Simple Strategies

Gamification just plain works, and companies late to the gamification challenge are likely to get their guts kicked in.

This infographic from Maritz Motivation Solutions shows the impact of gamification on traditional loyalty, incentive, and employee recognition programs.

[scroll down to see the complete infographic]

Two of the more amazing stats:

• Time on site jumped 250% after gamification.  That’s a huge increase in participation with your brand. And every minute they’re engaged with you is a minute their ignoring your competition’s seductions.
• Program emails open rates leapt 42% among the pilot test group compared to the control group.  That means gamification helps email cut through the clutter.  Probably because the gamified people were more engaged with the brand.

Gamification may be the simplest strategy for engagement.  Here’s a formula:

1. Know your players.  You might call them users, participants, people, employees, sales reps, but you should think of them as players and treat them as such. Get to know their playing styles, and make your business fun for them.

2. Know your business.  The game you build and the field you supply need to lead to your company’s success.  Once you know how the players want to play, you can align your business to their goals.

3.  Know your players’ goals.  Players are serious in their pursuit of an epic win.  Make sure your players know that the challenges and missions you’ve laid out lead them to victory—if they achieve all the little steps in between.

4. Let them cheat.  Players love cheats.  Don’t let them capture the epic win without playing the game.  That’s not even fun.  Instead, let them make their own rules and create their own challenges as the work toward capturing the flag.

5.  Make it social.  People are social creatures.  They have a need to bond. They also need to compete to make the game interesting.  Make sure the players have someone to play against and someone to conspire with.

6.  Cultivate the game.  Don’t assume you can lay out the playing field and let the game run forever. Interest will fade if you don’t keep it fresh.  The good news is that watching how your players play will lead you to new ideas to keep them engaged.

Remember, these “games” are not really games—they’re meta layers on top of core business models.

Now a question: could you take a bite of a problem with gamification?