By 2014, offering a gamified service to market and retain your customers will become as important as using Facebook or eBay. Are you ready?
Keeping your customers loyal and engaged can be a challenge. Incorporating game mechanics, like points or leaderboards, can motivate your customers to interact with your business both in-store and online.
Our guide to using gamification to grow your business will:
1. Explain what gamification is and what it means for your small business
2. Provide examples of how companies, like Buffalo Wild Wings, use different game motivations to market to their customers
3. Give 5 easy steps on how to structure your marketing goals with game mechanics
2. Experts agree that loyalty is the most
effective and highest return marketing
Retailers with loyalty programs, on average,
are 88% more profitable than competitors
who do not.
DELOITTE RESEARCH SURVEY
Customer loyalty is the single most important driver
of growth and profitability.
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
It is 6 to 7 times more to acquire a new
customer than to retain an existing one.
BAIN & COMPANY
3. Loyalty marketing is more relevant
today than it has ever been
• Your biggest asset is your existing customer base and foot
traffic
• Data shows that loyalty programs can increase customer
visits by 20 percent or more
• With social media, each of your customers can now share
your brand with hundreds of others
• Technology can now automate most of your loyalty
marketing needs
• It’s marketing that’s fun and makes sense!
4. Loyalty marketing ROI is traditionally driven by
increasing visits, spend, and response to promotions
Visit go.fivestars.com/loyaltyguide to learn more
Framework for Calculating Loyalty Return
Visit
More
Frequently
Spend More
Per Visit
Participate
in
Promotions
Reward
Costs
Program
Costs
Net
Revenue
Increase
Customer Behavior Loyalty Marketing Costs
5. • Gamification can improve your sales by motivating your
customers to do high value actions, such as:
• Like and share your business on Facebook
• Recommend your business on Yelp
• Order through your website
• Bring in friends (who are new customers!)
• Come back more often and increase spend
• Engaging, game-like rewards programs allow customers to
have more positive touch points with your business, which
can build customer loyalty to your brand
How Gamification Drives Loyalty
Drive significantly higher engagement,
repeat visits, and active participation.
6. By 2014, a gamified service for
consumer goods marketing and
customer retention will become
as important as Facebook, eBay,
or Amazon.
“
SOURCE: MASHABLE & GARTNER REPORT
The millennial generation and
younger is more game-attuned
than previous generations.
Gamification is required to make
things engaging enough so
people will pay attention to them
and stay focused on them for a
longer period of time.
GABE ZICHERMANN, GAME-BASED
MARKETING
Why is gamified marketing important?
70%Percent of Global 2000
organizations will have at least one
gamified application in 2015.
”
7. What does it mean to “gamify” something?
• Gamification: the use of game thinking and game
mechanics in a non-game context in order to engage
users and solve problems.
• Commonly used game mechanics are points, badges,
levels, leaderboards, countdowns, and challenges
• Gamification techniques use customers’
natural desires for competition,
achievement, status, self-expression,
and closure.
What is Gamification?
BRIAN L.
53 POINTS
KACY G.
27 POINTS
JOHN P.
22 POINTS
SOURCE: HIIT & FOURSQUARE
8. • Using an app, BWW set up various
challenges for customers to complete in
order to receive special promotions like $5
off or free wings.
• The challenges ranged from taking pictures
of a crowd going wild to showing off
favorite types of wings. Customers were able
to compare the scores with their friends and
share photos on Facebook and Twitter.
• They had a total of 184,000 unique
players, and 1 in 3 players returned to BWW
to play again!
Practical Ways To Gamify
Your Small Business
Motivate your customers with COMPETITION.
“We know the brain responds
to gains and losses, whether
it's real dollars or virtual gold
pieces. There's something
fundamental about
recognition, seeing yourself
compared to other people.
BYRON REEVES, PROFESSOR -
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
”
SOURCE: MASHABLE
• Buffalo Wild Wings wanted their customers to visit more often and interact
with them online. By turning the act of watching games into a game in and of
itself, their goals were accomplished in a fun, meaningful way.
9. JINGSONG W. AND MICHAEL S.,
CURRENT FIVESTARS EMPLOYEES
There’s nothing more gratifying than setting
a high goal and then achieving it. Pho
Garden, a local Vietnamese restaurant in
San Francisco, uses this intrinsic motivation
to achieve with their Pho Garden Challenge.
