How Gamification Marketing Can Increase Engagement On Your WooCommerce Store

Gamification is the application of game-like elements for non-gaming activities. In simple words, it is the process of making otherwise boring activities fun. 

Gamification works effectively because of our psychological tendency to play games. We are naturally inclined to learn, compete, achieve, and express in a game-like setup.

People are more willing to participate in activities that contain gamified elements because they receive a sense of accomplishment after completing those gamified activities. 

Games and gamified elements are not exactly similar, but both are applied extensively in marketing, sales, education, web development, the health sector, finance, and more.

The successful application of gamification improves user engagement, productivity, learning, retention, user experience, user interface, health, and more. 

The focus of this article will be on the use of gamification in marketing or gamification marketing.  Also, I will discuss the history of gamification and different ways to gamify your WooCommerce store. 

Quick History of Gamification 

This concept has been in use for ages. It is a time-tested method of driving user engagement. 

So, let’s look at the history of gamification. 

In 1908, the Boy Scouts adopted their badge system. It later became a known symbol of their organization.  

In 1973, Charles Coonradt Wrote a book titled the Game of Work. In the book, he pointed out the feedback loop of sports and recreational games is a key element that keeps people motivated. It was one of the first written mentions of the gamification concept. 

In 1987, Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle created MUD1 (the first Multi-User Dungeon game). The game had a text-based user interface but it was the first game to spark online socialization and cooperation. 

In 1981, American Airlines launched AAdvantage, the first frequent flyer program. It is now the largest loyalty program in the world with 67 million members as of October 2011. 

Not long after, Holiday Inn (1983) and National Rental Car (1987) would launch the first reward programs in their respective industries. 

By 1990, Nintendo had managed to put a home console in thirty percent of American households. It was an important step because gamification only become popular through the popularization of games. 

In 2002, the Woodrow Wilson International Center of Scholars began the “Serious  

Games Initiative.” The idea was to create games that would help to educate people on matters of politics, environmentalism, health, and other important subjects. It utilized the game elements for non-gaming activities. 

[Source: The Origins and Future of Gamification]

The dawn of Gamification 

In the same year, Nick Pelling, a game designer who was developing a game-like interface for ATM and vending machines, created the term Gamification. 

In 2005 Bunchball was founded. Still in operation today, the company is a devoted gamification developer. It provides cloud-based software as a service gamification product intended to help companies improve customer loyalty and online engagement using game mechanics.

In 2011, the first GSummit (Gamification Summit) was held in San Francisco. At the summit, Jane McGonigal’s book Reality is Broken was released. The book discusses the use of gamification for social changes. 

Present: After all of this, gamification became mainstream and the gamification market grew exponentially. 

According to Statista, the gamification market is expected to grow from 4.91 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to nearly 12 billion in 2021.

As you can see, several elements of gamification were already in use, even before the term gamification was coined. Adapting game elements and using them for non-gaming contexts is a win-win situation for all. 

Bottom line: Gamification is the future of marketing. 

What Is Gamification Marketing? 

Gamification marketing involves blending gamified elements into your marketing activities to improve users’ engagement and retention and encourage them to purchase your product and services. 

The idea of gamification is rooted in the fact that playing games, both digital and physical, is a rewarding experience. It releases the feel-good neurotransmitters known as dopamine. 

So, gamification marketing is essentially reward-based marketing. It appeals to our natural inclination to compete in activities to earn rewards, achieve status, and overcome challenges.

Gamification is not limited to marketing. The major fields like education, recruitment, health, crowdsourcing, military tactical training, technology, etc., also use gamification techniques. I will discuss these with suitable examples in the later sections.

The amalgamation of gamification and marketing opens all doors for creativity. Gamification marketing campaigns make use of game-like elements and even actual playable games (both digital and physical) to sell products and services.  

I have talked a lot about these game-like features or game elements, but what exactly are those? And their use in online and offline marketing?

It all comes down to offering rewards to motivate your customers to complete purchase decisions. For online businesses, it’s much easier to implement because of the higher scope of automation and cost-effective design upgrades. 

Here is a list of some popular game elements to add to your online business.

• The Progress Bar
• Reward Points 
• Badges
• Contest 
• Performance Graph

This list contains the most-used gamification marketing concepts. However, the application of gamification marketing is much more creative and fun. As I said earlier, with gamification, the possibilities are endless. 

Let’s dive into it. 

Application of Gamification Marketing With Examples

Gamification is applied by both introducing gamified elements into marketing and using real games as a marketing tool. 

