You may have heard of gamification and it's great potential for your business. But as for many, the fear of having to break all existing funnels and processes may have scared you away. Worry not, gamification strategy can (and should!) be infused into your existing plans and habits. It's not here to do bad, it's here to improve your business objectives. And it can be used in pretty much any area of business operations.

So, are you wondering how to incorporate gamification into your marketing funnel? You're in the right place, indeed!
In this post, we'll explore how to seamlessly integrate gamification and branded business games into your existing marketing funnel to enhance customer engagement, boost conversions, and create memorable experiences for your audience.

As this is the first article of its kind, let's use the most basic and commonly known marketing funnel - Awareness, Consideration, Conversion - with an extra peak into the Retention stage. Later on, you will learn about my own IRROPS model that brings much more focus on existing customers - their loyalty and long-term care about them. But as said, that's to be kept for later.

For now, let's dive in and unlock the power of gamification in the funnel! 🔓

The Basic Marketing Funnel (+ Retention)

Awareness Stage: Capture Attention with Playful Interactions 🎉

In the awareness stage, your goal is to grab the attention of potential customers and introduce them to your brand. Gamification marketing can help you achieve this by offering fun and interactive experiences that drive people in and make them curious about your offerings. This can often be achieved through branded online games that best utilise the human love to play - while still paying attention to your brand.

There are 2 possible approaches:

1. Start with lead capturing
   In this approach to implementing gamification marketing, you start with random number games, such lucky wheels or scratch cards, which offer relevant rewards to your target audience in exchange for their contact details. This is especially useful when you work with paid social media ads because it enables you to turn over 30% of your traffic into leads.
   It is more relevant for you to collect the leads than to drive direct conversion, because you will use the leads to push them down the funnel through cheaper channels - such as email marketing.
   Additionally, you can create look-alike audiences to eliminate bots and get more accurate results in the future.
   
   
2. Start with interaction and engagement
   In this approach, you start with engaging experiences such as memory game, endless runner, or drop game (catching objects). This helps you establish initial rapport with brand for future communications.
   You can still collect leads out of this approach, but you can turn it around by offering a special deal or an e-book / industry report in exchange for contact details after the experience.
   
   

Consideration Stage: Keep Them Hooked with Challenges and Rewards 🎣

Once you've captured your audience's attention, it's time to keep them engaged and interested in your brand. A gamification strategy can help you achieve this by offering challenges and rewards that motivate users to interact with your content, learn more about your offerings by participating in branded online games, and ultimately move closer to conversion.

You can present various products and their features as well as source customer preferences at this stage - all that to build the relationship between the customer and your brand, and to be able to present more customised offers for the next stage of the funnel.

This is also a great opportunity to match so popular videos with gamification marketing elements. How about a Quiz based on information in the video? Or a product preference Swipe campaign type with a short video introduction (seasonal collection, social responsibility efforts, etc.).

Alternatively, you can link to important articles, case studies, or features page for your audience to study more about your offerings. Offering a branded business game helps you get human attention, stop for a bit, and give the so needed focus to your brand.

Conversion Stage: Encourage Conversions with Incentives and Gamified Promotions 🛍️

In the conversion stage, it's time to trigger the right decision. Your goal is to motivate your audience to take action and become customers. Gamification marketing can help you push them towards conversion by offering incentives and gamified promotions that make the purchasing process more exciting and enjoyable.

You can repeat random winning campaigns with limited time offers or direct traffic to specific stores through unique redeemable coupons. At this stage, you are much more likely to be able to provide customised experiences.

Imagine you used a scratch card in the Awareness stage. People played and won some general rewards. Remember you didn't care about conversion at that time? That's because it was likely a less relevant reward for your audience (only relevant because of their general interest and potential to connect with your business). But you got the leads and eventually learned about their preferences. Now you can present a very customised offer with additional business goals in mind - such as Average Order Value increase.
You don't want to offer cat food as a reward for dog owners. But you may be able to sell more dog food to them if you offer a toy on top of their purchase. Let the lucky wheel decide which toy it is going to be!

Retention Stage: Boost Loyalty and Advocacy with Ongoing Engagement 🔄

Finally, well-implemented gamification strategy can help you retain customers and turn them into brand advocates by offering ongoing engagement and rewards.

You can share knowledge about new products, seek customer preferences, offer unique invite-only campaigns, and of course overall complement your business goals.
Have you ever purchased a flight ticket and the next message you received was... a random offer for another flight ticket? What if you received a (your) destination Quiz or Memory Game?
How about being offered a checked-in luggage to purchase, even though it's among your frequent flyer benefits? Stupid, right? But what if you were offered to bring someone with you on the trip, and get the benefit extended onto their ticket? Or what if you were offered a pre-order meal special?
You can also combine these with various challenges - to get back on the ground, you can encourage visits in multiple locations in certain time frame to earn a reward. Let's say - purchase your favourite drink or food item in 5 Espresso House locations in 30 days and earn a muffin on the house.

There are so many opportunities gamification brings to just about any business. By integrating gamification into your marketing strategy, you can create fun, engaging, and memorable experiences for your audience that drive conversions and promote loyalty. So, get creative, experiment with different game elements, and watch your marketing results sky rocket! 🚀

Need help? Let me know!