To keep people coming back for more, there is nothing more powerful than saying “thank you”. Here are four new ways to reward your loyal customers for visiting your stores, purchasing your products, engaging with your content or creating content for you.

2. Reward Gaming

As “gamification” becomes the hottest marketing buzzword, companies are increasingly gravitating toward games as the format of choice for branded experiences. The benefit of a game versus a static marketing piece is plain to see – a more engaging experience that necessitates repeat visits, creating a strong community of regulars around your marketing.

“[Traditional marketing] is failing because people today are seeking more reward and more engagement from experiences than ever before,” argues Gabe Zichermann, author of Game-Based Marketing. To this end, developing gaming mechanics that stimulate initial plays and repeat visits is key.

Points:

The most commonly used form of game mechanics, points allow you to measure achievements in a linear and limitless way. This creates an environment of competitiveness in the form of scoreboards, or, to use the gaming term…

Leaderboards:

Leaderboards encourage users to become power players to the end of seeing their name reach top rankings. To maximize competitiveness, create a universal leaderboard and one that compares a user’s points with those of their friends.

Levels:

Levels make a game more “sticky” by giving users an accomplishment to work toward, similar to…

Badges:

Like levels, badges provide an incentive to keep users playing in order to unlock symbols of virtual accomplishments. Badges also become part of the user’s identity, as they can be featured on a gamer’s page within a type of “digital trophy case”.

Prizing:

Of course, none of these mechanics should exist in a vacuum. Gaming initiatives work most effectively when players can exchange their digital achievements for real world prizes. This can range from company merchandise, to company products, to larger prizes that do not necessarily utilize your product but speak to your brand – like an exotic vacation for a company that makes travel backpacks.

Social:

The final step to ensuring your game creates maximized impact is to integrate a social layer in the rewarding dynamic. Compensate users for sharing interactions with your game to their audiences on Facebook and Twitter. There are mechanisms for prompting users to post such updates, even going so far as suggesting the content of the update to enhance fluidity between playing and posting. At the very least, posts that get rewarded with points should include @-mentions (or tags, in the case of Facebook) of your company. This maximizes exposure of your company to your user’s audiences, who can click-through on their friends post to your company’s page, and gives you a way to tabulate company mentions resulting from game play. For increased impact, ask users to recognize the promotion name in the form of a hashtag (Twitter) or event link (Facebook).

Other Posts in This Series
Reward In-Store Interactions
Reward Social Participation
Reward User Generated Content

Tags: gamification, gaming, loyalty, rewards, social media

This entry was posted on Friday, February 3rd, 2012 at 8:19 pm and is filed under Disruptive Innovation, Engagement Marketing, Games, Gamification, Loyalty, Online Promotions, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.