If you can finish their massive bowl of soup,
containing 2 pounds of noodles and 2
pounds beef, not only do you get a free
meal, but your picture is mounted on the
Wall of Pho Garden Champions. Who
wouldn’t want that?!
SOURCE: PHOGARDENSF.COM & PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
Practical Ways To Gamify
Your Small Business
Honor them with ACHIEVEMENT.
This challenge started a ton of Facebook conversations, and helped
generate more positive reviews on Yelp. Many customers note that
they have visited multiple times to try and complete the
challenge, which has turned into great business for Pho Garden.
10. Engage customers with STATUS.
Practical Ways To Gamify
Your Small Business
SOURCE: TIME MAGAZINE & STARBUCKS.COM
• Starbucks, America’s most well known
coffee chain, has a compelling way to keep
their customers loyal. With some really
great brand positioning, they have created
a loyalty card that is considered a status
symbol.
• Any customer can have a My Starbucks
Rewards card, but if you collect 30 stars
within 12 months, you receive a specialty,
personalized Gold Card along with the
other standard loyalty perks. You also have
to maintain your star balance or risk losing
the gold membership.
You're not ashamed if
your Starbucks loyalty
club card falls out of
your wallet. It not only
has badge value, but
you get something
tangible for it.
KATE NEWLIN,
AUTHOR - PASSION BRANDS
”
“
• What makes this a great example is that they didn’t just make a status
symbol, they created a challenge that customers continually have to engage
with, using simple game principles. The chain's three-year-old loyalty card
program now has over 6 million members and is adding about 80,000 new
members a week!
11. • If you use the professional networking site
LinkedIn, you've seen a progress bar that
tells you how much of your profile you've
filled out.
• The company found that simple tool
induces people to continue adding
information, thanks to our innate desire to
complete a task. That additional information
creates more connections for you, leading
you to spend more time on the site.
SOURCE: SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
Practical Ways To Gamify
Your Small Business
Bring customers back to get some CLOSURE.
Marketers now know
that any psychological
feeling of satisfaction
actually amplifies
consumers’ perceived
value of material
rewards.
MARITZ REPORT, A NEW PARADIGM FOR
LOYALTY MARKETING
”
“
• Much like the Pho Garden example, you can set up a a challenge for your
customers to complete over a period of time. If you are a pub that serves
hundreds of different beers from all over the world, your customers’ quest
can be to try every single beer. Track the customers’ beer tastings over time
digitally or log in a notebook. Then reward them for their feat!
12. #1. Identify what customers you are targeting. Which
members are most likely to participate? How valuable are
they? How does it benefit members? Will they enjoy it?
#2. Define your business goals. Do you want to gain new
customers? Or do you need more Facebook check-ins? Think
about you want to specifically accomplish and how will you
measure the end results.
Structure Your Marketing Goals
With Game Mechanics
13. #3. Decide on the game plan. Come up with what actions you
want the customers to do. Make sure they are based on your
goals. If you want them to try new menu items, you should
provide opportunities within the game to do that.
#4. Reward customers with something meaningful. Provide
many short-term, achievable goals to keep customers
engaged. If you want your customers to do the actions you
lined up, make sure your reward isn’t superficial.
Structure Your Marketing
Goals With Game Mechanics
#5: MAKE IT FUN!
14. Customer loyalty occurs
because customers’
purchasing behaviors
become driven by their
feelings for the company,
not vice versa. Targeting
customer behaviors while
neglecting the emotional
component of customer
loyalty is a mistake far too
many companies make.
GUY WINCH, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
CUSTOMER LOYALTY ”
“
SOURCE: GUYWINCH.COM
Something to always
keep in mind...
15. Want To Gamify Your Business Today?
• Need an easier way to include gamification
techniques within your marketing strategy?
• Wish you had a reward program with multiple,
customizable rewards and promotions?
Cue shameless plug!
FiveStars Loyalty Automation Platform can help!
16. FiveStars is pioneering loyalty automation that
includes gamified rewards programs
FIVESTARS LOYALTY AUTOMATION PLATFORM
We take care of everything
Point-of-Sale
Relationship
Manager
FiveStars
Card
Customer
Engagement
Toolkit
• Customer info right on
the POS
• Never slow down the line
• Built in fraud control
• Simple technology
everyone can use
• Impossible to lose
• Over 800,000 cardholders
• Simple segmentation
• Customizable rewards
• Text or email campaigns
• Social media integration
Want a free loyalty consultation from FiveStars?
Visit go.fivestars.com/demorequest