Gamification: Are you ready to play?

Gamification and Mobile App Design

• Statistica: There are over 1.6 M active mobile gamers worldwide.
• Games is the most searched category in both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store
• Gamification:
  • At its core, Gamification is a Marketing Tool for increasing product adoption and user engagement and retention
  • If you need more evidence that Gamification is a marketing tool you need only look at its alternate name Incentive-Centered Design – Which name do you think will sell better?
  • Gamification is a User centered approach to mobile and web application development based on some very simple psychological principles. 
    • A positive experience elevates dopamine levels in the brain which can cause the users to want to return to your app over and over again
    • Gamification can also be used to create a sense of community for your target customers – a community centered around a good experience with your brand
  • Popular elements of gamification include
    • Leaderboards
    • Certifications
    • Rewards
    • Unlocking Items or features
    • Quests
    • Stories
    • Badges
    • To-Do Lists
• Gamification Strategy
  • Challenges and tasks need to be appropriate for your audience.
  • Make sure that your users do not get bored, working towards something or unlocking something creates excitement
  • Create some mystery – make users curious and also surprised by the conclusion of tasks and competitions
  • Everyone that engages needs to feel the same engagement, excitement and reward not just the top performers
  • Rewards are part of the strategy for sure, but they can not be the corner piece of the strategy. 
    • It is not possible to continuously provide bigger and better rewards over time
• Gamification is not always a good idea
  • It is important to have a gamification strategy that focuses on the positive
  • Surfacing data to the user through gamification that provides negative feedback or makes them feel depressed is not a good idea
  • Similarly, giving users a reward that has no meaning or value to them will likely result in a reduced level of engagement over time
  • Gamification is audience specific.  That is, not everyone is going to be motivated by the key features of a gamified mobile app.  Know your audience!
• According to Gigya, Gamification of your mobile app can:
  • • Increase user interaction by 33% 
    • Increase content visibility by 68% and
  • Increase shares on social media by 22%.
• What does this mean for your business
  • Greater Brand awareness which can lead to  an increase in active users of your mobile / web app
    • 34% of businesses surveyed believe that “number of active users/day & month” is a more revealing growth statistic than revenue per user (11%)
  • Can translate into a higher ranking on search engine results
  • Can lead to a self sustaining social media presence for your business
  • Of course, none of these things are a guarantee of increased revenue, but in today’s digital world you likely will not see an increase in revenue without them 

Speak to the creme-de-la-creme of app gamification – Free your mind of fear and hold your head high – contact Gate6 today!

Written by Bob Cody

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