Mobilizing Gamification: Why and How?

After a brief introduction to Gamification and learning Game-mechanics and Game-dynamics, we will now move on to the importance of mobilizing the Gamification endeavour and then progress towards creating a killer Gamification strategy that will help you boost user-engagement with your brand and achieve desired business objectives.

Why Mobilize Gamification?

Gamification, in most cases, is deployed on websites but mobilizing it could open endless opportunities for you to keep your consumers engaged and loyal with your brands. With mobility becoming a disruptive force and mobile devices becoming ubiquitous, it is highly essential for decision makers to mobilize their Gamification efforts so as to leverage from the advantages offered by mobile devices.  Mobilizing the Gamification interface will allow your users to interact with it from anywhere and anytime and for you to target a huge user-base.

Mobile devices have four intrinsic characteristics that makes them an excellent medium for Gamification-

1. Mobile devices are personal in nature which makes for higher potential impact with customers thereby resulting in more engagement.

2. Anytime, anywhere devices which could result in constant engagement with the Gamified interface.

3. Easy and intuitive interaction improves the success rate of Gamification.

4. Easy to measure and monitor.

Once you are convinced with the idea of mobilizing the Gamification drive, the next step is to come-up with a powerful Gamification strategy.

What Makes For A Successful Gamification Strategy?

A Gamification strategy is more than selecting the point system or the design of badges. Gamification is a process that requires resources, takes time to deliver results and hence should be implemented with a well-thought out plan so that your users get a unique experience, be motivated to engage with your interface and you are able to boost your brand image. Here are a few tips that will help you in drawing an engaging and powerful Gamification strategy-

Know your users, sync it with desired actions: Every marketing activity involves understanding the needs, wants and behaviour of the customers. So, it is with Gamification. Understanding your customers will help you know the emotions that will drive them to engage with your brands. And, your Gamification efforts should revolve around these emotions and should be successfully able to tap it. The game-mechanics employed in Gamifying your interface should be in sync with the desired actions you want your users to take. So, a successful strategy should be able to blend your user’s deeper motivations with the desired actions.

It needs to be fun, interesting and challenging: The gamified interface should be intrinsically enjoyable for the users. Then only they will be motivated to do the desired activity and repeat it over and over again. A fun-filled game experience should be the core of any Gamification effort. To ensure that you gain long-term, sustained customer-loyalty, focus on making your interface interesting and more interesting for the users. Add levels to it so that it also remains challenging. Make your game tough but not impossible to achieve.

Monitor it: How many users are hitting your interface? How much time they are spending on it? What are the access points to your interface? You need to know it all. Tracking the statistics is essential. It will reveal interesting and significant user behaviour which will aid you in reading the mind of your target audience. Further, it will also help you tweak your Gamification strategy as per your set objectives.

Socialize it: In the age of social networking sites; it would be a sin not to make your gamified interface social. Including social media tools in your Gamification interface will help you create a community. But more than that it will also help you cater to the social appetites of your users. Allow your users to share, discuss and display their achievements.

To sum it up, mobilizing the Gamification effort will act as a force multiplier to your endeavour and will help you immensely benefit from ubiquitous nature of the mobile devices. Also, it’s absolute necessary for you to keep your target audience in mind when you brainstorm for a killer Gamification strategy. Think about your users- What will they like? What will motivate them? How would they interact with your gamified interface? Get answers to these questions, develop a game revolving around it and you have the blueprint ready for the success.