign is unique; the best thing any brand can do is partner with the right game designers and developers.

However, there are some practices that can help any gamified campaign succeed:

• Know your audience — Whether your gamification campaign fails or succeeds depends heavily on targeting the right people. Demographics matter; the age, gender, location, and general interests of your ideal customers will determine the type of gamification and rewards that will get the best results.
• Set goals — Don’t move forward with gamification before creating a strategy and setting goals. Think about what you want to achieve with your gamified campaign: Do you want to educate potential customers? Create hype for your brand. Sell more of a specific product? These all affect how you should approach gamification.
• Develop KPIs — Get your key performance indicators in place before gamifying your marketing strategies. They’re how you’ll know if it was ultimately worth it and what needs to change. Do you want to hit a certain number of players? Get your game to go viral on social platforms. Whatever success looks like to you, note it, check it, and measure it.

Related: Tips for Successful Gamification Marketing

Take Your Brand to the Next Level With Gamification Marketing

Is gamification the future of marketing? We think so — and we’re sure your customers would agree.

Gamification marketing will help drive your user engagement, increase brand awareness, drive in new customers, and help you retain and grow the loyalty of your existing ones.

The key to gamification is working with a team of experienced designers and developers to create and launch the perfect games for your target audience.

Our team has worked with leading international brands like Microsoft, Netflix, and Toyota — we can help your marketing strategies succeed.

Ready to amaze your target audience with gamified digital communication? Reach out to our gamification design and developer team at Emeraude Escape to get your personalized demo from our gamification marketing experts.