Sales Gamification: Beneficial Mix of Business and Fun
Selling online becomes more and more complicated, and it is not always about the sophisticated and ruthless competition. Often, it’s about the lack of unique shopping experience and fun.
In most cases, offline shopping is entertainment and customers want to have fun online, as well. Digital games are the greatest gain of the virtual world and their power of engagement is not yet completely used in ecommerce and gamification is one of the ways to leverage their impact on sales.
There are several definitions of gamification, but most of them converge in one interpretation. Gamification is the way to intensify users’ engagement and contribution through the application of game playing principles (personal or team scoring, competition, badging, etc.) in non-game areas.
This is a both-sides advantageous technique usually implemented in marketing, personnel management, education, competitive intelligence, market researches and online sales, of course. Usually gamification is used in conjunction with loyalty programs and other promotional tools.
Gamification Advantages
- Engagement. Engagement is the main advantage of gamification and can be numerically measured in visitors, sessions, page views, etc., which is very important to determine its effectiveness.
- Motivation. Providing clear goals and explaining the ways to achieve them gamification intensifies efforts and make customers to get involved. And, the competition with other participants makes this process even more exciting.
- Influence. Defining game rules you can directly manage both the results and ways of their achievement. You can set up own milestones and final targets, e.g. ask for more sales, visits, or other leads, and make the game suitable just for you. This also makes gamification a universal tool, applicable to different online stores.