8 Pillars of Successful Gamified Marketing Campaigns

In this article, we’ll be going over the "8 Pillars of Successful Gamified Marketing Campaigns". After having done 1000's of campaign's we have boiled down the 8 pillars your marketing campaign has to have to reach maximum success. 

As you know, every marketing campaign is unique- with different KPIs and objectives, and not all 8 pillars may be necessary for a campaign to be successful. That being said, studies have shown that incorporating these pillars ensures your campaign to be a win! Let’s begin. Before we continue if your looking for more examples of gamification marketing example by Yu-kai Chou click here. 

1) Set goals beforehand/Have a clear Objective

Is your branded advergame designed to educate customers on a new product or service? Is it meant to create hype around the brand? Is your goal to sell more units of a product or simply create awareness? Having clear, set goals helps give the campaign the direction that it needs.

2) Know what success looks like through setting KPIs

KPIs or Key Performance Indicators, should be set before any marketing campaign to ensure that everyone will know what success looks like. Do you have set KPIs? Is it to get 5,000+ plays or 1 million? Is it to get social shares and go “viral” and if so how much? Are you aiming for customers to earn and redeem vouchers on a product? Having a realistic target to aim for helps you and your team focus all efforts on hitting your campaign goals. 
For more information on this point check out; How to define and measure marketing objectives. 

3) Confirm Promotional Budget

Knowing how much advertising spend you’re willing to put into the promotional aspect of a Marketing Campaign is an important factor to consider. First, look at your organic reach across all social media channels and EDM’s. Is your audience regularly engaged? Do they react to your posts, read and share your blogs? If so, you probably wont need to spend too much on promoting your game through ads, but we do recommend reserving 30% of the campaign budget for promotional content.

4) Know your target audience

Age, gender, interests and location all matter when choosing an appropriate game.
Some games have a user percentage that can be 85% male, while others are 70% female. Knowing who your audience is, allows for you to allocate the right kind of game in order to reach that demographic. 
For more help on this point Check out Inc's how to Identify your audience or Kartoffel Film's How to Define Your Target Audience.

5) Determine Incentives and Rewards

Determine what you want to give away as an incentive. Everyone loves the feeling of winning something! It’s that rush of energy you get when you win a free product- That feeling you get when you’re top player of the week, or simply beating your friends in a round of PUBG. Having a clear cut reward is crucial to running a successful gamification campaign, and it could be anything! A new product sample, promotional coupons, or a fun giveaway. It is crucial to have a clear incentive in order to make gamification work for you. If you haven’t given out rewards before, do a bit of research! Ask your audience what they would like to receive from you. Make it fun, and interactive.

6) Promotion across relevant mediums/Create relevant content

Gamification marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. What works to drive engagement on social media channels and EDMs, might stall on your website or in-store efforts. As you launch your gamification campaign, you should be mindful of where your target audience will be and what kind of content they will respond to.

7) In-store Gamification/EDMs

Not all of your marketing efforts should target customers on social media or before they reach your store location. Location-based marketing promotes your brand to customers while they are in your building and actively engaging with your brand. Challenge your customers with games when they’re at your business using interactive touchscreens, digital signage, and free customer Wi-Fi. In-store Leaderboards are another example of encouraging your customer base to get involved.

EDMs (Electronic Direct Mail) are another way of directing your Gamification Campaign straight to your customer base.

8) Campaign Duration and Long-Term Sales efforts

You might be tempted to throw out a social media contest in the name of engagement, but you need to make sure this process helps your sales goals as well. For example, your social media contest could be used to grow your email list and collect customer data.

Your email or website gamification contest should move customers closer to buying your products and build brand awareness. While engagement is an essential part of the marketing process, the end goal should lead to increased sales and revenue for your brand.

As mentioned at the start of this video, each marketing campaign is unique in its structure, objectives and target audience. So with that in mind not all 8 pillars may be necessary for a campaign to be successful. All we can suggest is that you apply as many of these pillars to your campaign that make sense with its form.