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The gamification industry is expected to grow from 2015 to over 11 billion in 2020 which explains the keen interest of marketers and retailers. Some established as well as emerging brands actively employ gamification as a marketing tool to engage customers and garner a strong relationship with them.

Technically, if you have gaming spirit, you must be a kid from the 90’s. So, you can understand a gamified user-experience better than everyone else. Much like in video games, players earn rewards for leveling up which motivates them to keep playing. The customers can be motivated in a similar way when they are offered lucrative rewards for achieving a certain milestone.  This technique is known as gamification. It has become a revolutionary part for a wide range of reputable brands.

In fact, Gamification strategies have become a standard practice. Let’s recount some of the most effective strategies executed by brands.

Reward wars

An organized system of points collection is an incredible way to impress regular customers. If a customer values a brand over its competitors, they will keep coming back but might also consider alternatives. Reward wars is an excellent model of gamification that keeps them hooked for points collection as well. Here’s an example of how Starbucks achieved brand loyalty to remain undefeated.

Starbucks

Starbucks made use of gamification through the loyalty program called ‘My Starbucks Rewards’ – a strategy that proved to be an ace for customer engagement and better ROI. The regular customers at StarBucks were offered incentives like free food, and drinks by collecting stars on each purchase and then redeeming them for prizes. Apart from that, free birthday beverage and refills were also offered to the customers who earned more stars. All in all, this was a simple reward system to keep the customers engaged. Gamification via digital kiosk

Digital Kiosks

Digital kiosks have superseded their traditional function and now they are actively used for consumer engagement. Brands are experimenting with this new found tool to make people talk about their them. A fail safe idea is to engage people through games and digital kiosks provide just the right platform for that. Samsumg demonstrates the perfect use of outdoor space for engaging audience.

Samsung

Samsung started a campaign with the name of “All eyes on S4” where the participants were given a chance to win the new generation mobile phone. All they had to do was  keep their eye on the screen for a specific period of time where they had to avoid all the outrageous distractions such as birds chattering, horns of motor bikes, barking dogs and even the people who were gathered around the player. This unique exercise attracted multiple spectators on the scene. It was a fascinating campaign that resulted in an entertaining social experience.

Game Fame

No childhood is complete without a  game of treasure hunt. The idea of hunting for reward used to add thrill to reward seeking. So, creating an online game affiliated to your brand’s campaign can be a great idea for marketing since no one is too old to play games.

Magnum

Magnum initiated the ‘Pleasure Hunt’, an extremely addictive game inspired by old school Mario and Frogger. A sweet young lady who was associated with the brand, was controlled by the users. The lady had to collect as many chocolate balls as she can. The score of the game can be shared to challenge a friend. It is known to be one of the most successful and referred to as one of the top most creative digital campaign. It was so well organized and was linked to social media too, which took the success of this campaign to a great height but we all know this campaign did not come cheap.

Social Media Graphic Gaming

With social media chanting on every corner of the street, social media gaming can prove to be a milestone when comes to marketing. You just need to create an eye catchy graphic game, to give a boom to your brand online.

M&M’s Eye-Spy Pretzel

On the launch of M&M’s pretzel-flavored candy, this brand gamified it’s marketing to the next level. They designed a very interesting graphic game called Eye-Spy Pretzel on Facebook in which the users simply had to find the pretzel candy which was hidden among lots of M&M candies.
This game in such a short span became so viral and popular creating a loud noise on social media. This strategy became a strong stone for bringing huge conversion to the brand.

Let the App play

This is the age of smartphones and tablets and downloading apps to solve every problem, is the new cool. Whether it be keeping a track of your data or your health records. You have the access to use applications anywhere and everywhere. So, designing apps with a smart marketing strategy can really affect huge number of masses and can bring gigantic conversions to businesses.

Nike+ Fuel Bands

Nike launched an application in the year 2012 but in order for the app to work you must first need to buy Nike accessory. The personalized Nike+Fuel accessory, is a bracelet with a special technology. It can monitor its user’s movements. With this band and application, people can track their workout stats like the number of calories they have burned and others. Apart from that, this app can also be linked with social media which helps users to share their achievements with each other. Also, trophies and badges are rewarded to people who achieve athletic accomplishments. This social media element undoubtedly increased the Nike+Fuel band demand. It motivated consumers to make more use of their products and get more rewards which resulted in huge conversions.

