Are you playing games with your customers? If the answer was no, now is the time to change that. Game-based marketing is the future and a fun new way to inspire loyalty in your customers.
According to MarketsandMarkets 2020 report, the gamification market size in 2020 was at a global value of $9.1 billion. By 2025 they have predicted the market to grow at an impressive rate of 27.4% to reach $30.7 billion.
All industries are getting in on the action – from HR to luxury fashion brands and everything in-between. With a creative marketing team, you can find a way to gamify your marketing strategies, engage customers and build loyalty.
But how do games build loyalty? Well, one of the most notable ways is through play and reward. That is what we will be looking at in today's post. You will learn what play and reward are, how it builds loyalty and see some examples of brands using play and rewards in their game-based marketing.
When you think of customer loyalty programs you probably think of something along the lines of frequent flier miles. A customer makes a purchase, earns points with a brand, and when they collect enough points they can exchange it for a reward.
While programs like frequent flier miles have been shown to improve customer loyalty and even increase the chances of a customer flying with the same airline after poor service, they only scratch the surface.
Innovative brands are starting to include gamification in their loyalty programs. By adding a gaming element into their existing programs brands can harness the addictive quality of video games and connect the action of customer engagement with the positive feelings that users get when they unlock achievements or points within a game.
A play and reward system encourages your customers to play your game by giving them rewards. These often come in the form of loyalty points that can be accumulated and exchanged for real-world gifts.
Gamifying your customer loyalty program could reap huge rewards for your brand.
Consumer priorities have changed since the run-of-the-mill loyalty programs came about. Consumers are searching for value for money. But this doesn't just mean you need to deliver a good product for a good price. Customers want to engage with your brand and feel as though they are getting something beyond the product or service they buy – they want to be engaged.
Traditional customer loyalty programs do little to engage customers. But a game-based market presents a new opportunity to include customer engagement in your loyalty programs.
So, you want to harness the competitive nature of humans to leave a lasting impact on your customer through game-based marketing. But where do you start?
Humans (in general) are motivated by similar things. According to Bunchball, those things are the need for autonomy, improvement, purpose, progress and social interactions. These types of regards are more motivating and valuable to your customers than one big, one-time prize.
How can you put that information to use in marketing? Let's look to LinkedIn for an example. It added a progress bar to help users view each step of completing their profile as an achievement. This element increases their user engagement and the rate of fully complete profiles increases by 55%.
Having a dynamic game that offers various challenges and rewards gives you the best chance of engaging the most customers.
The use of points, levels, leaderboards, and more will encourage customers to get competitive which will drive them to engage with the game more.
Luxury brands have found that game-based marketing has been incredibly engaging with their audiences because it allows them to earn rare rewards or exclusive offers. This is a powerful motivator and Hermès, for example, used it in their horseshoe toss game. Dior is another brand that has found success in game-based marketing by promoting their store opening through an interactive treasure hunt.
Game-based marketing has huge potential for all kinds of brands to level up their customer loyalty programs. Gamification offers the opportunity to engage customers in a way that brands have struggled with up until now. The rewards systems and ability to earn exclusive offers give customers powerful motivators to engage and the fun and addictive qualities of video games keep them engaged and loyal to your brand.
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