Increasing Conversions Through Gamification
Do you remember when you were little, and you didn’t want to eat the leftover vegetables on your plate, so your mother had to playfully lift the fork in the air, gliding it like an airplane straight toward your mouth? Well, your mother gamified the act of eating vegetables, transforming a boring task into an enjoyable and enticing experience for you. As you can tell from the title of this article, this is what we simply call – Gamification.
Applications and websites have been using gamification in various forms across industries by adding an element of play to traditionally non-game contexts. From financial management to fitness, shopping to dining, and everything in between, we can easily encounter gamification.
In this blog post, we will walk you through everything you need to know about Gamification, starting from its definition, moving on to how it works, sharing successful examples from real brands, and concluding with a deeper knowledge of a specific Gamification technique. Let’s get started!
Increasing Conversions Through Gamification
What is Gamification?
Gamification is the integration of game elements into non-game contexts. It can be used in various forms across industries by adding an element of play to traditionally non-game contexts. It goes beyond mere entertainment; it’s a powerful tool to captivate audiences, boost engagement, drive conversion, and create memorable user experiences.
Have you ever encountered a spin-to-win widget on a retail website? Or, did you redeem your complimentary coffee at Starbucks with the stars you earned through the application? Or has a language learning app ever prompted you to complete a lesson with fun quizzes and competitions? If your answer is yes, then you’ve encountered gamification examples in your life.
From education to marketing, fitness apps to loyalty programs, gamification is leaving its mark across diverse industries. Gamification is a proven method to make tasks and experiences more fun and enjoyable by adding elements such as badges, points, rewards, leaderboards, and challenges. Whether you’re looking for ways to increase your website traffic, drive customer loyalty, or boost sales or engagement, gamification can be a powerful method to achieve all those goals and more.
How Does Gamification Work?
The secret behind Gamification lies in understanding what motivates people and what makes them feel rewarded. This can be something straightforward as gaining points for task completion or more compound as earning badges or leveling up after reaching a specific milestone. Harnessing these inherent motivators, gamification has the potential to drive engagement and increase conversion rates. Experts believe that gamification increases dopamine in the brain, which provides feelings of pleasure and positivity. In the long run, this becomes an immediate association with your business which helps your brand to be associated with positive feelings.
Consider a scenario where you’re using a fitness app integrated with gamification features. As you engage in workouts and achieve fitness milestones, you accumulate points that can be exchanged for exclusive workout plans or wellness rewards. The more consistent you are in your fitness routine, the more points you earn and unlock access to more advanced plans or enticing rewards. This serves as a motivating factor to maintain an active lifestyle with a sense of accomplishment for you, and for the brand, it means higher user engagement and increased conversion rates.
Types of Gamification
Let’s learn more about how gamification can be used in marketing through various strategies according to Neil Patel’s article.
1. Playable Games
The straightforward way to use gamification in marketing is to add playable games. For example, Nike’s “Nike By You” section on the official website allows customers to personalize some Nike models as they want to. And, this is one of the simplest yet effective methods of gamification. This not only enables customers to have the customized shoes they desire but also enhances their loyalty to the brand by making them feel involved in the design process of the shoes.
2. Games of Chance
These types of chance games offer users the opportunity to win prizes through activities such as spinning a wheel, drawing a number, or scratching off a ticket. E-commerce businesses, retail stores, restaurants, and service providers can employ this strategy. Utilizing features such as digital scratch-offs or virtual wheels (Spin-To-Win widgets) makes it convenient to send these types of games through email.
3. Contests & Leaderboards
These naturally involve the feeling of community and competition. Using a leaderboard strategy for gamification helps users to be loyal users of the website or the application. Dualingo’s leaderboard & league approach is one of the best examples of leaderboard strategy. It is also what encourages users to stay in the application and be engaged with it. This gamification marketing strategy works great in competitive industries like fitness, gaming, and sports.
4. Rewards Program
Rewards or loyalty programs are another example of gamification types in marketing. For example, coffee chains like Starbucks or Cafe Nero offer their customers reward programs so that they can earn points for each dollar spent with the opportunity to get free things such as coffee or pastries. This encourages people to come back to the same store.
Benefits of Gamification
Gamification can enhance your marketing campaigns, offering many valuable benefits for businesses.
Here are some of the most notable benefits of Gamification:
1. Increase in Engagement:
Gamification captures and maintains users’ attention by incorporating elements of play and a sense of competition, making user experiences more enjoyable, fun, and interactive.
2. Increase in Motivation and Positive Behavior:
Since you’re offering rewards, points, gifts, or badges for your customers, your gamification efforts simply motivate users to complete the desired tasks. While this helps you increase engagement and sales, it also helps your customers to become repeat buyers because of the positive experiences they’ll have with your brand and your products.
3. Learning and Skill Development:
Learning platforms that use gamification in their educational programs may benefit from gamification by implementing more effective and engaging learning experiences to their users. Gamification, when used correctly, can foster skill development through interactive challenges, quizzes, or games.
