Over the past few years, marketing segmentation has come on leaps and bounds, whether it’s building separate social audience clusters or sites adapting user journeys based on behavior. But, despite these ongoing improvements to content personalization, there’s still so often something missing… a hook or perhaps a different perspective altogether.
In this article, we’ll look at what gamification means for you and your business as well as delving into some of the best examples around and why they work so well.
What is gamification?
Gamification simply means using game mechanics, designs, and architecture techniques to engage with a range of users. Progression is heavily featured to ensure users are consistently motivated to achieve goals that ultimately benefit both the user and the provider.
Gamification doesn’t necessarily mean playing games. Simply put, it’s a guided ‘points system’ that encourages you towards certain behaviors that are mutually beneficial. It’s important that the system isn’t so complicated that it only caters to the super techy, as such broad appeal is often a must.
Traditional gamers are often an elitist bunch, we thrive on challenges so much that they can define us (or our avatars). Games have easily outstripped Hollywood in terms of revenue-grabbing entertainment, as the toggle graph below clearly shows.
Why is it so effective?
In a nutshell, it works by adding an additional layer of cumulative bonus to the common process of purchases or actions that would have otherwise been undertaken regardless of any additional reward. Gamification also speaks to the very human desires of competition, status, achievement and social interaction.
The Octalysis model
You may have seen this model floating around since 2003 from Yu-kai Chou (http://yukaichou.com/[1]) but it’s