in playing online games.
You have access to your company’s analytics program.
You have an in-house team or can hire a team of developers and designers.
Icons Used in This Book
Like other books in the For Dummies series, this book uses icons, or little pictures in the margin, to draw your attention to certain kinds of material. Here are the icons that I use:
Beyond the Book
In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, this product also comes some free access-anywhere goodies on the web. Check out the free Cheat Sheet for information on how games can change your marketing forever, tips on how gamification campaigns differ, and advice on data security for your gamification campaign. To access the Cheat Sheet, go to www.dummies.com and type Gamification Marketing For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box.
Where to Go from Here
If you aren’t familiar with gamification at all, start with Chapter 1 — a very good place to start. If you already have a good understanding of gamification and you’re familiar with the basics, you can probably skip ahead to Chapter 3 and start learning how to kickstart your first gamification marketing campaign. If you’re all about the data, head to Part 4. And if you just want some inspiration, check out Chapter 15.
Wherever you start, you’ll find information you can use on your next gamification marketing campaign!
Part 1
Introducing Gamification Marketing
IN THIS PART …
Find out what gamification marketing can do for you and how campaigns can fit with your goals.
Explore the various types of gamification marketing models.
Chapter 1
Gamifying Your Marketing Strategy
IN THIS CHAPTER
Thanks to the rise of gamification, marketing campaigns around the world have become increasingly more engaging. Gamification marketing campaigns offer your audience an experience, not just content.
Building gamification elements into your marketing will give your next campaign a serious advantage. Gamification enhances user experience and increases your audience’s engagement. Another advantage of gamification is that your audience will be more inclined to interact with and share your campaign.
The application of gamification elements in business is catching on fast. Gartner research projects that more than 70 percent of Forbes Global organizations will have at least one game-based application, and that half of all companies that manage innovation processes will have “gamified” them. This opens a wonderful opportunity for you and your team to drive specific behaviors and motivate audiences to perform tasks that would require a lot of effort and time in a non-gamified campaign.
In this chapter, I look at how gamification can help with your marketing and then explore how it gives your campaign an advantage over traditional forms of marketing.
Seeing What Gamification Can Do in Marketing
Using gaming elements in your marketing campaign may sound strange at first. But in my 15 years of gamification and marketing experience, I’ve found that gamification is a highly effective marketing strategy, no matter which industry a brand is in.
When you gamify your campaign, your audience will have fun interacting with your brand, which means your company will increase its overall engagement. It’s a win-win situation!
In the following sections, I explain what exactly gamification is, tell you how you can gamify your marketing, and share some examples of successful gamification marketing campaigns.
Understanding gamification
Gamification is simply the process of applying techniques and concepts usually found in games to something outside of games — in this case, your marketing campaign. Chances are, even if you’ve never heard of gamification marketing before,
