10 gamification techniques that work for startups

      Gamification – the term may be new but gaming tactics used in the businesses are not new. It is about taking the essence of games, and applying into real world, non-game situations.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”      – George Bernard Shaw

      Today to engage users, game elements and game design techniques are start used in non-game contexts and thats how the unofficial term “gamification” arrived officially as a secret weapon for many successful startups.

Beyond entertainment to business performance:

      Most of the business people just hear “game” when they hear the word “gamification” and misinterpret it and consider that as a distraction or unproductive workforce environment. Which results many companies are not using gamification at all or failing with improper gamification designing.

      Many people think that gamification is just another must-have concept, but it is only effective if it is thought out from implementation to reward. The following are few gamification techniques or steps to be followed that works well for startups.

1. Identify the distractions:

      Before applying gamification, first figure out what you are trying to solve, yet many startups fail to fix their goal when approaching gamification. Spot the area where you need to grab the people attention, and then work for gamification to keep one of the most expected and common goal is solving the problems such as “poor sales.”

2. Focus on the players:

      First determine on whom you need to apply gamification. There may be two-end possibility for businesses, one is on employee and the next one is on consumers or users.

3. Small and quick rewards are great:

      Quick and small rewards are most effective at driving consumer behavior. Consider you are an online store looking for frequent purchase from your consumer, your regular giveaways of low-price items are more effective than one huge discount given only once per year.

      Your small rewards will stay a long in consumer mind every time, because you make them to feel good that someone is always winning your prize.

4. Make your audience learn with gamification:

      Think you’ve a new online app to promote, introduce your app for 30-day trial along with some daily tips. This gamification provides a chance of knowing new app and leaves us to learn some features through the tips. Which make those potential clients to get benefit out of learning.

5. Use gamification in social medias:

      In today’s online world, the power of social channels shifts the audience focus towards gamification, rather than simply offering a discount or seasonal price coupons. Players of gamification can always recommended to share their each activity in social channels. So the gamification engine will track the progress and guide the players toward the end goal.

6. Create a group beyond games:

      Its always really excited feel for users while seeing the winners of the game. So celebrate your users win, their style, and prize through gamification and create a comment loop or community to question or answer with fun. Which makes you community more stronger and engages than ever.

7. Set complex and longer-form games:

      When you want to increase the purchase frequently, make the user to keep playing the games. Such games need to be difficult and longer that should require skill and more practice. Where they can also see ongoing reward/incentive already and which drive repeat purchase.

8. Play to increase brand interaction:

      Gamification is fairly new and not like “Buy Two, Get One Free” offer, you can move people from free for repeat purchase to creating a system of earning things. This builds a base of long association between your brand and users.

9. Set your spending limit:

      Also gamification solutions generally require a payment, so first check the price and ensure that it is within your budget. If you are worried about the resource then implement only on few customers or on stage wise.

10. Come out of running within the discount circle:

      Old trend like discounts and coupons are the competitive challenges for businesses. So stop your consumer dependending on those, instead include gamification.

      Most of the marketing managers of startups always follow the latest trend and thinking that if they are not learning the important development like gamification, then they are down infront of competition. Instead smart marketers knows that gamification works well, when its executed intelligently because Gamification can’t be run just like a simple and task-reward process!

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