Gamification in Sales: How to Use It

With the progress of time, the landscape of marketing has changed considerably, here’s how to use gamification in sales. A major part of this change is the way in which companies and brands engage their consumers. This engagement is an extremely crucial part of any business’s success, as it is responsible for establishing trust, and a solid relationship, between the company and its consumer base.

One of the recent ways companies have been advertising their products, and engaging their base of users, is through gamification. This technique has been majorly successful and has proven to be worthwhile to most companies.

However, there is a lot that still needs to be learned and researched when it comes to gamification. So, if you want to start somewhere, you have come to the right place. Continue reading below to learn more about what gamification is and its influence on product sales. 

Sales gamification how to use it

To put it simply, gamification is the addition of game mechanics into nongame environments. These environments can include but are not limited to online communities, websites, learning management systems, and business’ intranet and forums. The integration of gamification into various settings is done by UX designers.

Gamification is utilized by companies because it significantly helps increase consumer participation. By using gamification, they aim to increase engagement between employees, consumers, and business partners, in order to create better collaboration, interaction, and sharing. 

This strategy is successful because it plays on the core of human psychology. Gamification challenges you and promises you a reward if you succeed in a challenge. Therefore, the prospect of a challenge with a promised reward helps keep you interested because the human brain is wired to be attracted to challenges and gets stimulated by them. 

The Concept of Behavior Gamification

The idea of behavior gamification is heavily influenced by behavioral economics. This concept is one of the strongest reasons that explains how and why gamification successfully creates customer relationships and sells products. 

Behavior gamification is set upon the imperfections of human nature. One of the biggest flaws human beings have is their inability to be rational at all times. This means that we often end up making decisions that are not in our best favor and even delay making decisions that we know are right for us. 

The explanation behind this phenomenon is that human beings are emotional creatures who are more likely to act on their impulses than rationality. In addition, we are heavily influenced by our surroundings. This means that our environments and surroundings can trigger emotions within us. These can range from excitement to frustration. Such emotions further give rise to behaviors that encourage consumers to buy products.

This buying behavior can be rooted in the need to reward yourself after winning a challenge or trying to make yourself feel better through material goods because of losing in a challenge. One way or the other, the company profits.

How Behavior Gamification Promotes Sales

As discussed previously, the entire concept of behavior gamification relies on human psychology and its shortcomings. By tapping into the psyche of their consumer base, companies can reap maximum benefits. That is because, in recent developments in the field of marketing, psychological resources are further being tapped into due to the strong and sure effect they can have. 

When we try to understand the working of gamification, we realize that it plays on the concepts of psychological reinforcers. This means that the different games and challenges that appear in the form of gamification are actually put in place to provide some kind of a reward to the user. This reward is mostly in the form of a challenge that stimulates the mind.

When participating in a gamification challenge, your mind is constantly stimulated by the idea of a challenge. Once the challenge is completed, you are either rewarded through a release of dopamine in your brain or by means of game mechanics. However, in the end, you end up creating a positive relationship and experience, with the company promoting that specific game or challenge. In turn, this leads you to form a better relationship with them and trust them more. 

This trust is what ultimately guides you to try the company’s products. Suppose you engage with the company and its sales gamification strategies for some time. In that case, you may even end up forming a sense of loyalty to them. This customer loyalty is exactly what most companies and brands are looking for, as it provides them with a secure customer base and less competition. 

The Psychology of Game Mechanics

Game mechanics are one of the most important elements in the functioning of successful gamification. As a result, they play a crucial role when it comes to the concept of behavior gamification. In short, game mechanics are the rewards you achieve in a gamification program once the required target has been achieved by you. Below is a list of some very common game mechanics. 

1.      Status

This game mechanic strategy works by providing the consumer with a target they need to achieve. Once the target is met, the player is rewarded with a higher status, or a level up, in the game. This leveling up may also come in the form of unlocking new levels or upgrading of character.

2.      Goals

Goals are another popular form of game mechanics that work similarly to that of status. They also require the player to achieve a target. However, in this case, the reward is the personal satisfaction caused by the release of dopamine.

3.      Reward

Rewards are a type of game mechanics that directly take into account the players’ achievements. These achievements are then divided in different ways; some of which are below:

4.      Badges

Badges are a visual identifier of progress and achievement. That is why they act as great rewards that show the users that their efforts are being acknowledged and even gratified. 

5.      Points

Points have a similar working mechanism as that of badges. They, too, act as visual identifiers of progress. However, they serve more so as confidence boosters and motivating factors.

6.      Leaderboards

Leaderboards are another great way of rewarding players taking part in a gamification challenge. That is because leaderboards represent where they stand with respect to other players. This creates a strong sense of competition and challenge and compels the player to achieve a higher rank. As a result, they remain engaged in the respective game.

7.      Community

Community gamification is a bit different from the regular one, as it requires an entire team of people to work towards a mutual goal. This, too, brings out a sense of challenge and competition and engages the players by motivating them to prove themselves capable in front of everyone else. 

So, as we can observe in all the various gamification strategies, they all primarily tap into human psychology by acting on strong emotions, compulsions, and behaviors. These emotions and behaviors are mostly displayed in the form of achievement, challenge, reward, and the desire to compete and win against others. 

These emotionally driven behaviors then create a strong sense of trust and loyalty between the consumer and the company, which in turn motivates the consumer to support the company and utilize the products by it. This is what behavior gamification is all about. It uses gamification to trigger strong emotions. In turn, these emotions give rise to behavior that benefits the company and drives sales.

Final Thoughts

Gamification is one of the most popular marketing tools in the industry today, and it works on the principles of behavior gamification. This in itself is a concept that combines human psychology and the fundamentals of marketing. It uses gamification, emotions, and their consequent behaviors to promote benefit a company by establishing better customer relations and promoting sales. With this guide, you’ll be able to use gamification is sales!

References

What is gamification?

Behavioral economics, explained

Behavioral Economics

What Is Gamification, How it Works & How It Can Help Your Business