Gamification 101: Using The Levers Of Engagement

"Gamification" of a marketing strategy should increase engagement with consumers, but it takes more than adding a few visual game elements to your creative to "gamify" your marketing strategy. Gamification done right takes a behavior-focused approach to driving engagement. Forrester defines gamification as the insertion of game dynamics and mechanics into non-game activities to drive a desired behavior.

Gamification leverages the innate human motivations that games have used for generations to keep people engaged. These motivations include the desire for status, access, power, goods, altruism, and self-expression. Game dynamics are added to a program to allow users to achieve these motivators by accruing rewards for completing certain actions. And this becomes exciting for the marketer because these actions can be whatever you need users to do in order to reach your business goals — consuming your content, increasing time spent on a site, or getting users to spread the word through social media. And you don't have to spend money offering tangible goods — instead, you can offer access to already created content or status as a "top fan," increasing engagement while reducing costs.

Agenda:

• Defining gamification.
• What gamification is not.
• The engagement loop.
• The 4 I’s.
• Case studies/examples.
Vendors mentioned: Badgeville, Bunchball, BigDoor, Lithium.