EMBiz: Gamification in Marketing

Gamification in Marketing

Laurel Mintz

Hi everyone, I'm Laurel Mintz, CEO and founder of Elevate My Brand, and this is EMBiz. Today we're gonna talk about something really fun and playful, which is gamification. Now we've talked about this before, but it's becoming even more of a hot topic as AI is sweeping the world, and gamification is really, a fantastic tool in marketing specifically. We can use game-like elements to encourage your consumer, or your customer to take action, we can use gamification to improve the customer experience. And here are some ways that you can do that.
 

Elements

Number one, contests. There are some really fun ways to gamify contests, there are all kinds of apps you can integrate into your social channels, your website, etc. You can do quizzes. This is one of the best ways to show and provide value to your core customer, while of course receiving their information so that you can re-market to them over time. The next one is leaderboards. Who doesn't like competition? I know you all know this about me, but I'm a very competitive person, so I love a leaderboard.

The next, and last one that I will mention today, are apps that track progress. So they're kind of like leaderboards, but they're more, they are more about how you are ranking against others for a specific process. So for example, I am on the top of my leaderboard for my hydrate water bottle that tells me how and when to drink, but the reason that it's gamified is because I can play against my sister, my mother, or anyone else in the room.

Brand Benefits

There are also a ton of brand benefits if you are on the brand side. Number one, of course, it increases engagement. There's nothing like flat content that doesn't require a response from your audience. That's why contests and quizzes, it's a two-way street, we know we say this about social all the time, but social is inherently a social conversation, right? It's a conversation between two people, and that's really what the gamification process allows a brand to do as well.

It also nurtures relationships, so it allows you to create multiple touchpoints. The contest makes people feel that they have value as it relates to your brand, and therefore builds in a much bigger and bolder brand value proposition and brand perception, which is everything, especially when you're talking about the top of the funnel.

The next critical piece is that it boosts loyalty. So if someone is on a leaderboard and they want to win, they are going to be coming back and they're going to be more engaged with your brand. Loyalty programs are definitely evolving to use more AI. We've actually, on the Fabric side, invested in a couple of these really exciting companies that integrate with marketing to provide a better customer experience; and the loyalty programs are a huge part of that.

And of course, if you're on the brand side and the marketing side, you wanna make sure that you're capturing new leads. That's the point of all of this. Obviously, you believe you have a great product or service, and you want to make sure that you're getting that message across to your audience. But it's really about that top-of-funnel visibility and awareness and then how do we push people down to become brand evangelists, and engage with the brand on a more consistent basis.

The final piece is that it really does improve your overall target market development because it can give you core insights if you're doing it the right way. And we're not just talking about demographic data, we're talking about psychographic data as well that helps you to understand why a consumer or a customer is making a purchase decision and what the problem is that you're solving for them.