4. Increase in Customer Loyalty:
Brands that mix loyalty programs with gamification can benefit from long-term customer relationships as rewards, points, or gifts help customers stay engaged with the brand.
5. Increase in Sales and Conversions:
For brands or businesses, especially in e-commerce, spin-to-win widgets, and other gamification elements can boost sales, increase conversion rates, and encourage repeat purchases.
6. Brand Differentiation:
Brands that implement gamification strategies create a unique and memorable experience for their customers in their products or services, which helps them retain and attract customers.
Examples of Gamification
1. Starbucks
The global coffee chain seamlessly integrates gamification into the daily coffee routine. Like many other areas, Starbucks has already set itself apart in Gamification with its loyalty & reward programs. At the core of their Gamification practices, we find their Rewards Program, through which customers can earn stars for each purchase. This simple yet powerful act transforms coffee runs into a little, enjoyable experience, encouraging purchase and driving loyalty. The collection of stars becomes a journey for the customers and with each sip they contribute to unlocking new rewards. This attracts their customers to the collection of stars, making it an enjoyable experience.
Along with the rewards they often introduce limited-time challenges and promotions with elements of surprises that keep the game going. Through this strategic use of gamification, Starbucks has gained a loyal community of coffee lovers full of caffeine.
2. Duolingo
The language-learning platform, Duolingo, has disrupted the education applications market with its powerful use of gamification. Learning a new language can be challenging, but Duolingo transforms the learning experience into a captivating game. The strategy of the application lies in the points system – earn points by completing lessons, and let your fluency score rise.
It is a clever but simple way to turn language acquisition into a competitive yet friendly challenge. Duolingo’s interesting feature “daily streaks” acts as a friendly challenge that helps users to practice learning every day. The more days you keep up your streak, the more you feel like you’re committed to learning the language. And, the app rewards you for sticking to your practice goals. This clever gamification not only makes learning more fun but also keeps users hooked as they track their progress and celebrate themselves along the way.
3. L’Oréal Paris
L’Oréal Paris has been known to use gamification in different ways to attract new online customers, and the global beauty brand knows how to leverage smart technologies such as augmented reality.
With The Virtual Makeup Try-On technology available on the Maybelline website, customers are able to try all Maybelline Makeup products on their own phones and web browsers with just a few clicks. This helps customers to see the shades according to their skin tone and lighting, and choose between different shades or tones as they were trying tester products in a brick-and-mortar store.
4. Pepsi
Pepsi launched a special AR-driven campaign in 2020, featuring top international football players – Lionel Messi, Paul Pogba, Mo Salah, and Raheem Sterling. The campaign featured special “limited edition” Pepsi cans with scannable QR codes that loaded AR versions of the players on users’ phones. This allowed users to participate in a virtual kick-up game. As part of Pepsi’s “Pepsi, For the Love of It” campaign, the AR game served as a cross-channel digital experience designed to boost customer engagement and enhance brand loyalty.
Spin to Win Widgets: A Gamification Practice
Let’s say you encountered a beautiful website full of fashion goods that you want to buy all at once. You start to scroll through the product pages, and suddenly a widget pops up on your screen, a spin-to-win widget filled with discounts or gifts to use on your next shopping spree. All you have to do is sign up through your email, and you’re ready to see if you can get the biggest prize on the wheel. Well, you probably know by now that this is an example of gamification which we call: Spin-To-Win or Spin-The-Wheel.
E-commerce brands often use these widgets and offer a thrilling spin on user engagement. Imagine landing on a website, and instead of the typical static layout, you’re greeted with a dynamic wheel full of exciting rewards. This element of chance and anticipation adds a whole new dimension to the user experience. A Spin-to-Win campaign is an interactive campaign where participants are given a chance to win prizes by spinning a wheel.
Why You Should Use Spin-To-Win Widgets In Your Marketing Campaigns
What makes Spin to Win widgets so irresistible? It’s psychology.
The element of surprise triggers a release of dopamine, the brain’s feel-good neurotransmitter. Users experience a sense of thrill and satisfaction, fostering a positive association with the brand or platform. The unpredictability of the outcome keeps users hooked, encouraging repeated interactions, and also sales and engagement. But, increased user engagement is just the tip of the iceberg.
Spin to Win widgets are powerful tools for:
Lead Generation: Users willingly provide information when engaged in the game, offering valuable data for targeted marketing.
Conversion Optimization: The gamified element nudges users towards desired actions, whether it’s making a purchase, subscribing to a newsletter, or exploring more content.
Brand Loyalty: The positive emotions associated with the interactive experience foster brand loyalty, turning one-time customers into repeat patrons.
Final Thoughts
As businesses increasingly transact in the digital world, and as new technologies are emerging daily that can be used in marketing efforts, the key to success lies in a company’s commitment to creating compelling content. In 2024, the more a brand invests in developing entertaining and interactive content for its audience, the higher the probability of generating leads and increasing conversions. Ready to level up your marketing game and create engaging experiences for your audience? Start gamifying and watch your brand’s success!
