Lately, “gamification” has been taking a disruptive hold in the digital strategies of organizations, opening the doors to a broad and innovative world.
Often, however, there are some doubts about the topic, doubts that can lead to skeptical behavior towards this new strategy. These are for example: is gamification only suitable for light content? Is it only suitable for a young target? Turn everything into a game by losing the value of the main message? Is it only useful for converting? And so on…
We try to give an answer to all these questions and to accurately define the contribution that the gamification strategy can offer to your company. Let’s begin!
What is meant by gamification?
“Gamification is the use of game design elements in contexts other than the game to achieve a certain goal” (1)
From this definition it can therefore be deduced that:
- Gamification uses game design techniques to make people do something. Often the game dynamics are already known by the users, thus making it easier for them to get involved
- It is applied in contexts other than the game, sometimes even very distant from it;
- He wants to motivate people to achieve a certain goal.
When we talk about gamification we often automatically think of something fun and playful, something that only concerns the younger realities and that is not very suitable for more structured environments. All this is due to a basic error: gamification is thought of as the miracle capable of transforming anything into a fun game.
Obviously this is not the case: gamification doesn’t turn everything into a game but exploits the game’s tools by adapting them to different contexts. And it is precisely from this that its great potential derives: it is a ductile and transversal technique suitable for any reality.
Why is gamification an advantage in digital marketing? How does it affect the consumer buying process?
Let’s try to understand the type of contribution that the gamification strategy can make to each phase of the marketing funnel, a model used to describe and analyze the path taken by the consumer in the process of purchasing a product or service
- Awareness. A good gamification strategy allows you to effectively involve your audience. Today, people’s attention turns out to be the scarce good par excellence. Gamification is able to take the mechanics that make games engaging and bring them into marketing. Furthermore, gamification initiatives can lead to an increase in visibility thanks to a possible virality of the strategy, and to a general improvement in brand awareness resulting from the psychological association between the brand and the sensation of pleasure.
- consideration. Even in the consideration phase, in which the company must distinguish itself positively among its competitors, gamification can be strategic, for example by improving the product learning experience: complex products or services can take advantage of gamification to facilitate the onboarding phase.
- Decision and purchase. In the decision and purchase phase, gamification can lead to greater conversions by making even often passive and static communication elements engaging and active. Furthermore, gamification is a strategic element in improving customer loyalty, creating a long-term relationship.
Finally, the red thread that connects all these phases is represented by tracking: in gamification strategies, every action performed by the user is traced and monitored. Therefore, in addition to engaging users, gamification is able to generate a series of behavioral and target profiling data to be used in all marketing and company growth activities.
So do we like or dislike this gamification strategy?
We like it, we like it. And not just us! Gamification will be a widespread strategy among companies in many sectors, given the value it can bring to companies (and to the customer himself) at every stage of the purchase journey.
