Did you know that engaged customers (HCPs & Patients) can lead to better sales, higher retention and even referrals? Fully engaged customers are usually more loyal and profitable than your average customers. But first, you’ll need to learn how to improve HCP engagements.
On the other hand, poorly engaged employees take less responsibility and ownership of their attitude, behavior and motivation which can lead to lower productivity.
Gamification is the concept of applying gaming-design elements and gaming principles, even in non-gaming contexts. Also, it can be understood as a group of activities and processes to achieve a set of goals by applying similar characteristics of the gaming elements.1
Gaming and gaming-like elements are primarily used to Educate, Entertain & Engage it’s intended audience. While there are numerous possible elements to integrate into your campaign, some of the classic elements are badges, leaderboards & points.
Behavior Reinforcement
One of the largest reasons contributing to the success of gamification will be to reinforce behaviors. Using actual games or gaming-like elements in your marketing campaigns gives you the option to reward your audience for certain behaviors. In actual games, this will be equivalent to ‘levelling up’ or gaining points for the completion of certain goals.
In addition, rewards were proven to create and contribute to the audience’s enjoyment of activities because it encourages the release of dopamine. Thus, your audience will be better engaged with repeated returns.
As a matter of fact, where applicable, you will be able to create solid customer loyalties by rewarding challenges & contests, as enticing rewards at the end of the engaging gamification experience promotes positive brand association and better engagements.2
Your Audience Takes Control
Implementing gamification also improves your audience engagement by making them feel in control. By implementing it to your campaigns together with a strong game design, it encourages exploration and your audience decide on how they should proceed. If they’re selecting how to interact and play, they’re more likely to be immersed in the experience.2
Humans are Competitive
Gamification accounts for the fact that most humans are competitive by nature. Since they’re competitive with themselves and others, gamification also satisfies this ‘itch’ at the same time.
Introducing a competitive aspect to encourages commitment due to a subconscious desire to ‘win’, or at the very least, do better than their peers.
We can also encourage competition within oneself by creating certain milestones for your audience to achieve.2
Audiences can see Progress
Don’t you love progression?
Progression is a major game mechanics which allows your audience to check their current status and how far off are they from the next milestone. Progression then creates a subconscious sense of achievement, which in turn releases dopamine in your audience’s brain.
This creates an association of enjoyment to your campaign, which leads to positive brand associations.
For example, you may implement a levelling system or a progress bar to your gaming experience. These mechanics allows your audience to set goals and to keep them motivated throughout their interaction with your campaigns.
All these while, they’re committing lots of time with your brands & campaigns through all these highly engaging interactivities.2
In a nutshell, gamification is a highly effective way to increase audience engagements due to the psychological principles and the fact that games are usually engaging & fun.
References:
[1] What is Gamification, n.d, https://www.gamify.com/what-is-gamification
[2] Does Gamification Increase User Engagement, n.d, https://www.gamify.com/gamification-blog/does-gamification-increase-user-engagement