Whether it be for customer loyalty, sales, enterprise, marketing, or gamified learning, we have a list of Top 5 Gamification softwares in 2021.

If you'd like to know more about how gamification works or you'd like to read our original article in the link below​ or head to our website for more case studies and how how we can help offer your clients more creative marketing solutions. 

www.gamify.com
www.gamify.com/gamification-blog/the-best-gamification-software-2021

Do you want to increase engagment across your next advergame campagin? To help out, we'll go through our Top 5 ways to enhance your advergame campaign and how it has helped some of the 9000+ clients we've helped at Gamify. 

If you'd like to know more about how gamification works or you'd like to read our original article, head to our website for more case studies and how we can help offer your clients more creative marketing solutions. 

www.gamify.com

Many fitness apps use game mechanics, such as points, challenges and leaderboards to help motivate you to form healthy habits. Let’s take a look at the Top 7 Gamified Fitness Apps out there that can help you get back on track and achieve your fitness goals.

If you'd like to know more about how gamification works or you'd like to read our original article in the link below​ or head to our website for more case studies and how how we can help offer your clients more creative marketing solutions. 

Gamification works by encouraging users to engage in desired behaviours, by showing a path to mastery, and by taking advantage of our human psychological predisposition to engage in gaming.

Smart marketers use it to increase consumer engagement and influence consumer behaviour. In order to achieve this, consumers should be rewarded with virtual items (like points) for specific behaviour (e.g. buying something, signing up, using the product, filling out their profile), and those virtual items should offer access to exclusive privileges and rewards, such as levels or prizes.

The Secret Sauce: Game-Like Mechanics
Game mechanics are constructs of rules intended to produce enjoyable gameplay. Think of it as basic building blocks that can be combined in interesting ways to drive an (often complex) sequence of actions in order to achieve desired results.

These typically include items such as points, badges, levels, challenges, leaderboards and the possibility to level up. These come from game-like dynamics such as rewards, urgency, pride, competition, and status-building.

Gamification’s Psychological Foundations
As Gabe Zichermann is quoted in the video, “Gamification is 75% Psychology and 25% Technology.”

A gamified system must engage the three elements of B.J. Fogg’s Behaviour Change Model (Motivation, Ability, Trigger). This means the gamified system must motivate users to do something, give them the ability to carry out the action and a trigger must be in place in order to complete the action and not have the users lose interest.

Key Motivators

• Rewards
• Loss Aversion
• Status, competition and reputation.
• Feedback

Final Thought

If you take what people love about games and apply it to other things, they become more enjoyable and fun. Gamification is a powerful tool to boost your business results – either by incorporating it in your marketing and/or product or by using it to motivate your staff. Quality of execution determines success.

“Most attempts at gamification currently miss the mark, but successful and sustainable gamification can convert customers into fans, turn work into fun, or make learning a joy. The potential is enormous.”– Brian Burke, research vice president at Gartner

A gamified application must offer a worthwhile experience; otherwise, people are not going to use it. At the same time, its success has to be measured.

Did you like this Podcast? let me know if you did, if you didn't and what you would like more of. I'm thinking about interviewing more experts in Gamification. If you have ideas on how i can interview let me know- Alex

Check out Neil Patel's Blog here: https://neilpatel.com/blog/gamification-for-better-results/

Mapping out campaign timelines and promotional dates is essential.

A marketing calendar is exactly what it sounds like; a plan that covers your marketing activities for the duration of the campaign. Having a plan in place that outlines your marketing activities in the lead up to the campaign assures that a steady stream of promotion enters the marketplace, keeping you in the minds of your current customers while bringing in new ones.

There are "3 major keys to a successful Marketing Calendar"; Create unique posts, post them consistently and identify your key Platforms.

1. Consistency
2. Unique posts
3. Key Platforms
4. Double-down on what's working:  

• Who is your audience? 
• Do you want them to engage, promote, or redeem prizes?
• How frequently will you promote your campaign? 
• What types of media will you use?
• Which Social Media platforms are best suited?
• What resources do you have on hand that can enhance your campaign? Do you have prizes you can give out?
• Are there people in your company that could be great promoters? 