For businesses that want to taste gamification marketing strategies, they must first know the demands of their target audience. They should start small may be? And then analyze what works best for their audience and then give gamification a kick off!

As we all know the digital era began with millennials, but its never going to end with them. In fact, its evolving and has engulfed the fast-paced generation Z or the first tribe of digital natives. Together the two generations comprise of gamers either by profession or in practice. Incidentally, marketers view the system of gamification and point scoring as an ideal means to engage these two generations.

What is gamification?

Gamification in modern world applies the techniques of playful learning that involves certain elements of gaming. So, a web or mobile user who is familiar with the mechanics of gaming would experience competition, point scoring and certain rules of the game. The idea is to engage the millennials and post millennials who have played video games in the childhood. Of course, this makes them different than the generations before them.

Here’s a fun fact:

Before turning 21, the average American has spent 2,000-3,000 hours reading books and more than 3x that playing video games.

Gamification is an actual strategy in digital marketing, but not every business is looking forward to employ it. However, it really connects with the millennial generation. Here are some reasons to validate this statement.

Instant gratification always wins

Both millennials and post-millennials are universally known for their behavior and seeking instant gratification is part of the behavior they display. Anything that makes them wait is depriving them the fuel that runs them and structural ambiguity in instructions annoys them to the core. So if you promise to deliver a product or service, promise a realistic TOD. Whatever you intend to communicate, make sure it appeals to them and never forget to reward them for their patience.

Announce the reward right away

Shorten the sign-up experience and always end it with a reward or token. You can also limit some of the crucial features of the software or app along the way unlocking them only when they complete certain tasks. And the cycle of engagement goes on.

We have officially entered the phase of m-commerce in which consumers not only use it as a shopping tool but also as a search portal, a personal advisor and a 24/7 shopping partner. Why is shopping through mobile becoming a norm?

Perhaps because the users of mobile outweigh the users of a toothbrush. Or because we have actually becomes cyborgs that store part of their memory in an extended device. As a result majority of the shoppers today are using their smartphones to buy clothing and other fashion accessories. This is not a real surprise. M-commerce already enjoys one-third of e-commerce sales (34 percent). In the past few years we have witnessed a fundamental shift in purchase behavior of consumer. 87% of millennials admit that a cellphone never leaves their side. Their choices and purchase preferences are shaped through the searches they come across. Of course this opens up a window of opportunity for marketers.

So, without further ado let’s delve into some ways to leverage mobile marketing for fashion industry.

Build a personalized experience

It all started from Amazon when it started recommending products to its customers based on their past purchases and search history. That is how they raised the bar for personalization. Today retailers compete with each other to offer better personalized experience for its consumer. For instance EyeFitU is a fashion sizing platform that suggests to its users sizing recommendations, based on their personal measurements.

Appeal to generation Z

The tech-driven generation that consumes snapchat and Instagram at breakfast is fast in catching latest fashion trends. In order to appeal to them, marketers need to know where to find them and how to connect with them. Also value their opinion when they share a review about a product or service. The live video experiences that they share tend to resonate among post millennials. The bottom line is in order to make sense to generation Z, the marketing messages must be directed to the platforms that they are addicted to.

Make mobile app experience augmented

Sephora is a leading fashion and cosmetics brand that did a fine job by aiding customers in their in-store shopping. The app includes some beacon powered features that offers a digital experience by offering augmented reality features. Sephora has indeed considered their digital-savvy customers to create options of scanning products and the makeup application tips the app suggests when you take a selfie. It is indeed an experience that promotes customer engagement and turns them into brand loyal.

Scan-to-shop directly from mobile

Loreal introduced an app that used the scan-to-shop technology. In order to promote consumers to use this feature, they were allowed to scan products in magazine ads or in-store. This simplified shopping through mobile employs image recognition technology that various retailers can implement for better engagement.