Sometimes, established games feature real-life elements as a part of a gamification marketing campaign. And sometimes, digital games are created to promote physical products. The list goes on. 

Trust me when I say; gamification marketing is a series of creative anomalies. 

So, let’s look at these creative anomalies and understand the effective gamification strategies. 

1. The progress bar

The progress bar is a graphical element that allows users to track their progress for achieving predefined targets. Many websites, online stores, and social media giants apply this game element on their platforms.

These goals can be anything from adding information to their profiles to interacting with other users on the platforms. Every website has its criteria for achievement and user involvement to measure the progress of its users.

The progress bar works on the following psychological factors:

• The need for competence
• Desire to achieve and win
• Compulsions to complete

These three factors reflect the effectiveness of this simple gamification design. It appeals to our instincts and motivates us to engage with the system. 

The profile strength bar is the most commonly used form of the progress bar. 

For example, LinkedIn is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. It uses a profile strength bar to encourage users to set up their profiles.

It has two profile stages; INTERMEDIATE and ALL-STAR, which further reinforces the desire for achievement. 

Meanwhile, LinkedIn also promotes premium profile plans. So, that users under pressure to complete their profile purchase one of the premium profile plans. 

An excellent gamification marketing strategy. 

2. Reward Points

Have you ever wondered why Mario keeps bumping his head into the blocks? He does so to earn rewards.

If you have played the classic game even once, you know that the blocks have some pretty creative rewards. That is one of the reasons why the Super Mario game became so popular.

Anyway, out of the virtual plane, things aren’t much different either in the real world.

People are more likely to complete a task if they are going to receive a reward for it. And the rewarding task doesn’t have to be as concussive as hitting a block with your head.

Prominent online stores offer reward points or coins to their customers for performing certain tasks. These tasks include sign up, product purchase, referrals, social shares, etc. 

This sets the basic rule: The greater the engagement, the bigger the reward.

The Indian eCommerce giant Flipkart allows its users to earn SuperCoins on product purchases. Customers can earn SuperCoins on COD payments too. 

Flipkart plus customers receive more rewards along with SuperCoins. They get double the SuperCoins than non-Flipkart plus members and few other benefits too. 

Flipkart’s customer loyalty program encourages customers to purchase more products to earn SuperCoins and pushes them to become plus members. 

It’s a simple yet effective gamification strategy to earn customer loyalty, increase brand awareness, and boost sales. 

But a reward system doesn’t necessarily have to be point-based. You can also set up a referral program for your online business and offer discount coupons and gift cards as rewards.

I will explain how to set up a customer loyalty program on your online store in the later sectors of this article. So, stay tuned. 

3. Badges

A badge is the visual representation of achievements within a game. It targets users’ drive to achieve status. Badges signify achievements, skill set, merit, and rank. 

An essential feature of games now extensively used in marketing, social media, and e-learning. 

When it comes to gamification marketing, badges are used as trust badges. 

Trust badges are like digital seals that legitimize a website and are used to promote trust among users. They denote data security and protection compliance of a website.

Trust seal and certification providers assign these trust badges to websites.

Even if not a well-known organization or entity assigns the truth badges, it still manages to persuade visitors.

Most eCommerce websites showcase these trust badges during the checkout process to instill a feeling of trust and security in their customers. Which in turn increases your conversation rates. 

We, at MakeWebBetter, display our trust badges on our Websites homepage and all checkout pages. 

In the Google Cloud Training program, Google also assigns skill badges to learners on completing various skill-based courses.

These Gamification badge systems validate and congratulate the efforts of individuals/organizations and give them a sense of accomplishment.

4. Contests

Organizing contests is an age-old gamification marketing tactic. The most basic being the lottery contests and lucky draws. It works so well because the stakes are low, and the rewards are high. You can easily replicate and implement these game elements into your online store. 

It is also known as Contest Marketing. 

Contest marketing is a marketing strategy that uses contests, giveaways, lotteries, or lucky draws to capture quality leads and create brand awareness. 

The majority of these contests are free to participate in; thus, it attracts a large number of customers to your online store.  

For example, in 2016, Starbucks organized the Red Cup Art contest.

In the contest, Starbucks released a limited edition plain red holiday cup and asked customers to create unique arts using those cups as the canvas, and post it on social media with the hashtag #RedCupArt. 

Starbucks officially shared the favorite submissions and gave a shout-out to their creative customers. Social media fame was the reward customers received. 

This also shows how big brands use social media marketing to boost brand image and get quality engagement. 