Mapping content on a calendar-
Your content calendar should contain:

• The name of the project
• Project live date
• Posting dates and times
• Social platforms colour coded
• Accountability listed (who is in charge of what?)
  
  Basic Campaign Cycle:

You campaign cycle should consist of 3 steps:
Plan > Launch, and Promote

• Plan: If you haven’t gathered by now, good Marketing is 80% research and planning. Like Benjamin Franklin says, “If you Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail” Proverbs 29:18 also says, “without vision, people perish”
• Launch: Once your Timeline is established, the campaign is ready to go live
• Promote: With the campaign running, the designated content is ready to be promoted across all allocated streams (and remember to double-down on what's working best) 

Once you’re on the other side of your campaign and the Marketing Calendar is complete, make sure to review your results, and whether or not you are successful is good information to be kept and recorded in order to revert back with future campaigns. This will help you map out with ease in the future on what works and what needs to be changed.

You’ve now completed the 5 stage instructional videos outlining Gamification Marketing, click on some of our other resource content to learn more.

Was this helpful? Did you like it? How can I improve? Let me know! :) - Jonny Shannon 

How are customers to play your game if they don't know it even a thing?
Today we'll go through different paid social ad's and how some may help. 

[1:00] EDM's
[1:30] FB users 
[2:50] Using the End Goal in-mind
[3:10] 82% 0-20% of marketing budget on email 
[3:50] CCP CCA CPA Modeling 
[4:50] Realivence & Engagement Scores 
[5:10] Seasonal Trends
[5:55] Instagram Ads; advanced targeting 
[6:10] IG 2.5x more than others
[7:10] Twitter & types of promotion 
[8:00] CPF: Cost Per Follower 
[8:00] Twitter Cost around $200,000 per day to be featured 

Was this helpful? I'm trying to get better at this podcasting thing. Let me know how I can improve and what you would like to hear about

- Alex Mospanyuk

https://www.gamify.com/

What are the basic steps to running a marketing campaign? 

In this podcast, we’ll be going over the "8 Pillars of Successful Marketing Campaigns". These pillars have been identified across all of our case studies, and when put into practice, your gamification campaign is sure to be set up for success.

As you know, every marketing campaign is unique- with different KPIs and objectives, and not all 8 pillars may be necessary for a campaign to be successful. That being said, studies have shown that incorporating these pillars ensures your campaign to be a win! Let’s begin.

1) Set goals beforehand/Have a Clear Objective

Is your branded advergame designed to educate customers on a new product or service? Is it meant to create hype around the brand? Is your goal to sell more units of a product or simply create awareness? Having clear, set goals helps give the campaign the direction that it needs.

2) Know what success looks like through setting KPIs

KPIs or Key Performance Indicators should be set before any marketing campaign to ensure that everyone will know what success looks like. Do you have set KPIs? Is it to get 5,000+ plays or 1 million? Is it to get social shares and go “viral” and if so how much? Are you aiming for customers to earn and redeem vouchers on a product? Having a realistic target to aim for helps you and your team focus all efforts on hitting your campaign goals.

3) Confirm Promotional Budget

Knowing how much advertising spend you’re willing to put into the promotional aspect of a Marketing Campaign is an important factor to consider. First, look at your organic reach across all social media channels and EDMS. Is your audience regularly engaged? Do they react to your posts, read and share your blogs? If so, you probably won't need to spend too much on promoting your game through ads, but we do recommend reserving 30% of the campaign budget for promotional content.

4) Know your target audience

Age, gender, interests and location all matter when choosing an appropriate game.
Some games have a user percentage that can be 85% male, while others are 70% female. Knowing who your audience is, allows for you to allocate the right kind of game in order to reach that demographic.

