5 simple steps to integrate gamification into your business

Gamification Business

Gamification has been on the rise for years, as more and more businesses are integrating it into their operations. There are many benefits to be had when adopting gamification into your business model, but it can be tricky to know where to start. 

Let’s outline 5 simple steps that you can follow when integrating gamification into your business. By following these steps, you will be well on your way to enjoying all of the benefits that gamification has to offer! To get started, let’s define gamification.

What is gamification?

Gamification is the use of game design elements and mechanics in non-game contexts. In other words, it’s taking the fun and engaging elements of games and using them to solve real-world problems. 

In the context of business, gamification refers to the integration of game-like elements into business operations in order to improve employee engagement and performance. Not only that, gamification can help businesses fully engage their customers and create fun and exciting user journeys that make them keep coming back for more. 

Now that we have a clear understanding of what gamification is, let’s take a look at some of the benefits it can offer your business. 

Benefits of integrating gamification into your business

There are many potential benefits to integrating gamification into your business. Some of the most common benefits include: 

Improved employee engagement and motivation

Gamification can be used to engage and motivate employees by making work more fun and rewarding. Employees in mundane repetitive jobs often suffer from low engagement and motivation, but integrating gamification can help to alleviate this issue. 

With gamification, employees can enjoy their work which can increase their job satisfaction and can result in a drop in employee turnover, and an increase in productivity.

Increased productivity and performance 

With low engagement from employees comes poor performance and low productivity. This is because employees that aren’t engaged in their work are not motivated to do their best for the company. Gamification can help you manufacture and sustain that engagement by making work fun, social and competitive. 

By making work more fun and engaging, employees will naturally be more productive and perform better. With low engagement, employees often make a lot of costly mistakes which can affect the productivity and performance of the company as a whole. 

Improved customer engagement and loyalty 

Gamification can also be used to engage and retain customers. Customers’ attention is fleeting at best in this internet era so retaining the attention of the customers you already have is important. Furthermore, converting your customers from casual consumers to diehard fans of your brand is vital for your survival in your industry. 

This is where gamification comes in. When done right, it can create an addictive user experience that keeps customers coming back for more. This can increase customer retention and brand loyalty. 

Greater insight into employee/customer behavior

Gathering data and feedback from employees and customers can be difficult since it is tedious. This can make it difficult for companies to improve their products and services since the feedback from the various stakeholders plays a big role in that. This is where gamification comes in.

Gamification can provide valuable data about how employees or customers are behaving. This data can then be used to improve business operations making them more efficient and productive for the company. 

Increased brand awareness and market share

Brands struggle to differentiate themselves from the competition in today’s business world. Businesses have to continue reinventing their brands and investing heavily in their marketing to retain the customers they already have, let alone attract new ones. 

Gamification can positively impact the market’s outlook on your brand, and set it apart from the competition. When done right, gamification can help boost your brand awareness and loyalty among both customers and employees. 

Increased sales and revenue 

Gamification can also lead to increased sales and revenue. By making your products and services more fun and engaging, you will naturally attract more customers and convert more qualified leads into paying customers.

Furthermore, with gamification, you can direct your customer traffic to the most profitable products and services in your offering. You can use gamification tools to make the revenue-generating points on your user journey the most engaging ones for customers making them the points where your customers will spend most of their time which can translate to higher sales.

Reduced spending on marketing

With increased brand awareness and market share comes the need for less investment in marketing. This is because gamification can make your products and services go viral by making them more engaging and fun. 

This can lead to a decrease in your marketing budget as you won’t have to spend as much money on traditional marketing channels to reach new customers since they will be coming to you. Once your business achieves cult status among consumers, your loyal customers will bring their peers to you at no extra cost. We like to think of this phenomenon as the ‘economies of scale of gamification.’

These are just some of the potential benefits that integrating gamification into your business can offer. In the next section, we will outline some clear steps that you can follow to start integrating gamification into your business model. 

By following these simple steps, you will be well on your way to reaping all of the benefits that gamification has to offer!

5 steps to follow when integrating gamification into your business

Now that we have gone over some of the benefits of integrating gamification into your business, let’s go over some clear steps that you can follow to get started. 

Define your business goals 

The first step is to clearly define your business goals. What do you hope to achieve by integrating gamification into your business? Do you want to increase customer retention? Drive more sales? Improve employee productivity? Once you have a clear goal in mind, you will be able to better tailor your gamification strategy to achieve it. 

Because gamification is a major buzzword in today’s corporate lingo, many companies are now falling into the trap of gamification for the sake of it. Please ensure that you avoid this since not only will it not improve your customer engagement and productivity, it could turn customers off your brand. 

Identify your target audience

The next step is to identify your target audience. Who are the employees or customers that you want to engage with through gamification? By understanding who your target audience is, you will be able to better design gamification elements that appeal to them. 

Once you have identified your target audience, it is important to understand what motivates them. What are their needs and wants? What drives them to take action? What are the major pains and inconveniences they endure when interacting with your brand? By understanding what motivates and pains your target audience, you will be able to create a more effective gamification strategy. 

Choose the right gamification tools for your company and target audience

With so many gamification tools on the market, it can be tough to decide which one is right for your company. It is important to choose a gamification approach that is customizable and can be tailored to fit your specific business goals and target audience. 

For example, data shows that younger customers are more likely to engage with an explicit gamification approach that uses actual gameplay to advance its non-gaming agenda. This is because the younger customers have grown up playing video games and would be more comfortable adjusting to the reality and rules set forward by a game than the older generations.

In addition, you will want to make sure that the gamification approach and tools you choose integrate well with your existing systems and processes. You don’t want to invest in a new platform only to find out later that it doesn’t play nice with your other software! 

Design engaging and rewarding experiences

The next step is to design engaging and rewarding experiences for your target audience. This includes creating fun and challenging tasks, as well as designing rewards that appeal to the needs and wants of your target audience. 

You should rely on the Octalysis Framework for gamification here. The Octalysis Framework is a set of eight core drives of human motivation that can be used to design more engaging and rewarding experiences. Understanding the core drives that motivate your customers into action can help you ensure that your product appeals to each of or most of those core drives.

Test, measure, and iterate your gamification strategy

It is almost impossible to get it right on the first attempt to integrate gamification into your business. That is why the final step is to test, measure, and iterate on your gamification strategy. It is important to track the progress of your gamification efforts and make adjustments where necessary. This way, you can ensure that you are achieving your desired results and making the most out of your investment. 

This includes rolling out your gamification platform and experiences to your employees or customers and then tracking the results to see how effective your strategy is. By tracking the right metrics, you will be able to tell if your gamification strategy is having the desired impact on your business and enable you to make the necessary adjustments along the way. 

By following these simple steps, you can start integrating gamification into your business and reap all of its benefits! Gamification can offer a lot of benefits to businesses, including increased customer engagement and productivity. However, it’s important to follow some clear steps when integrating gamification into your business model. 

Are you thinking about integrating gamification into your business to increase your productivity and customer engagement? Please contact us for a direct consultation so we can help you get started on your journey to gamifying your business. 

 

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