Let’s take another example.

Imperial Sugar is a major sugar producer in the United States. They keep organizing recipe contests every year during the holiday season. 

The prizes they have offered till now included: 

1. A year’s worth of free sugar to hundred families.
2. A KitchenAid Classic 4.5-quart Stand Mixer for five different families.

Let’s do a little bit of math here.

An average American family consumes about 152 pounds of sugar per year.

The cost of Extra Fine Granulated Pure Cane Sugar 10 pound Bag is 84 dollars.

So, the total annual cost to provide sugar for an average household is 1,277 dollars. Multiply that to a hundred and we get 127,680 dollars.

That seems like a lot of money but it’s a mere fraction of the company’s annual revenue.

Anyway, a year’s worth of sugar is a big deal to an average American household. This is the kind of reward people would fight for, let alone submitting an online form.

It generates massive leads for Imperial Sugar as the contestants have to submit their entries through emails. 

In both of these examples, the companies only invested an insignificant amount of their overall revenues and attained numerous leads and increased brand awareness. 

5. Performance Graphs

Performance graphs are a defining element of games where users can track their progress and skill level. It helps them measure the result of their efforts. This gamified element is used extensively in eCommerce, health and fitness, e-learning, etc.

Self-improvement is impossible without self-evaluation. And Gamification strategies capitalize on the need for self-improvement. 

Social media websites like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook allow their users to track the performance of profiles and posts to encourage them to purchase promotion plans. 

Here is how it works: 

Everyone wants to be famous. Normally, individuals or businesses create an elaborate social media profile and implement some form of social media marketing strategy to promote themselves. But soon they get tired and fail to maintain their consistency. 

So, these social media websites offer to handle the promotion of user’s content and their profile. And these promotions are essentially paid ads. 

For example, advertising services alone generated $3.2 billion, or about 86%, of Twitter’s revenue in 2020.

Twitter provides a View Tweet Activity option for all tweets. You can see your tweet’s performance upon clicking it. 

Next, the Tweet Analytics box pops up and shows the total number of Impressions and Total Engagements. 

It gives a deeper look if you click on the Total engagements and shows exactly the kind of engagement your tweet received. 

Now, if you noticed, there is a button in the Tweet Analytics pop that says “Reach a bigger audience”. That’s a CTA to Twitter’s paid advertising services. 

Twitter’s implementation of performance graphs does exceptionally well. This shows that adding even a basic game element can be a game-changer for your business. 

6. Advergames

Introducing game elements into your online store or website is an easy job. But applying gamification for brick-and-mortar stores is tough. 

However, many business owners have found a way around it. Instead of adapting game elements into their business, they created actual games for their products. Such games are called Advergames.

The sole purpose of an advergame is to promote a brand, product, or service.

For example, Pepsi launched a game called “Pepsi Man” exclusively in Japan on 4th March 1999. It’s a single-player game in which Pepsi Man has to avoid different obstacles throughout the game. 

Domino’s Pizza also designed a gaming app called Domino’s Pizza Hero and increased sales revenue by 30% by letting customers create their pizza with this app. 

Advergames always create buzz for brands and work better than traditional advertising. People, especially teens, get easily hooked on these games and ultimately want to try the actual product.

7. Brandification

Brandification is the application or introduction of real-world elements into games for marketing and promotion. This gamification marketing method focuses on in-game advertisements. 

For example, Counter-Strike, one of the most popular multiplayer first shooter games, let advertisers promote movie posters on the walls within the game. It is one of the first games to promote in-game advertisements. 

Next up, we have Tesla, an American electric vehicle and clean energy company.

Tesla introduced its cars Purple Model 3 and Model X in the ‘Game Of Peace’ which is China’s version of PUBG. 

The future belongs to those who dare to probe the unknown. #Tesla #gameforpeace pic.twitter.com/5bw1fPSFbm

— Tesla Greater China (@teslacn) July 24, 2020

As Tesla is looking to expand its business in the Chinese market, it launched a robust marketing campaign with EV maker and Tencent.

I know I am only supposed to present the gamification marketing or eCommerce gamification examples, but take a look at this. 

In October 2008, billboard advertisements were purchased in 10 swing states by then-US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in numerous Xbox games. 

Who says you can’t use gamification for political campaigning? 

Don’t take this lightly. Games have a colossal user base. Xbox One and Xbox 360 have a combined installed base of 147.4 million units. 

But you can’t find more examples like these, which proves that the potential of Brandification is still untapped.