5) Determine Incentives and Rewards
6) Promotion across relevant mediums/Create relevant content
7) In-store Gamification/EDMs
8) Campaign Duration and Long-Term Sales efforts

Did you like this podcast? Tell us what you think (good or bad). I'm pretty keen on getting better and hearing about what you want to hear about - Alex 

Games have encouraged desired actions from the beginning of time.
How can we use game-like elements & why do they work so well?
In this podcast, Jonny goes through how game elements are actually based on our core human drives. 


From the beginning of time Games were created to motivate us to do things;

Sport ‘games’ were originally created to get people to take action and keep fit.
Board Games like Chess were created to educate soldiers on military strategy.
Ancient games like “Knuckles” were used to keep people's minds entertained and Engaged during a famine.

Games and game-like elements have been used to educate, entertain and engage. Some classic game elements are; Points, badges & leaderboards.

Points (used in sports, Sky Miles, reward cards and video games)
Badges (from the military to golden stars on school report cards)
Leaderboards (used in the Olympics, sales teams, and in general life to see who winners or losers are).

These are just to name a few, but there's actually a lot more to these seemingly simple elements than what most people think.

World-leading Gamification expert Yu-kai Chou believes that true gamification is when we tap into our core human drives. He believes these core drives are key to bringing “fun & engagement” into almost any task; these 8 universal core drives are;

• Meaning – the desire to feel that our actions have a purpose
• Accomplishment – The drive to achieve and overcome challenges
• Empowerment – The desire to choose one’s own direction and try a variety of solutions to a problem
• Ownership – The desire to own things and have possession
• Social Influence – The drive to interact with, help, learn from and compete with others
• Scarcity – The drive of wanting things you can’t have
• Unpredictability – The drive of wanting to know what will happen next, and ..
• Avoidance – The drive to avoid pain or negative consequences.

The history and effectiveness of elements like points, badges and leaderboards according to Yu-Kai Chou is in their ability to use these core drives. For instance;

- Point systems make us feel like we have a meaning, purpose and a sense of progression.
- Badges tap into the need for accomplishment and reward
- Leaderboards appeal to our need for social status and influence.

The more we understand the psychology behind our core drives, the better we will be at Creating Games & Campaigns that meet our core needs and intern is proven to become more fun, engaging and a higher likelihood of being shared.

For video and full text go here: https://www.gamify.com/gamification-blog/8-core-human-drives-in-gamification-marketing-video

Did you like this Podcast? We're new to it but would love feedback on how to make it better. Leave comment below and we will respond :) 

Dr Zac goes through the foundational theory of Gamification & the trends in history. 
What is a Gamified experience?

Time Stamped Notes:
[00:05] Gamification blueprint; badges, points, leaderboards, 
[00:15] Identify an action you want others to take & reward this action
[00:50] Intrinsic motivation Vs extrinsic motivation
[02:00] 3 Basic human needs & Game Mechanics 
[03:10] Theory of "Flow" or Full emersion 
[04:10] 1. Clear Goal 2. Clear Progress 3. Clear and Immediate Feedback and 4. A balance of challenge and skill.
[05:10] Different types; Story, Competition, Fantasy, Simulation. 
[05:40] Gamficaition is based on motivation 
[06:07] AR, VR & New Game will continue to grow and engage people 

What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review.  

Connect with Us on all media: Gamify :)  

Gamification and its effects on everyday life. The power of play and how it motivates us. Examples of Gamification and Game elements.

Time Stamp Notes:
[00:00] Gamification is in many fields; Fitness, Education, Productivity & Marketing.
[00:15] Fitbit using steps & leaderboards
[00:45] The Email Game:
[01:30] Marketing: Coke
[01:46] Mcdonalds
[02:15] ESA 50% of People play Games. Over 41% Female. Over 32 Average Age
[02:45] Baby boomers make up the largest "game" stats
[03:15] Average Australia Plays Games 88mins a day.
[04:00] Gamification now easier through website, games, marketing & game platforms.

https://www.gamify.com/gamification-blog/examples-of-gamification-with-dr-zachary-fitz-walter

What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review.  

Connect with Us on all media: Gamify :)