Richard Robinson, General Manager of Leadfamly UK, discusses the benefits of incorporating gamification into your marketing strategy.
Not so long ago, a few marketers would add a game into their marketing as a bit of entertainment, something slightly different, potentially something whimsical, for fun and giggles. It certainly wasn’t seen as a core part of their marketing mix. Perhaps, rightly so, because gamification in marketing was not a professionalised discipline, and views and engagement were not tracked to tangible business results.
The mismatch between the business potential and the actual achievements of gamification in marketing was what drove us to create LeadFamly. We had a feeling that gamification was underperforming and capable of much more, so we designed and tested (and redesigned and retested) a gamification platform for professional marketers. A platform that is now being regarded by hundreds of companies as a central part of their marketing strategies and thus embedded in day-to-day marketing operations.
Get, keep, and grow customers
Consumers are notoriously fickle and the task of attracting, retaining, and developing customers is never-ending. Gamification in marketing has now proven itself as an extremely powerful tool, and we see numerous companies significantly improve their results after having included it in their marketing.
What is really remarkable about gamification in marketing is that it often produces immediate results. Many of our customers have been surprised by the speed at which they can attract new consumers, collect additional permission based data, increase basket size, and improve loyalty quickly.
Gamification is also a great leveller in marketing. It is not something that is only accessible to large companies with extensive marketing teams. The added agility and execution power it provides to marketing can be equally applied to businesses of all sizes and industry sectors. Read about how Långvik, a Finnish hotel, achieved impressive results with just a two-member marketing team. For them, gamification in marketing, and LeadFamly’s platform specifically, allowed them to conceptualise, build, and execute campaigns that previously would have required the help from an agency or a development team.
Always-on means better business
In our experience companies get the best value from gamification when it is embedded into its marketing not only on a campaign by campaign basis but also in an “always-on” manner, where it becomes part of “business as usual”. A number of our customers have game mechanics built in the LeadFamly platform embedded on their website like any other form of quality content, available for site visitors every day. This offers consumers a highly engaging experience all of the time, not just when you happen to be running a specific campaign.
The flexibility of how and where to use gamification in marketing is also one of its strengths. Through using techniques such as always-on, triggered or non-triggered events, you are in control of the experience you want your customers to have, whilst also managing the business outcomes you wish to drive.
What does it take to succeed with gamification in marketing?
At LeadFamly we have designed marketing gamification solutions for numerous companies and it is clear to us that the most successful ones share some traits:
First and foremost, we see curiosity and ambition as main drivers; successful marketers are open-minded and always focused on the big picture, whilst continuing to strive to be better.
Second, they have a passion about customer experience and the need to be customer centric.
Third, they have a vision about how and where to embed gamification in their marketing mix.
Can you benefit from gamification in marketing?
To be honest, we have found very few companies that have not benefitted from empowering their marketing through gamification. Our customers range from consumer goods, to financial services, to charities, to retail, to enterprise technology, to industrial manufacturers and beyond.
We suspect that you can benefit too. Give it a try and have a no strings attached chat with one of LeadFamly’s specialists.