8. Gamified Popup

Gamified popups are playable games that pop up while browsing a website. It utilizes actual games to increase engagement and user retention. 

Two psychological factors at play here. (pun intended)

1. The Element of Surprise: Nobody expects a game to pop up while shopping or browsing. Gamified popups create a strong enough impression to hold the uses’ attention. 
2. Fear of Missing Out: People don’t want to miss out on the free stuff. The Gamified popups offer a reward that players can receive only after winning the game.

That’s why eCommerce gamification strategies include gamified popups. It always works. 

For example, Amazon used a ‘spin and win’ wheel on its eCommerce store to increase customer engagement. Amazon offered various lucrative rewards which customers couldn’t resist. 

But only registered customers could spin the wheel and try their luck. 

So, people asked their family members or friends to register on Amazon to try the popup game to increase their chances of winning. 

Amazon’s goal was to create brand awareness and attract more users to its eCommerce website. It was an excellent eCommerce gamification move. 

Next up, I am going to tell you how to add gamification to your website.  

How Can MakeWebBetter Gamify Your Online store?

Here is a fact for you, dear readers. 

You can customize and add game elements to your WooCommerce store and take your business to the next level. 

WooCommerce offers limitless customization which proves helpful while adding gamified elements to your online store. Plus, there are thousands of gamification plugins on WordPress to help you implement the best game elements.

So, how does MakeWebBetter come into all of this? 

Well, we have over 50+ WordPress/WooCommerce extensions, offer several custom eCommerce solutions as per client requirements, have maintained an impressive WordPress.org profile, and contribute 40 hours per week to the open-source community. 

Button line: We have the expertise to gamify your WooCommerce store. 

Here is the list of our plugins that will gamify your online store. 

1. Points and Rewards for WooCommerce 

Points and Rewards for WooCommerce is a gamification plugin that allows you to implement a point-based loyalty program to reward your customers. 

It lets your customers earn points for different actions like Sign Up, Referrals, Reviews, purchases, etc. They can also redeem points as discounts and use the generated coupons for their purchase.

Just like the prominent online store, you can also implement a gamified reward-based system and increase the brand loyalty, customer retention, and conversion rate of your online store.

2. Coupon Referral Program for WooCommerce

Referral Marketing is a marketing tactic in which online stores utilize the existing customer base to promote their products and services to grow their business and add new customers. 

Its effectiveness lies in the fact that people trust the recommendations of their family and friends over most forms of advertisement.

It is a type of gamification marketing because the referrers earn discount coupons as rewards for referring new customers to your online store. It is essentially a reward-based loyalty program. 

You can implement a coupon referral program on your WooCommerce store by using our plugin. 

It has several amazing features such as: 

• Reward on referring new customers
• Sign-up discount coupons for all customers
• Referral coupon  customization 
• Detailed coupon report 
• Shortcode for referral button display 
• Reward points instead of coupons 

And this list goes on. Read the product page to learn more about this plugin. 

3. Discount Win-Wheel for WooCommerce 

At this point, using an actual popup game as a gamification marketing tactic seems smart. And this is what the Discount Win-Wheel plugin does. It adds a gamified popup wheel to your online store. 

Discount Win-Wheel For WooCommerce is a gamified pop-up that encourages your customers and guest visitors to test their luck and win a discount coupon on a successful spin. 

It capitalizes our drive for completion and reward-seeking behavior. Users are unable to resist the allure of the game. 

It works as a lead generation tool as the users are required to enter their email addresses to spin the discount wheel. 

Here is a list of some of its amazing features.

• Customize spinning wheel segments 
• Changing color, text, and background to match the branding
• Page placement and on-page location of the spinning wheel
• Select a winning segment 
• Integration with Mautic CRM
• Send coupon codes to winners via email

And so much more. Click here to read about Discount Win-Wheel in Detail. 

These were the three plugins by MakeWebBetter that will gamify your WooCommerce. These gamification plugins will work wonders for your business but if you need further gamification, contact us. 

On A Final Note 

Engagement is the key to conversion. Gamification marketing is the most scientific marketing method to increase user engagement and retention. The top businesses of our time are using gamification. 

In this article, I have discussed what gamification is, its profound history, and how it is applied in marketing. I’ve also shown you the different applications of gamification marketing and explained the ways to gamify your online store. 

Apply these gamification marketing techniques to boost user engagement, productivity, retention, UI & UX, and more. 

And hey, check out our other blog articles if you want to learn more about the best eCommerce practices.