The Power of Gamification and Viral Marketing Adds Value to Your Brand

Gamification and viral marketing are among the popular marketing strategies of the recent years. Seeing the familiarity of the younger generation to technology, companies have discovered the power of viral marketing in customer loyalty and the “Brand Ambassadors”, as they are called globally, who have the power to lead the masses have provided momentum to this movement. While choosing the brand ambassadors among current celebrities or vloggers who have thousands of followers is a prevalent strategy, it seems that the marketing world has also started including gamification techniques that have recently become a popular trend as well.

By combining viral marketing with the power of gamification, it is possible to highly improve customer loyalty and interaction. It is up to the companies to ensure that such programs are used widely and that the interaction increases incrementally through the use of the power of social media. As is known, gamification means giving the opportunity to the users to perform an activity or a behavior in an atmosphere of gaming, through the use of game elements. There are already many programs such as “recruit a friend, earn points” in order to make viral marketing more effective. In fact, the most important effect of viral marketing is that consumers are more likely to buy products that are bought by their friends and acquaintances. As a result, the fact that brand ambassadors can influence their followers on digital platforms extends the reach of viral marketing further.

Loyal customers bring in new loyal customers

Brand ambassadors who have recently become popular play an important role in changing consumer habits through their social media posts. Surveys reveal that 92 percent of consumers trust their friends’ word rather than any marketing/advertising technique. Thus, the importance of loyal customers becomes greater as loyal customers assume a position that opens the door to new customers and take on the role of brand ambassadors. While it is observed that the amount of sales achieved through viral marketing is twice higher than that of other marketing methods, it is also revealed that the rate of retained new customers that have been encouraged to shop by loyal customers is 37 percent.

Reaching wider customer masses by investing the hundreds of thousand liras to be paid to brand ambassadors into loyalty systems is another powerful method. As well as developing long-term strategies, acquiring loyal customer masses is quite possible with this much more efficient and long-lasting marketing alternative. But how to achieve that? We mentioned above that gamification techniques are cut out for this purpose. By rewarding points to shoppers, assigning tasks for recruiting a certain number of friends, encouraging them to climb higher in the user lists, enabling them to benefit from the advantages offered by your brand and share it with their friends and acquaintances brings along new masses to participate in gamification. All these methods are ideally suited for maximizing efficiency by attracting generations Y and Z in particular. In order to increase customer interaction, product reviews on social media or e-commerce sites also offer a good opportunity.

At this point, the most important question is: “Do your customers really like your brand?” If you believe that you have good relationships with your loyal customers, you can make them brand ambassadors by offering discounts or little rewards to those who fulfill the targets. Studies indicate that as a result of discounts offered in return for writing product reviews, the average interaction rate rises from 2% to around 26%. The more the gamification strategy is built upon interaction, the better customer communication is achieved.

Popular campaign from a coffeeshop chain

Social media is among the most influential communication techniques today. Recently, a coffeeshop chain combined this trend with gamification and came up with a campaign that benefits from the power of social media and viral marketing. According to the setup, consumers sketched designs of their own creation on white paper coffee cups and shared them on social media. Thanks to this brand’s gamification techniques, consumers interacted with each other and shared comments on designs. This helped the coffeeshop chain become very popular among consumers.

When deciding on the gamification strategy for such a campaign, it is useful to pay particular attention to the following:

Focus on things that attract interest: Regardless of which gamification element you decide to use, make sure to come up with a setup that will certainly attract interest from consumers. Use a very simple, but still interesting setup if necessary.

Offer the users a personal experience: Consumers love being part of a whole that is specific to them or their segments. Instead of announcing the campaign to everyone, you can build more efficient communication by going for the “invite your friend” method.

Add value to posts: The most significant novelty brought into our lives by the digital age is the possibility to express ourselves on online platforms. And brands can now make their value measurements through online channels. Those who benefit from the power of social media posts shine out more in comparison to their competitors; it is all about creating the content that consumers deem worth sharing. It is also possible to encourage users to share content by rewarding or interacting with those who participate in the game or share brand-related content.

Create a customer portfolio: After implementing the gamification setup by using the right techniques, you can create an online customer portfolio, capitalizing on the customer data you have collected as well as the power of viral marketing. This way, you can increase the number of interactions and keep the customer mass engaged in the game, making sure that they feel they are a part of the larger group.

As seen in these examples, gamification is a recent trend that is rapidly becoming widespread. When combined with the power of social media, it has a potential that can substantially influence the online value perception about the brand. With the gamification solutions offered within PayFlex Loyalty Solutions, you also can start benefiting from these marketing mechanisms. In order to make routine habits of internal or external customers more fun, regardless of the industry you operate in, you can use various elements of the world of gamification such as points, badges and leadership charts with PayFlex Loyalty Solutions. In the world of gamification which has basic principles such as increasing the sales, ensuring customer interaction, increasing employee loyalty, and reducing employee turnover rates, it is highly practical and easy to come up with scenarios that meet your needs. If you would like to learn more and take your brand to a higher level, please contact Innova.