Despite being user engaging, not every mobile application has the tendency to get viral. It’s no longer a matter of luck. These days, you have to put your heart and soul in promoting the app as well. It has become more of a necessity to stay ahead in business.

Before moving on to the science, let’s first observe the typical way of sharing an app.

This iteration or sharing pattern would continue and will give a good start to promotion efforts. In case, there is a weak link, the chain breaks. It usually happens if the user did not find the promised value in the app.

Plan for virality

For starters, every app should be well designed and easily sharable for all users. In some cases, sharing of an app has to be coupled to certain rewards. It has been tested through gaming apps that when you share your actions across social networks, there is a higher likelihood of friends catching up with the trend. Upon inviting other friends to play, the user gets rewarded with some bonus points.

A similar approach can be used whereby users can be rewarded upon sharing app in their circles. However, app store optimization is the foundation of user acquisition strategy. It involves selecting the right keywords, creating app screenshots for user previews and providing the relevant description of the app to target the relevant audience. The next stage is to introduce paid and viral tactics in order to boost the app acquisition.

Another integral part of promoting an app requires development of web presence outside the app store as well. This is achieved by creating a landing page optimized for mobile.

App virality in a nutshell

But hold on, is your app passing these 4 criteria

It has value to share

It allows users to share and for friends to join

The users should be rewarded for sharing and incentives must be provided for coming back

As more people use the app, more value should be created for them

With that known, its also important to note that it takes some time for the customer to try the app and share it in their circle. The challenge is to reduce this time and hence comes the science.

Optimize to make it effortless

An ideal app never confuses the user with complicated design but facilitates them with easy functionality. Also, the steps to get the app downloaded should be simple and not time consuming. In order to create a flow in your app, make its sharing effortless. Allow users to have one-click sign in option so that they can get registered effortlessly. A dedicated login, on the other hand is time-consuming and makes the user lose interest.

Use referrals

Even in the digital world, the one thing that remains constant is the general trust in recommendations. 92% of people say they trust recommendations from friends and family, and word of mouth still influences 50% of all purchase decisions. To date, referrals remain the most powerful form of app marketing.

The world of Artificial intelligence is full of mystery and misconception that spreads faster than reality. Most of the silly notions suggesting AI will outpace human intelligence are based on human fear rather than reason. And not surprisingly, the people who are clueless about the pros of machine learning and deep learning neural nets often envision the apocalyptic images from iRobot in their minds.

In reality Ai is taking work that has been automated in the past in order to improve results.

Well its time to do some myth busting about some prominent misconceptions on AI because there is a clear difference between perceptions and reality.

Emerging and established brands have a special advantage to influence consumers via mobile. Yet mobile advertising appears to be in its infancy. While there are various obstacles to overcome before mobile marketing goes mainstream, there are certain brands that have taken a leap.

Participating in offline using QR codes

One of top tactics reinforced by retailers aim to bridge the gap between offline retail store and the online available digital content. The adoption for QR codes is rapidly improving for smartphone owners as it commands less commitment from the customers in comparison to SMS.

Nike free ID

An interesting collaboration between Nike and WeChat resulted in a QR campaign. This campaign invites the user to scan a QR code to begin following Nike via an app. They have share a colorful image via the app and then the user gets a reply with the customized shoe that closely matches the color of the photo they shared. It was an interesting engagement campaign that generated 30,000 submissions in one month.

Check-in and location-based marketing

Location based marketing tactics are key elements for people who like to brag about their brand loyalty to their friends and in social networking circles. The central idea here is to drive customers who are brands loyals. The brand can reward them in return for check-ins. Some customers like tagging other friends under it increasing a brand’s chances of exposure.

Zarraffa’s Coffee complimentary upsize

It was a smart way to motivate customer who weren’t necessarily aiming for an upsize. All you had to do was show a staff member a check- in into their location from their device to get a complimentary upsized coffee.

Augmented reality

AR combines real landscape with virtual objects via your cell phone camera and GPS systems. With the help of software generated graphics blended with real time background, a whole new augmented experience can be created. Not surprisingly, marketers are keen keep to leverage augmented reality to presented engagement opportunities for the brand. Let’s explore how McDonalds applied this arsenal of mobile marketing.