Gamification is a simple concept with huge potential for business. It’s about applying game mechanics to something like a campaign to engage and encourage people to take action, buy something or share with others. It’s gaining moment in marketing and is proving to be a successful at increasing engagement and achieving business goals.
gamification
Here’s our top ten gamification facts.
1. When it started – the term ‘gamification’ was coined by Nick Pelling in 2002 but it didn’t gain popularity until 2010.
2. Types of gamification – usually involves setting up a competition, providing rewards and incentives to customers who achieve a task or get other customers to sign up.
3. Usage – more than 70% of the world’s largest 2,000 companies are expected to have deployed at least one gamified application by year-end 2014.
4. Market size – the overall market for gamification tools, services and applications is projected to be $5.5 billion by 2018.
5. Benefits – it can improve customer engagement and satisfaction and be used to collect data from customers.
6. Key drivers – there are a number of business opportunities, such as to change customer behaviour, increase loyalty, improve learning, improve partnerships and crowdsource ideas.
7. Business focus – any design with gamification must have clearly defined business objectives to achieve an experience that does not disappoint the user.
8. Design focus – 80% of current gamified enterprise applications will fail to meet their objectives, due largely to poor design; it needs detailed planning.
9. Examples – giffgaff rewards its community for helping others, the gamification part is the way in which users answering questions are awarded ‘kudos’ and payment points, which can be taken as a cash reward.
10. Fun content – it allows brands to combine business interests with customer interests by making content entertaining and fun.
Marketers have a clear opportunity to use game mechanics to drive customer engagement and brand awareness. Gamification allows businesses to combine traditional marketing strategies with more innovative digital campaigns. Share your gamification examples by leaving a comment below or on Twitter.
