Adding ‘Gamification’ To Content Collateral: Strategies Shared at Custom Media Day 2011
- Published in Content Strategies
With content marketing emerging as a key part of demand generation programs and strategy, marketers are challenged to develop a deeper understanding of how to effectively engage prospects and encourage content sharing.
Given the popularity of Farmville-type gaming, and the increasingly critical need to create more interactive BtoB brand experiences, “gamification” has become a hot topic of discussion to drive engagement and quality leads. During Custom Media Day, hosted by the Custom Content Council and Content Marketing Institute July 27 in New York City, the sessions focused on extending the life of your content collateral. Chris Sullivan, Regional VP of Sales at gaming platform provider Bunchball, shared key insights into how gamification is helping brands integrate game dynamics into their web sites, services, community, content or campaigns to drive participation.
According to Sullivan, some of the benefits of gaming include increased registration/leads, time spent on site, frequency of visits, page views, CRM follow up and sponsored opportunities. “Surface gamification in a non-obtrusive way on all pages and create actionable feedback loops,” Sullivan noted. “Notifications are effective because they [encourage users to] recognize and respond, reinforce and recommend.” Organizations are using gaming to attract users, grow their databases, monetize traffic and increase customer retention.
For instance, trivia is a great way to provide dynamic activity and community-oriented offers, organizations can drive participation, cross-promote content, expose individual and group activity and highlight individual users. “Trivia encourages users to expand their program knowledge, show their smarts, earn for doing well and display that success,” Sullivan said, noting the concept of Foursquare’s “mayor badge,” which is in many ways a status symbol for users.
Sullivan pointed to the following key metrics that Bunchball clients have seen from gamification in content campaigns:
· 40% increase in unique users
· 30% of visitors registered
· 100% increase in page views
· 85% increase in time on site
· 10X increase in Facebook participation
· 42% increase in ad revenue
· 47% increase in associated sales
· 90% annual renewal rate